Housekeeping: Two newsletters will be published this week. Today’s is an examination of the decade and a Bears wrap up. Friday’s will be a comprehensive breakdown of all the teams. We’ll cover the White Sox signings, Cubs rumors, and Bulls and Blackhawks season updates there + some Chicago sports history. Ideally, I’ll have an audio portion that day to finish off your week as well. This is to make up for my absence these past few weeks. Thanks for letting me know you missed SGCTC, whether it was telling me to f off or just asking where it was. I appreciate it. I want to get this up to 350 subscribers this year, and the only way to do that is with your guys support. Tell someone to subscribe today:
This week in Chicago:
Bulls: Tonight at Dallas, 7:30; Wednesday at New Orleans, 7:00; Friday at home vs. the Pacers, 7:00; Saturday at Detroit, 6:00
Blackhawks: Tuesday at home vs. Calgary, 7:30; Thursday at home vs. Nashville, 7:30; Saturday at home vs. Anaheim, 7:30
Start the year off right, comment on this week’s thread, listed below. My goal is to get at least 25 original responses today. Trust me, it’s a fun bunch in there week in, week out.
Follow us on Twitter @stillgottaChi, we’re over 100 followers here
Trivia: Can you name all of the Quarterbacks that 1. Started in Week 16 (second to last week of regular season, to avoid the complication of rested starters) of the NFL season and 2. Attended a Big Ten University?
(Answer at bottom of introduction)
It’s January 2nd as I begin writing this, which has long been one of my least favorite days of the year, because New Years Day has always been one of my favorites. As I tried to go to bed last night, calculating the hours of sleep I could still get if I could somehow close my eyes long enough to force myself into unconsciousness, my thought process developed into a lame one, that I should consider the notion that a decade had just passed, and not just a year. Instagram has poisoned yet another mind.
I tried to jog my memory of 2010, which seems close enough to reach with my fingertips and inconceivably long ago at the same time. Dissecting the twists and turns your life has taken in the past ten years while attempting to fall asleep is a counterproductive activity to the highest degree. But I couldn’t stop doing it for the life of me. In lieu of considering the aforementioned twist and turns or posting a slew of pictures I fancied of myself on the ‘gram, I tried to use the angst of remembering my past decade for something productive: this newsletter.
It’s a theme that’s been hit on more than once in this preamble to Chicago sports updates and opinions, but many of my strongest memories are somehow tied to a bunch of grown, and sometimes not fully grown, men playing some sort of game.
And so I began in 2010, attempting not just to think of the really good and bad moments, but all the trivial ones on the way that really make sports fans, sports fans.
Like the fact that I used to wear a shirt that was a play off of the LMFAO song “I’m in Miami Bitch” to school, which pictured LeBron James crying and the accompanying phrase, “You’re in Miami, Bitch.” Somehow I was never flagged, by neither my parents or a teacher, for wearing that. That could be because my mom bought me the shirt for Christmas and that my father is at least partly responsible for turning me into the psychopath fanatic I am today.
Most people think my distain for LeBron is derived from my Bulls fandom, and that surely didn’t help. But it’s not. If I was a Minnesota Timberwolves fan, I would still cheer for his basketball demise. And I was briefly a Wolves fan, when my favorite team of the decade, the 2010-2011 Bulls, all ended up there with Tom Thibodeau at the helm.
That’s why one of my favorite memories of the decade was a 2014 game that I was at, when LeBron was nearly held to single digits for the first time since 2007. The crowd gave Joakim Noah—who may just be my favorite player of the decade, considering how much love I had for him, and how much love he had for the city—three separate in-game standing ovations.
This clip of his father getting interviewed during one of those, after Noah had defended LeBron one-on-one and then fought for an offensive rebound, is one of the video highlights of the decade.
Years from now, we’ll have to remind our children that Noah—while averaging 12 points per game— finished fourth in MVP voting that year, behind Kevin Durant, LeBron James, and Blake Griffin, and that is was deserved.
The Bulls, back then, were proud to be Chicago Bulls. Who’s to say if they even should’ve been, given the front office they played for. But no, they played for us, the fans, and they brought it every single night.
As much as it bothers me that the city’s sports fans have slowly drifted away from Bulls fandom, I understand it. The franchise has done nothing to deserve the loyalty from us. After all, I’m probably the dumb one for sticking around all of these years. But if I had jumped ship, I wouldn’t have memorized a 1998 Michael Jordan press conference and later turned a sentence of it into a tagline for a newsletter.
Without the MVP of the league, that team kept their heads above water through sheer effort, and boy was it fun to watch. Noah said he played for the fans in the upper deck. As the decade comes to an end, that’s hardly possible anymore, as the idea of being a rabid Bulls fan fades from the public conscious altogether, and less and less fans populate that upper deck.
This decade began with the climax for the Bulls, the 62-win team that featured Derrick Rose’s MVP season. The Chicagoan fell into the lap of his favorite franchise, and both his body and the front office ended up betraying him. Still, I’ll always look back on those years without Rose fondly. It’s why when people retrospectively blame Tom Thibodeau for pushing his players too hard, I have some reservations. While I understand the sentiment, he gave all of those players a forever home in Chicago and showed them the best years of their career. Not one of those players, I imagine, regrets their years here. If they did, Luol Deng—who was most affected by Thibodeau’s ridiculous substitution (or lack thereof) patterns—retired a Bull before the season.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Bulls still, through all of that adversity, had a chance at contending for a title in 2015. They beat the eventual champions (the Warriors) on the road that year, and were up 2-1 against the Eastern Conference champions until 1. David Blatt called a timeout when he did not have one, but was not punished and 2. An unnecessary review gave them one anyway, resulting in a LeBron game winner, which would ultimately ruin the Bulls chances of winning that series. I will forever be bitter about that, and as long as I live I’ll make sure NBA fans are reminded that the Bulls could have competed for the throne that year had it not been for two egregious officiating mishaps.
But back to the more random notes, like when Kevin Youkilis almost “saved” the Sox season in 2012. I remember his line drive game-winner vividly, for whatever reason. Hey, he did have nearly a .350 OBP with the Sox in the second half.
What a call by Hawk. I appreciate him more now that he’s gone, and just realized I’d be remiss if I didn’t include him being sent off by both Chicago teams and him repeatedly saying “Aw, man” as he fought back tears. While this video doesn’t capture that, it does end with the tear-jerking proclamation from the man himself to the fans, “I love you all, and I always will.”
Without digressing too much, I have to include my favorite call of Hawk’s from this decade, and of all time, for that matter: “Into right field, that’s a can of corn… Outta here.”
In the world of the Sox picking up former All-Stars past their primes, Youkilis was weird, but not nearly as weird as the fact that Ken Griffey Jr. is the last White Sox player to get an at-bat in the playoffs. He struck out swinging as the Sox fell to the Joe Maddon-led Tampa Bay Ray in 2008. The only two White Sox runs that day came from a Paul Konerko home run and a Jermaine Dye home run, the latter of which is still criminally underrated.
White Sox fans often get upset over the national media ignoring their 2005 World Series, which is a reasonable gripe. But what I think is even worse is how often the national media ignores the fact that Jerry Reinsdorf has created two of the most unsatisfied fan bases in all of sports, but they’re omitted from “miserable fanbases” lists just because championships were stumbled upon at some point over the last three decades.
Despite Jerry’s World, there were the really good times during the decade in Chicago. If you told Chicagoans in 2003 that in 2020 the Blackhawks would lead the league in attendance, despite being .500, what would they say? For the youngsters in this town, it’s probably hard to believe that you could’ve ran around the upper deck naked at the turn of the century at a Blackhawks game and no one would’ve been up there to notice.
I am now undoubtedly a Blackhawks fan, but I know I’m not alone when I say the Blackhawks used to be just a great excuse for me to excessively drink Busch Lights in a friend’s basement, chugging them after each and every goal you probably didn’t see occur in the first place. Now, Patrick Kane can look back at the decade fondly, with three Stanley Cups and the most points in the NHL during that period to show for. In front of him, the 1,000-point mark awaits, and he’ll probably get there this week.
I think that’s the warmer theme from 2010-on, that the Blackhawks and Cubs went from being two of the saddest franchises in all of sports to two of the most successful. Who could’ve ever imagined that the Blackhawks would be in a position to fire a man who had brought the city three championships and the Cubs in a position to dismiss a man who won a World Series and reached three straight NLCS’.
It’s not in our nature as sports fans to simply be grateful, but as I considered the past decade in this town, I couldn’t help but feel anything else but gratitude for the insanely heightened expectations that the success in the last ten years has brought to each of those franchises.
And so we move past 2010, 2013, and 2015 to arrive at 2016. It’s the first time I ever considered there might be such thing as a curse. I don’t believe in ghosts, don’t believe in spirits, and sure as shit don’t believe that Michael Jordan—the most popular player in the history of the NBA—was banned by its commissioner for throwing a couple bucks on a few table games like the rest of us. But when Rajai Davis hit that ball out of the park, LeBron James (a Yankee fan) was flexing on the television in front of me, and the Cubs comeback from 3-1 down looked like it had evaporated in front of my watering eyes, I was completely handicapped—both physically and mentally.
I wasn’t yet willing to blame realistic causes, like the fact that Aroldis Chapman’s arm probably felt like a goddamn pool noodle because Joe Maddon forgot he could pitch anyone else. No, it was the curse. Was it seriously that dumbass billy goat story? I guess it could be, I thought. I didn’t move from the place I was sitting and didn’t say anything. I nearly smoked my first ever cigarette during the rain delay, while Jason Heyward was apparently willing Ben Zobrist to hit a double in the coming moments. Alas, no cigarettes were puffed from the mouth of this goddamn puritan. Instead, I dog piled on a dirty floor with some of my closest friends an hour later.
The earth stood still for a night in the middle of a week in early November. Bars in Iowa City, where I was attending school, stayed open past usual close. My friend’s night was ruined because the bartender didn’t come to him quick enough (he left the bar, perhaps he had class Thursday morning), despite his favorite baseball team winning a World Series for the first time in 108 years.
I wonder if he regrets that as the Cubs begin to teach us the ultimate lesson in sports, that nothing lasts forever, and there is no such thing as a guaranteed dynasty. If anything, that makes what the Blackhawks did, in a sport far harder to do such a thing, that much more impressive.
On the gridiron, the decade started for the 4th phase and the Bears how it ended: the Green Bay Packers crushing our playoff and Super Bowl aspirations. The Bears didn’t seem to care much about defeating Green Bay in Week 17 in 2010 at Lambeau Field, and still only lost by a touchdown. They had already clinched a playoff berth, but had they won that game, the Packers wouldn’t have made the playoffs, Aaron Rodgers wouldn’t have a single Super Bowl, and the Bears may have gotten one.
How differently would our relationship with the Bears be had those doors slid the other way?
Jay Cutler—who has become something of a Chicagoland folk hero, apparently because he wasn’t downright horrible and is overtly dick-ish—hurt his knee in that NFC title game. For a minute, it seemed like Caleb Hanie, of all people, may actually lead us to the promise land. That was wishful thinking, just like it was wishful thinking that Mitch Trubisky, a man who played one full season in college void of accolades, could become the Bears first modern-day, legitimate franchise quarterback.
What a shame that that’s how we’ll remember this Bears decade, for its failures. Think of all of the Bears legends over the last ten years—Brian Urlacher, Charles Tillman, Lance Briggs, Alex Brown, Devin Hester, Matt Forte, Thomas Jones, and Olin Kreutz. It was all for naught. Perhaps that’s why my low point in this Bears season was when they brought all of these guys out before the game, and the 2019 Bears lost to the Chargers on a missed field goal. I guess I should’ve mentioned Robbie Gould.
Before you start crying at your desk (he said, as he wiped away the tears off his keyboard), I wouldn’t give any of the time I spent agonizing over the above memories up for the world.
Not the underage beers consumed during the Hawks playoffs.
Not the countless Sundays spent with my brothers and father watching Bears games, the majority of them producing fruitless results.
Not the summer days watching baseball teams that would lose 90+ games.
Not the depressing nights worried that Derrick Rose’s career was over.
A friend recently posed the question: How much money would I need to give you to give up Chicago sports? I said $10 million and got laughed out of the room, but the answer is probably that no dollar amount would do it.
This silliness that we engage in is trying and frustrating, but remembering going nuts in the bleachers with Emilio Bonifacio in the Wrigley outfield, and then embarrassingly spraying beers off a 2x4 foot balcony in Iowa City when they won it all puts it in perspective. In other words, the lows are damn low, but the seldom highs make it all worth it.
The Flyers still had to come through Chicago in 2010. And I’ll be damned if you don’t still gotta come through Chicago in 2020, and for the rest of the time I’m lucky enough to be cheering for the sports teams of the best city on earth.
Thread:
If you haven’t come up with a New Year’s resolution yet, here’s one:
Comment on the Still Gotta Come Through Chicago thread each week.
Today’s: Your sports memories from the decade: A personal story from the Stanley Cups or the World Series. The most obscure moment. Or, just a general reaction.
And now, let’s attack 2020 and this newsletter (which I’m infinitely grateful you are all a part of) with enthusiasm previously unknown to mankind.
Trivia answer:
Tom Brady, Michigan
Drew Brees, Purdue
Kirk Cousins, Michigan State
David Blough, Purdue
Dwayne Haskins Jr., Ohio State
Russell Wilson, Wisconsin
Trivia: Only four tight ends in this century have amassed over 1000 yards TOTAL in their time with the Bears. For reference, George Kittle has had over 1000 yards in each of the last two seasons, despite only playing 14 games this year. Who are those four Bear tight ends? (Answer at the end of the Bears section)
Bears:
The expectation before the year was for the Bears to be in the lead team spot on here well into January. Instead, the season ended with an unceremonious win in Minnesota, a surprise end-of-year press conference from the front office on New Year’s Eve, perhaps the only day of the year when we don’t have time to complain about the team’s shortcomings. Then the announcement came that three offensive coaches and one special teams coach had been dismissed, the men in charge facing no music other than Auld Lang Syne at midnight with their loved ones.
Good leaders take accountability, and the Bears’ brain trust fell short of that, after its scouting department couldn’t stop pounding its chest before the year about being a step ahead of everyone else.
Ryan Pace reiterated his faith in Mitch Trubisky, which was expected, because if he did anything but that, he would’ve decreased leverage in the free agent QB market and let Mitch out to dry if he wasn’t able to secure better options in the offseason. I get all of that, and I didn’t want Pace to trash any of his players. It’s still reasonable to listen to his press conference, and Nagy’s press conference, and feel like they’re pissing on our proverbial legs and telling us it’s raining.
The Bears situation is clear: they have enough Pro Bowl caliber players right now to compete for a Super Bowl, with a few glaring holes to accompany them. Those holes are located at the offensive line, the tight end position, and the quarterback position, most notably.
The Bears offense was 29th in both points and yards per game, 31st in yards per play, 25th in 3rd down percentage, and 27th in rushing yards per game.
Management reacted to these issues by firing OC Mark Helfrich, OL Coach Harry Hiestand, and TE Coach Kevin Gilbride. It rubs me the wrong way that when the offense is as dreadful as it was, everyone but the man in charge of the offense is punished. The Bears leaked that Hiestand and Helfrich were in charge of the run game, and that is why they were fired.
Well, I’m just not buying that these men were solely responsible for a dreadful run game. If Nagy is an offensive guru, he shouldn’t be relying on anyone else in the first place to instill a respectable run game. Plus, as Olin Kreutz noted on Twitter, did you really think it was Hiestand who wanted to run an option to the short side of the field with one yard to gain or Helfrich’s idea to hand the ball up the middle constantly at the goal line to Tarik Cohen?
Changes needed to be made, and I’m glad some were. Next year will show us whether or not the correct changes were made, or if those were just scape goats to buy both Pace and especially Nagy more time.
As far as the offensive line goes, I’d put that up there as the no. 2 priority of the offseason behind finding a good option at the quarterback position. Good teams have good offensive lines, simple as that. Without one, the Bears offense won’t get better, even if Nagy stops calling plays like a Pop Warner coach with too much time on his hands and the Bears get a better options at tight end and quarterback.
Kyle Long retired last night, the announcement made via Twitter:
I originally read the first part of this tweet as if Long was saying some fans would be happy for him that he retired and could now work on getting his body back in good shape. I realized later that he meant happy as in happy to see him leave because they no longer wanted him on the team.
Even when Long was not playing well this year, I didn’t want to see him out of the lineup. The guy has been with the Bears through “thick and thin”, but really he’s just been here for a whole lot of thin. He was always optimistic, always engaged with fans, and always made it seem like he was proud to be a Bear. He probably could’ve continued his career elsewhere, but I appreciated that he took pride in retiring in Chicago.
There was a point in time where Long was one of only a couple options if you were looking for a jersey of a current player. He was an absolute beast when his body was right and definitely played through some injuries over the course of his career, despite those games rarely meaning much in the grand scheme of things. I won’t remember the time he played here fondly, because there wasn’t much to cheer about when he was around. He even missed the run last year, which makes his career even more tragic. But I’ll always remember him fondly.
Cheers to him.
The Bears already filled the O-line coach job with Juan Castillo. He’s been in the league since 1995 and most recently was the run game coordinator with Buffalo in 2017 and 2018, when they ranked 6th and 5th in the league in rushing, respectively. Before that, he was in Baltimore, and the O-Line let up the least amount of sacks in one of his years at the helm. From initial research, this seems like a pretty good hire. Hopefully his run game coordinator experience will allow him to get through to Nagy on simple concepts and the Do’s and Dont’s of running the football.
Cody Whitehair was just about the only consistent lineman for the Bears this year. He was 8th in pass block win rates among all centers in football. There’s no doubt the Bears need help in free agency and the draft to get better on that front. James Daniels should continue to get better. Bear in mind that he’s still only 22 years old. Bobby Massie is owed over $20 million in the next three years and Charles Leno Jr. is locked in with a sizable contract over the next two. Those two, frankly, need to just figure it out. Hopefully some fresh faces in that room, both player and coach wise, will help turn things around.
The Bears leading tight end in terms of receiving yards this year was J.P. Holtz with 91 yards. Look around the league and you’ll notice that the tight end is a pretty vital position for both quarterback and team success. Just like on the O-Line, the Bears should consider drafting a tight end pretty high and explore options in free agency. We can discuss specific options at a later date in the offseason when there’s less to go over.
Eddie Jackson: The Bears made Jackson the highest paid safety in the league by signing him to a four year, $58 million deal with $33 million of that being guaranteed. I could not be happier about this deal. Pace has had some mishaps in the draft, but he got this one right, and it’s always nice to see 4th-round type guys get paid. He’ll make an average of $14.7 million in this deal.
A mistake football fans often make is only looking at interceptions when evaluating defensive backs. Because he had 6 interceptions (and two pick sixes last year), his two game-clinching interceptions this year felt like a let down. Yet he played almost 100 percent of defensive snaps this year, had more tackles and tackles for loss, and his passer rating against was 57.6, still an incredibly low number.
Not locking Eddie Jackson, who said he wanted to retire a Bear after a Super Bowl was won, would have been a colossal mistake.
4th Down aggressiveness: The Bears were 21st in 4th down aggression this year.
Cordarrelle Patterson: Patterson was one of the only silver linings this season. Because of his lack of offensive production during his career, some fans were skeptical about the Bears handing him 2 years, $10 million in the offseason. That looks like a downright steal now. He’s officially the AP kick returner of the year, averaging nearly 30 yards per return, the best in the NFL. Last year, Benny Cunningham averaged 21 yards per return.
He also was a tremendous defensive special teams player and contributed on offense when given the chance. I’d love to see him utilized more in the future on that side of the ball.
Bears 2020 schedule: The Bears will play a third place schedule next year, meaning they will play every other 3rd place finisher in the NFC. That lands us the Giants and the Rams in addition to the NFC South (Bucs, Falcons, Panthers, Saints), the AFC South (Colts, Jags, Texans, Titans). Then, of course, two games against each NFC North opponent. It’s hard to speculate wins by schedule, but there’s no doubt next year’s will be easier than this year’s.
Adrian Amos: The Bears will receive a 4th round compensation pick in this year’s draft in result of Amos signing with the Packers this offseason and reaching a playing time threshold.
Trivia answer:
Zach Miller: 1161 yards from 2014-2017
Martellus Bennett: 2114 yards from 2013-2015
Greg Olsen: 1981 yards from 2007-2010
Desmond Clark: 2639 yards from 2003-2010
Betting pick: (Record: 18-9) Miami OH tonight vs. ULL +14.
#LoveandHonor
Don’t forget to comment on this week’s thread.
Thanks for reading, as always. Going to turn the energy up on this operation in the next year, so make sure to stay tuned, and make sure to tell your friends and family to subscribe. And hey, don’t be afraid to share the link online, if you enjoyed.
STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGO!!!!!