Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Russell Wilson to Chicago?
Happy Friday CHHHHIICCCAGGGOOO!!!!
Friday: Sunny and 41
Saturday: Sunny and 45
Sunday: Sunny and 47
Blackhawks in February: 8-2-1
Bulls in February: 8-5
Russell Wilson: Would accept a trade to Chicago
If that doesn’t put a tingle down your spine, you’re either living outside of Chicago at the moment and wondering whether those temperatures are supposed to be a good thing or you’re an eternal pessimist.
We got a special Friday edition of the SGCTC newsletter. So strap up, grab your coffee, and get wildly excited about marginally positive things.
And as always, if you’re willing, tell someone to subscribe today — or send it to someone who you think may like it. Always appreciate those of you who pump up this newsletter.
Now let’s get down to it, and get to the weekend.
If you haven’t been following the NFL offseason, which is slowly becoming akin to the NBA offseason, you’ve missed a few things that are not related but also maybe related to your Chicago Bears.
Deshaun Watson has made it very clear to the Houston Texans’ leadership that he is no longer interested in playing for them, period. There’s no reason that the Texans have to trade him, but from what I’m reading, it really does seem like he is going the nuclear route. If he’s not traded, I don’t think he’ll show up to camp.
At that point, the Texans will have to choose whether: 1. they want to absorb the PR blow of fining their franchise QB hundreds of thousands of dollars every week while also being one of the worst teams in the league because he’s not there or 2. they trade him for a potentially unprecedented haul, something to the tune of four first round draft picks and a good existing player.
In the end, I believe they’ll choose the latter, assuming Watson sticks to his guns, which I believe he will.
Now, Russell Wilson is having a riff with the Seattle Seahawks in a similar manner. Wilson is very PR-aware, so he has not yet requested a trade like Watson has. But he has named four teams that he would accept a trade to, according to Adam Schefter: the Cowboys, Raiders, Saints, and Bears.
Yes, one of the best three quarterbacks in the league named the Bears as one of his preferred trade destinations, which is no lower than a top-5 all-time moment in Bears quarterback history.
Schefter’s tweet was also bizarrely worded:
I want to play in Seattle but here are four other teams I’d go to, just if you want to know. It sounds like Wilson definitely does not want to be in Seattle, or else he wouldn’t be mentioning other teams at all. There’d be no point.
Wilson’s gripes include his lack of say in the offensive game plans and direction and also how often he gets hit.
We’d like to imagine if the Bears somehow nabbed Wilson, he’d have a say in the offense. But this is also Matt Nagy we’re talking about, so who knows? There’s a pretty good track record of Nagy not doing that. To be fair, he hasn’t given Nick Foles and Mitch Trubisky say. Wilson could be different, and should be different. But the history remains true on that.
Secondly, on the hits front, the Bears offensive line is very evidently bad. It has been for the past two years. Ideally that’ll improve in the offseason, but if Wilson doesn’t want to get hit and knows that the Bears will likely have to give up a massive amount of draft capital to get him (that could be used to improve the offensive line), Chicago doesn’t seem to be the best destination.
However, Wilson’s third reason for wanting to leave — which I am speculating on, but is definitely true — is that he doesn’t want to be in the physical city of Seattle anymore.
He’s married to Ciara, for Christ’s sake. Do you think Ciara wants to live in Seattle?
And despite its warts, you know damn well my take on the city of Chicago and all it has to offer. Ciara would be the First Lady of Chicago. Hell, she may be a more important addition to the city’s fabric than Wilson would.
This Wilson drama has obviously sparked the usual irrational excitement from Bears fans. And just like 42-degree weather, a rumor about Wilson maybe, potentially being traded and maybe, potentially going to the Bears may not be something to get excited about elsewhere. But things are different here, so I’ll be the last person to excitement-shame anyone.
The people that shoot down your excitement about little things after the year we went through should have to quarantine themselves for two weeks for being assholes.
Want to know what those people are like? First, I want to say that I’m a F-list media member, so I don’t generally dog it as a whole as much as the rest of the general population.
Having said that, we can’t have an article these days that is just good news. Vaccine distribution is at an all-time high, COVID-19 cases are down 80%… BUT there are more strainss coming! And those are bad!
I mean Jesus Christ, guys. Give me a fucking break. I’ll take a new strains article, but can we at least separate it from the good news. Can I just see the down 80% part without having new strains shoved down my throat? Is that too much to ask?
Anyway, the Bears players have already started heavily recruiting Wilson on social media thanks to the rumors.
Cordarrelle Patterson changed his Twitter avi to the above and tweeted this:
Tarik Cohen joined the party as well:
Other Bears players joined in.
This is a natural thing to play out in the social media age, but God damn, it’s got to be at least somewhat embarrassing for the Bears’ leadership.
This would be like if a Dad lost his job and his kids kept asking their friends’ parents if they could hire him, because he couldn’t find one for himself.
The Bears history at QB is so bad that the players are desperately vying to get one through social media persuasion and forced trades.
But the bottom line is this: Are the Bears likely to get Watson or Wilson? Probably not. Are there two generational QB talents that are at least nearly available? Yes. And the Bears need a QB, just like they always do.
If nothing else, the hope is worth it. Don’t let anyone shoot down your excitement today, or tell you that the Bears would likely need to give upwards of four first-round picks in addition to talent to get Wilson, and that that’s not doable.
Instead, just have a beer in short sleeves in the 40 degree weather and talk about how awesome the Bears would be with Russell Wilson at the helm.
Unrealistic expectations aren’t always a good thing — but they always make for good conversation. Enjoy those conversations.
A buddy of mine texted me last night and asked me if I would trade Zach LaVine and Kris Bryant for three years of Russell Wilson. My answer was yes, for a variety of reasons. But that’s not the point.
The point is that a hypothetical presenting a situation that literally could not happen got my wheels turning on a Thursday night at 10 p.m.
I’ll be bumping Ciara this whole Friday, that’s for sure.
There’s an ongoing poll up on SGCTC’s twitter page (which you all should follow, @stillgottaChi) of who you’d rather have for four first rounders and an established good player. Many of you may say neither.
But through two hours of voting, it’s almost perfectly split between the two.
Again, if you didn’t read Wednesday’s newsletter, please do that now for the more thorough breakdown of this run that the Bulls are on.
After Wednesday’s win over the Timberwolves, though, the Bulls are now the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. The 6th seed.
Now, there’s a very tight race between the four through ten seeds. At any point if the Bulls go through a losing streak, they could be back on the outside looking in. And that’s okay. We will stay the course.
But the Bulls are the goddamn 6th seed right now and it’s hard to contain my excitement.
Wednesday night was a must-win because the Bulls are headed through a gauntlet in their schedule now.
Tonight, they play the Suns, who are a top team in the league. Then they play one of the other hottest teams in basketball in the Toronto Raptors on Sunday. The day after they play the Denver Nuggets, and on Wednesday they are at the Pelicans — who are a very talented team that’s trending upwards. A day later, they play the Eastern Conference-leading 76ers, and then have to play the Miami Heat that Friday.
This Bulls team is competitive in every game, and they’ve surpassed almost everyone’s expectations. But I’m urging you to not panic if the Bulls falter from time to time during the rest of this season.
They have the 7th hardest schedule remaining in the NBA. To make matters worse, their back-half schedule — which was just released — includes 37 games in just 67 nights. That’s a frequency of games that just doesn’t exist in a normal season.
Regardless, the Bulls continue to get better. Some of the games that seem like automatic losses now won’t seem that way soon.
As long as the Bulls do not trade any key pieces, like Thaddeus Young, they should be in place for a playoff spot by year-end.
There’s been an ongoing debate over whether the Bulls should sell high on veterans and cash in on assets. I get the concept.
But the Bulls are finally relevant in the league again. Players are finally seeing an All-Star represented from Chicago. People are taking notice to the upwards trend that they’re on.
Do I think a first round pick is worth tearing a lot of that down? At this point, I just do not.
Draft picks are great, but especially with the uncertainty of the lottery, they’re not the end-all-be-all that some people think they are.
A playoff berth now will do a lot more for the Bulls in the future than a draft pick or two will. That’s just my opinion. There’s finally something good going on here, why stop it?
The Bulls have two ESPN games on the back-half, which is undoubtedly thanks to their first-half performance. These things matter more than people believe. Kyrie and KD went to Brooklyn after they did a lot with a little. Kawhi and Paul George did the same with the Clippers. Chris Paul chose the Suns after they went on a run of their own in the bubble, and showed they were worth going to.
Competency and competing can go a long way. Upgrade in the offseason. For now, let things ride. Let the good times roll, Arturas.
If the Bulls win tomorrow at home against the Suns, they have a chance to take over the 4th seed. Let’s do it.
LETS GO BULLS.
The Blackhawks just beat the Blue Jackets twice in a row, which puts them at 11-6-4, and at 26 points. That 26 points, as I mentioned Wednesday, is already more than 50% of the way to Vegas’ preseason over/under total for them of 49.5 points.
We’re just 21 games into a 56 game season.
The impressive part of the Blackhawks current hot streak is that they’ve won in a variety of ways. Thursday’s game was an unentertaining one through two and a half periods, but the Hawks pulled out a 2-0 victory in the back half of the final period.
Two days prior, playing the same team, they eked out a 6-5 victory in a shootout.
That’s been the theme of this season, sort of finding ways to win. That mix of different types of wins, in some ways, has proved to me that this isn’t a total fluke.
Today, Malcolm Subban pitched a shoutout in front of the goal. The story has been goaltender Kevin Lankinen this year. He struggled the other day, and then Subban comes in and performs incredibly.
The savior again was Kane in the third period. Not a surprise there.
I’ve beaten this drum, perhaps a bit too much at this point, but Jeremy Colliton has got to be a top-2 candidate for the Jack Adams award, which goes to the best performing coach each year.
There’s just not another team performing as well than the Blackhawks right now, considering talent and expectations.
The Hawks now have a back-to-back on Saturday and Sunday against the last-place Red Wings.
That’s two more very winnable games up. Let’s go.
Thanks for reading! Again, if you missed the longer, better version of this week’s newsletter, make sure to check that out here.
Have a great weekend.
Man Chicago in general is just buzzing as a whole and I love it. Even if some of it revolves around hope. That Schefter tweet is hilarious. “I don’t wanna be traded but if I was this is where I wanna go.” Definitely wants to be traded. I personally would rather have DeShaun. I think leading the league in yards with that roster is incredible. He’s younger, faster but does have much less experience. Russ is a proven winner. I would kill for either of them and will speak it into esixtence that we will get one of the two. Who would you rather have?
I’m happy you said you wouldn’t wanna trade anyone at this point. There really is no need to break this up. They are winning games and becoming more and more of an attractive place to play. I mean the Bulls are a top 5 franchise when it comes to value and they have been ass for basically a decade. Future continues to be bright. I can’t wait to see how they come out of this skid of tough games
Even though Andrew tried to cut me off at the pass, I will be that guy. Trading three first rounders for a good QB doesn't solve for the fact that the fault in this team is the coach and the play calling. So, you end up with, a better QB but the same shitty offense and NO FUTURE!
Also, by now, his friends in the league have reached out and told him to avoid Nagy! Not going to happen.
Also, vehemently opposed to trading Thaddeus Young. Don't mess with the chemistry.