Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

The week that the Bears and Cubs embarrassed the city

The Chicago Cubs and the Chicago Bears embarrassed the great city of Chicago this weekend.

But before we get into that, read last week’s newsletters if you missed ‘em: https://sgctc.substack.com/

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Thank you! Unfortunately I write to you on this Sunday night with far less elation than I did in last week’s two newsletters.

With the exception of Jason Heyward, Yu Darvish, Kyle Hendricks, Akiem Hicks, Roquan Smith, and Allen Robinson, every single player on the Cubs and the Bears needs to reevaluate what in God’s name they just subjected hardworking Chicagoans to in the last few days.

The entire Cubs-Marlins series was a disgusting — yet fitting — abomination. But the ninth inning is one of the single worst innings of baseball I’ve watched as a fan. Hey guys, you’ve scored 1 run in 18 fucking innings, might be time to stop watching belt high fastballs from Brandon Kintzler whiz by you at 94 miles per hour.

At no point did the Cubs look like the heavy favorite in that series, and at no point did they look like the team with about 300 more games of playoff experience than their opponent. Instead, they looked like a team befuddled by fast balls over 95 miles per hour and a team that was so offensively incapable that Willson Contreras had to book it home on a shallow single to right center.

The Cubs solidified all of their fans sneaking — actually, glaring — suspicions that this team, this core four, this whatever, isn’t up for the task. If the Cubs are going to be anything moving forward, something seriously needs to change — whether that’s revamping half of the roster, whether that’s every single supposed star on the team playing 35% better, or whether that’s psychologically becoming a less pathetic group of hitters.

For now, hold that thought. I’ve gone too long already.

I have so much to say about the Cubs and the Sox that I am designating it for another newsletter — tomorrow’s. Tuesday morning will cover the end of each baseball season and two teams heading in dramatically different directions. It will also cover Theo Epstein’s potential exit, Jed Hoyer’s potential promotion, Ricky Renteria being the biggest antidote to White Sox success moving forward, and a little Bulls and Blackhawks to top it off.

For today, we’ll stick to the Bears, who experienced the latest tragedy of COVID-19 — not getting Boo’d to high heavens for that disgrace of an effort they put forth Sunday.

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I had to miss my first Bears game in God knows how many years today, and was originally disappointed about that. I recorded the game and listened to it in its entirety on the radio and am now watching it. I am definitely no longer disappointed. What in God’s name was that?

The Bears played so poorly that their radio announcer — the legendary Jeff Joniak — barely got excited throughout. Jeff Joniak! The guy almost has a heart attack if the Bears kick returner gets to the 27-yard line as opposed to the 20 and his heart beat barely made it above resting at any point during the game.

Matt Nagy’s postgame press conference was more of the same from a guy that purports to have all the answers from Monday through Saturday but can’t answer simple questions about his team’s failures on Sunday nights.

The Colts are a good team. Sure. If you’re going to contend for a playoff spot, you need to score more than three points through 57 minutes against good teams. You need to have a game plan that allows you to get past the opponent’s 30 yard-line more than one in a blue moon.

Since the offensive guru Matt Nagy arrived in 2018, the Bears have been held to 17 points or less on offense 15 times. 15! I don’t care who your quarterback is. If you have an offensive-minded coach, that is inexcusable.

And that’s the bottom-line theme from yesterday’s game. I think Mitch Trubisky should’ve been replaced, and still believe that. Today was not a Foles problem, but today also may have shone a light on the fact that it was not always a Trubisky problem.

After the game, Nagy deflected blame to an extent, saying Coach Castillo (O-Line coach) would get those guys headed in the right direction moving forward. My man, you’ve signed off on a great deal of Ryan Pace’s moves. You’ve been dealt a hand. Start doing something different with it.

The first sign that you may have an underperforming — or just bad — head coach is the side of the ball that he specializes in sucking. Check. The offense has basically sucked for the entire time that Nagy has been here, or to be fair, been a bottom-half-of-the-league unit.

The second sign is the special teams sucking. Check. When Lovie Smith was fired, everyone wanted the offense to get better. It did, at least temporarily. But everything else fell apart. Because when you have a bad head coach (Marc Trestman), nothing works besides what the coach is directly paying attention to.

The special teams play was absolutely abysmal today. Ted Ginn Jr. looked like he had never thought about returning a punt for a gain in his entire life. There were a slew of penalties committed. The easiest blocked punt of all time. Returns for back-breaking yardage on the other end. We don’t have a kicking game good enough to feel confident about scoring points until we get inside the 10. It’s a pathetic operation.

The third is sloppy play, in general. Check. The first four timeouts Nagy called were all at strange, inconvenient times. When on offense, they were always followed by a play call that could not possibly have been thought through. On defense, they afforded the opponent more time when we didn’t need to.

In basketball, head coaches are often judged off of ATOs (after time out plays). What do you draw up for your team when you can control it? Nagy’s magician act, which fooled us and other teams in 2018, has been running out for a long time.

A half back dive to Cordarelle Patterson and David Montgomery isn’t on the field. Then later, basically a Hail Mary down the sidelines to… David Montgomery? These are the plays we go with on crucial downs with two or less yards to go? That sounds like a Madden play caller who hasn’t played video games in two years, not a guy who’s been dubbed an offensive guru.

Don’t get me wrong, the officiating was abysmal. That’s the second week in a row where there have been three to four brain-numbingly bad calls made against the Bears, and I am by no means a blame the refs guy. But some the penalties — or lack thereof — were unforgivable and game-changing.

Having said that, as a rule of thumb, you can not blame the refs for a loss when you are 4 for 14 on third down conversions. Nor can you when you rush 16 times for 28 yards. The Bears did both on Sunday.

And I don’t want to hear one word about the Bears defense. When you hold a team to 19 points after being put in precarious position after precarious position, you don’t hold any blame for the number that gets placed in the loss column. The Bears defense can only do so much.

The Bears held the Colts significantly below their passing (Rivers) averages per play and rushing averages per play, and then it predictably fell apart rush-wise by the end due to another underwhelming offensive performance.

Again, they missed two gimmie interceptions, sure, but another rule of thumb (mine) suggests you can’t blame a defense when they hold an opponent to less than 20 points in the modern NFL, especially when the offense can’t string a drive together.

During the same Nagy-era time period, the Bears have held their opponents to 17 points or less 19 times. 19! Forget time of possession and physical exhaustion. Battling for an offense who can’t run the ball successfully more than twice in a row must be psychologically draining.

Shout out to Roquan Smith for galvanizing the troops and turning in a 13-tackle, 3 tackles-for-loss performance. Shout out to Allen Robinson for giving his usual outlier performance with 100 yards. Shout out to Akiem Hicks for being Akiem Hicks.

Roquan Smith balling out was probably the best and only silver lining from today’s game. It was, in my opinion, his best game yet as a Bear.

Nick Foles played poorly, but he didn’t really do anything all that awful. The Bears QB situation is on Ryan Pace, everything on the field since has been on Matt Nagy.

But guess what? We’re going to have the same team lining up at Soldier Field in primetime three days from today. And the Bucs, regardless of how well our defense plays, are probably going to put up some points. If our offense can’t get it together by then, it’s going to get ugly, and so could the season.

I’ll see you tomorrow. Gear up for another scorcher. Leave a comment today.