Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Week 27—Bears and Hawks lose, Favorite broadcasting pairs, Jerry Reinsdorf said what?
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This week in Chicago:
Bears: BYE week
Blackhawks: Thursday home opener vs. Sharks 7:30, Saturday vs. Winnipeg 6:00
Bulls: Preseason—Monday vs. Bucks 7:00, Wednesday vs. Pelicans 7:00 (on ESPN), Friday at Pacers 6:00, Sunday at Raptors 5:00
Trivia: I played wide receiver for the Bears in this century, appearing in at least one game in three seasons for the team. In one of the seasons, I nearly amassed 1,000 yards (962). I made the Pro Bowl one year and won the Special Teams Player of the Week one time. Who am I? (Answer at end of Bears section)
BONUS Trivia:
Can you name where all five of these Bear legends went to college?
Charles Tillman, Brian Urlacher, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Gale Sayers
Thread this week:
What was the biggest reason the Bears lost yesterday? AND After voting on the poll below, explain which Chicago sports television broadcast is your favorite and why.
My favorite comment on Week 25’s thread, on who is the biggest Chicago sports player disappointment in your lifetime:
This one's easy for me. Felix Pie. Was the Cubs #1 minor league prospect for a couple years. Had all the tools. I happened to be in the bleachers for his first start in Wrigley on a chilly April afternoon in 2007 when he doubled off Greg Maddux. What hurt the most.....I spent $200 on an autographed bat when I was hammered at a fundraiser. Thought it was a steal. Cubs traded him the next year. I do still have the bat, though.
Housekeeping:
I’m trying to run the Chicago marathon on Sunday. It’s literally through Chicago, so I’d be a fraud if I didn’t. So next week’s letter will contain 1. opinions from a bunch of good White Sox and Cubs personalities on how each team should operate this offseason (you can be featured too if you want to send your opinion on what your team should do this offseason in a a paragraph) 2. Some cool Chicago sports history and trivia. I’m raising money for the marathon through Team Bright Pink, which is an organization that specializes in the education and prevention of ovarian and breast cancer. If you’d be willing to give some money to my campaign, I’d really appreciate it. I’m not too far from my goal. Lots of companies will match your donation—
Here’s the link: https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/team-bright-pink11/andrewdonlan1
On last week’s letter: Regarding the “study abroad” Prague comment, that was a joke. However, I have been to London, because I studied abroad, so I know what the Bears were going through. Also, regarding my Khalil-Mack-is-the-best-player-in-the-NFL take: I’d rather have, say, Pat Mahomes than Khalil Mack, but I think that’s irrelevant to the best player in the NFL discussion. Most valuable and best at their respective position are not the same thing.
A twitter account for Still Gotta Come Through Chicago has been created. The username is Still Gotta Come Through Chicago, the handle is @stillgottaChi. This allows me to write posts throughout the week that you can access without me filling up your inbox. I’ll also be posting original work and retweeting things throughout the week there so I don’t have to bother the followers of my main account with obsessive Chicago sports tweets. Follow here. New logo coming soon…
I’ve also created an email specifically for the newsletter at stillgottacomethroughchicago@gmail.com. Somehow, this address wasn’t taken. Send tips, notes, disagreements, or anything else there.
New audio portion next week with White Sox fan and CBS college football writer Tom Fornelli.
Today’s newsletter starts with an ode to Neil Funk and a poll on Chicago sports broadcasters that is long overdue. Bear with me, full football recap is right after.
Farewell:
Say it ain’t so, Neil Funk! The Bulls longtime play-by-play man is retiring from the booth at the end of this season. If you watched the Bulls last year, it’s a move you saw coming. NBC Chicago played around with some fill-in play-by-play guys throughout the year, including Jason Benetti and Adam Amin. Funk will work on all 41 home games this year in addition to 11 road games.
Funk started with the Bulls as a radio broadcaster in 1991, which means that many of his most famous calls come from the Jordan era. His move to television coincided with Derrick Rose entering the league, so in a way, his voice ushered in the best era of Bulls basketball since the ‘90s as well. Him and Stacey King were (and are), in my mind, the perfect broadcasting pair. Funk masquerades as a serious, old-timey broadcaster, but is really a witty dude who brought it when the Bulls were at their best and worst.
Funk is famous for never believing the Bulls committed a foul and for his catch-phrase “Ka-Boom!” He said on ESPN 1000’s Waddle and Silvy that the league has contacted him nearly every year about his questioning of the referees in Bulls games.
Our relationships with broadcasters are as—if not more—intimate than our relationships with Chicago’s players. There’s a lot of great ones in the city right now, but I’d always argue that it doesn’t get better than Funk and King. Even when the Bulls weren’t worth watching, the two of them made the broadcast worth listening to.
A Still Gotta Come Through Chicago salute to you, Neil Funk!
Vote here on who you think is the best television broadcasting team in Chicago. I did one of these polls on Twitter a few months back, and it was nearly a four-way tie.
I’ll share the results next week, and then we’ll vote on our favorite Chicago radio broadcast pairing.
More sports media:
Pat Foley recently apologized for saying Eisbaeren Berlin’s Austin Ortega—a hispanic hockey player born in California— “…sounds like he oughta be a shortstop.”
Some rumors have swirled that Len and JD won’t be back because of the Marquee Sports Network launch in 2020 (Cubs own network). I’m still guessing they will be. Missing the playoffs, not spending more money, making viewers spend more money, and screwing with the broadcast team would be a brutal year for the Cubs.
Non-Chicago news, but if you haven’t seen what’s happening at Sports Illustrated, it’s pretty depressing. Basically what these new parent companies do is purchase these outlets, lay off half of the writers, squeeze all the remaining profit out of it, and go on their merry way. Even I am saddened by the news, considering what SI once was. Can’t imagine what the 35 and above crowd feels like.
Props:
Shoutout to everyone that handled the Roquan Smith saga responsibly. When a team continuously says there’s a personal issue and there’s no arrest record, we should shut up and wait for more news. Smith being in the right place mentally is more important than any football game, believe it or not, and… when you’ve got the next Brian Urlacher behind him, you can afford to wait.
Having an entire city trying to figure out what’s wrong with you has got to feel pretty awful. Having an entire city behind you supporting you as a person and a player has got to feel pretty awesome. Let’s make sure Roquan feels the weight of the latter moving forward. That’s the #SGCTC mentality, our guys are our guys and they’re to be treated as such. Except for you Addison Russell.
#ourguys #ourguys #ourguys
Continuing with that theme, it was a week to behold for the Still Gotta Come Through Chicago brand. Khalil Mack and Tim Anderson got together at RPM Italian this past week to celebrate a job well done. Two absolute stars in Chicago sports being boys is the best display of SCGTC since Walter Payton and Michael Jordan used to bust chops.
If you ever hear your Dad complain about Chicago sports just remind him he was probably watching Payton and Jordan dominate in their primes, in his prime.
Also, in regards to Mack and Anderson at RPM, I’ve been there (not a big deal), how sweet would it be to go out to dinner with money not even crossing your mind?
Another glass of wine? Uh, yeah. The special? I’ll try that in addition to my main course. Do I want to see the dessert menu? Please don’t ask stupid questions. But I’ll still give a 50 percent tip. There’s some motivation for your Monday.
Bears:
Another game, another discussion about the Bears drafting Mitch Trubisky over Pat Mahomes and Deshaun Watson. As I’ve said before, that is a completely reasonable thing to be upset over as a Bears fan. Is it worth going over every single time the Bears struggle? I don’t know.
I have been ready for Anthony Miller to be the breakout star we were promised (traded a second and third rounder for him, remember?) for two years now. I thought the quarterbacks and limited reps were the issue, but it turns out it may just be him. He got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on a touchdown that he didn’t even score, then immediately allowed a significant return to the Bears side of the field afterward. If you watch the replay on that Raiders return, he runs right by the ball handler. Then there was the nail-in-the-coffin interception where he clearly ran the wrong route. There were way too many black jerseys in that area anyway, and Daniel probably shouldn’t have thrown it. But it’s probably not an interception if Miller runs the right route. With all the chatter about Mahomes and Watson, I just think the Bears really missed Taylor Gabriel today.
In other words, the bye week was desperately needed.
The offensive line was dreadful, as they have been the entire year, but Daniel is also awful—I mean, awful—in the pocket. He doesn’t step up when he has the opportunity and even when the line gave him a chance he regularly ran into defenders. It was a tough weekend to be a fan of Iowa and the Bears, let me tell ya.
Hopefully Kyle Long can get at least five to ten percent better with two weeks rest. Charles Leno Jr.—a 37-million-dollar man and a pro-bowler this year, was frustrated after the game and told reporters the struggles started with him.
“We’ve just gotta do our job better,” Leno told the Sun-Times. “I don’t even want to keep on saying it, but it’s gotta start with me. I’m gonna go to this bye week and do some real deep searching and see how I can get better.”
The Bears averaged 2.5 yards per carry. When you have a back-up quarterback in, it’s hard to throw all the blame his way when the run game is non-existent. It’s been that way all year. David Montgomery is averaging just 3.4 yards per carry this season.
This was the theme for most of this up-and-down game, one I wish just continued to be a blow out in the second half so we didn’t have to subject ourselves to that heartbreak. Blurred blame placement. For instance, I don’t know if this is on Nagy or Daniel, but the timeout call to avoid a delay of game in the third quarter left the Bears with only two timeouts late in the game when they needed three. That sort of sloppy play can cost you games, and today it did. If they had three time-outs, they would’ve gotten the ball back with at least a minute or so left. That at least gives you enough time to run a few plays to get into field goal range and spike the ball.
The biggest miscue was the running-into-the-punter penalty. This is irrelevant, because the rules are the rules, but I don’t know why that’s a penalty. Why is it illegal to make a kicker fall down? Not even quarterbacks, who are much more valuable to the NFL brand, get that much protection. Regardless, it’s just an awful play from Kevin Pierre-Louis. There’s no reason to be rushing the punter in the first place there and Tarik Cohen returned that to about midfield. Up four, less than 6 minutes left, with the ball at midfield? The game is over.
The London question is also a reasonable one. The Raiders had been there the whole week and the Bears had gotten there just before the weekend. The first half sure made it seem like that gave the Raiders a marked advantage. The Raiders ran for 165 yards today, almost 100 more than the Bears had been allowing, on average, over the first four games.
It’s just a missed opportunity for the Bears. Going into the bye at 4-1 with the hardest schedule in all of football left seemed plausible and almost necessary, and they blew it. In some ways, I’m happy that the “cupcake” games are over. From here on out, the games will all be tough, but at least any losses won’t feel like this one—like we blew an opportunity to beat a demonstrably inferior team. There’s no reason we can’t beat a (hopefully) Brees-less Saint’s team at home two weeks from now.
A few other notes:
Great to see Roquan Smith back out there
Allen Robinson is an absolute monster. One of the toughest wide receivers I’ve ever seen in a Bears uniform. A couple of incredible catches made by him, including the one down the sideline where he knew he was going to get shellacked. Seven receptions, 97 yards, and two touchdowns for the man.
That Akiem Hicks injury was a freak accident and also maybe not something that should be shown on television. But sometimes there’s a large gap between how bad an injury looks and how long it’ll keep a player out. He should be fine.
Fantastic Peanut Punch from Sherrick McManis at the goal line. Sucks with awesome plays made like that one that it was all for naught. Here was a tweet from Jarrett Payton immediately afterward:
I love that guy. To the bye week…
Trivia answer 1: Johnny Knox, who is actually back with the Bears helping out. If you remember, he had that freak back injury where his entire body folded, and never played again.
Trivia answer 2: Louisiana-Lafayette (Tillman), New Mexico (Urlacher), Illinois (Butkus), Jackson State (Payton), and Kansas (Sayers)
Cubs:
Quick shoutout to my guy Brandon Schlegel. A few months back we took the hottest takes that subscribers have ever had about Chicago sports and published them. Well, his was that he almost cried at a bar because the Cubs traded Jorge Soler for Wade Davis and said, “We just traded a 45 home run guy for a rental.” Soler had 48 home runs this year, and Wade was indeed a rental. Congrats Brandon, we’re no longer allowed to make fun of you for your prediction. For almost crying over a transaction involving Jorge Soler, though? That will continue.
As mentioned above, I’m really excited about the offseason special we’ve got next week for the two baseball teams. I know I’ve promised it for like three weeks in a row, but it took some time to get guests contributors organized.
Some quick takeaways from Theo Epstein’s press conference on the manger situation:
Lots of talk that Theo has been throwing Maddon under the bus. They didn’t re-sign him, sure, but he immediately took blame for the Cubs’ troubles and called Maddon the best Cubs manager of all time and said he was “the perfect guy” at the time. He said anything that they’re looking for in a new manager is not a knock on Maddon.
Said he wants the next manager to be a part of creating a “culture of accountability”
The Cubs are interviewing Joe Girardi, but I’m not sure he offers a whole lot besides the accountability part. In my mind, it may be tough to go from a guy like Maddon to a real hardass like Girardi.
White Sox:
Former Miami Marlins President David Samson told ESPN Radio Host Dan LeBatard that he received advice from Jerry Reinsdorf way back when to finish in second every year.
“He said, ‘You know what? Here’s my best advice to you: Finish in second place every single year,” Samson said. “Because your fans will say, ‘Wow we’ve got a shot, we’re in it.’ But there’s always the carrot left. There’s always one more step left to take.’ ”
Reinsdorf said he had “no recollection” of saying that. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry. Everyone knows that if you say you had no recollection of saying something, you said it! No person has ever said they had no recollection of saying something and actually not said it. That phrase is for drunk people and liars.
Here are my thoughts, in order, when I heard this clip:
Well, you haven’t done a great job of that. The Sox have finished in the top two in the division only three times since 2005. But then I looked into when Samson became president of the Marlins—he led the purchase of the team in 2002. The Sox came in 2nd in the AL Central three times in a row before winning the World Series in 2005.
This also sounds very like the Bulls from 2010-2015. Right on the cusp of doing something great, but always second fiddle to another team.
Is there any chance this guy is lying? I’ve heard Samson is somewhat of a loose cannon, but Reinsdorf’s response makes it seem like there’s no way the exchange didn’t take place.
What a miserable way to run two organizations. It goes without saying that if you own major sports teams you owe it to fans to do everything in your power to make the teams as competitive as possible. But even that aside, why wouldn’t you want your teams to be the best anyway? If your guiding principle is duping fans and not competitive drive, get out of the business.
Back to the Bulls. If you listened to the audio portion with J.A. Adande a month ago (I highly recommend it), we talked about how the Bulls actually had a plan to become worse after the ‘98 season (18:40 mark). They had locked in season ticket holders and knew they wouldn’t have to pay big salaries to guys like Pippen and Jordan, thus turning a higher profit.
Blackhawks:
The Blackhawks lost their opener in Prague, 4-3. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it doesn’t look like Patrick Kane is slowing down anytime soon. He had a goal and two assists. Alex DeBrincat sniped a goal after a beautiful pass from Kane just before the second period ended. DeBrincat signed a three-year deal, with an average annual salary of $6.4 million, last week. He’ll make $9 million in the third year of the deal.
The Hawks get some time to adjust back to the central time zone before they host the Sharks for the home opener on Thursday. They opened the season at +4000 to win the Stanley Cup. That ranked 22nd in the NHL.
Bulls:
The Bulls have set the expectations extraordinarily high this year…ladies and gentlemen, they are, according to John Paxson, attempting to make the playoffs.
Training camp began and two players—Wendell Carter Jr. and Daniel Gafford—immediately got hurt in the first practice, which was a near-three hour Jim Boylen special. Both, apparently, will be fine. According to Jim Boylen, they just needed to drink some milk. That’s not a joke, that’s actually what he said. But if the Bulls can’t stay healthy this year, it’s time to stop pointing the finger and start pulling the thumb. Injuries happen, yes. If every one of your good players gets hurt every year, that’s a systematic issue.
They also announced that they’re bringing back the black pinstripe jerseys this year. An absolute doozy of a jersey, top five in the league, in my opinion.
When Tomas Satoransky makes a nice pass in pinstripes:
Historical perspective:
Another sendoff for Neil Funk and a 1997 buzzer beater from our lord and savior Michael Jordan heading into the week:
Betting Pick:
Another win for the betting pick! The Cardinals (given out at +5, closed at +3) won outright in Cincinnati. Now 14-6 on picks.
This week: Rams -4 over San Francisco. Rams home after a long week, San Fran on the road after a short week.
Don’t forget to follow Still Gotta Come Through Chicago on Twitter—@stillgottaChi. Should be a fun addition to the brand moving forward. Thanks for reading the newsletter. Let’s keep getting people to join the community—tell your friends to subscribe. Next week’s letter should be an awesome bye-week read.