Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Still Gotta Come Through Chicago
Bears get smoked again and Matt Nagy is no longer holding up the mirrors
This week in Chicago:
Bears: Noon at home vs. Lions
Bulls: Tomorrow at home vs. Lakers, 7 p.m., Wednesday at Atlanta, 6:30 p.m., Saturday at home vs. Rockets, 7 p.m.
Blackhawks: Tomorrow in San Jose 9 p.m., Thursday at home vs. Vancouver 7:30 p.m., at Pittsburgh on Saturday 6 p.m., at home vs. Toronto on Sunday at 6 p.m.
Table of Contents:
Bears recap, THREAD—Where do the Bears go from here? Should Matt Nagy be fired?
Bulls week in review
Blackhawks week in review
White Sox trade
Mitch Trubisky preseason 2017 historical perspective
MACTION betting picks
Sorry for the late newsletter today, SGCTChicagoans. The entire thing was deleted at midnight and I considered moving to Alaska and throwing my computer out.
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Trivia: Only two teams in the last three years have gained less than 10 yards in the first half—the Bears on Sunday and who else? (Answer at end of the Bears section)
Let’s get right into it:
Bears fans’ relationship with Matt Nagy is hard to explain. The only metaphor I can think of that makes sense (with some explanation) is a drunk conversation.
When you’re talking to someone and you’re both under the influence, any conversation can turn into a fruitful one. This past weekend I talked to a friend of mine about him opening a pizza shop in a few years for about 45 minutes. I woke up the next morning and thought fondly of that conversation.
If I was sober, I would’ve gotten up the next day and said “Why the fuck was that guy going into great detail to me about how he was going to make his square-cut thin crust pizza in the oven, in his imaginary pizza shop?”
The first feels like the 2018 Bears. Nagy was drunk but we were too, intoxicated by the trick plays, unprecedented roster health, #1 defense, and of course—12 wins.
The 2019 Bears feel like the same conversation, but we’re all sober this time. The BE YOU mantra and hoo-rah talk doesn’t work anymore. The T-formation to open the game just looks dumb. And we’re not buying that the guy leading our offense to 9 total yards of offense in the first half (lowest total in 40 years) is some offensive guru.
If he had his choice, I bet he’d go back and take four wins away from last year. The Bears go 8-8, he doesn’t win Coach of the Year, but expectations are lower. Because, after all, the expectations he played a part in setting are ultimately going to get him fired.
Nagy has talked a lot about adversity. We all know the saying: the true test of a person is not whether they face adversity or not, but how they respond to it when it inevitably does.
Right now, Matt Nagy has faced that test by skipping question one, skipping question two, then raising his hand and asking to go to the bathroom so he can try to look up the answers on his phone.
Game notes:
Matt Nagy elected to punt on Philadelphia’s 44-yard line on 4th and 6 with the Bears down 19-7 late in the third quarter.
CHI decided to punt to PHI from the PHI 44 on 4th & 6 with 2:46 remaining in the 3rd while losing 7 to 19. With a Surrender Index of 19.45, this punt ranks at the 98th percentile of cowardly punts of the 2019 season, and the 97th percentile of all punts since 2009.The Bears were 3-4 and down two touchdowns. What exactly does Nagy have to lose at this point?
The Bears were down 19-0, then scored twice to go down 19-14. If you go for two both of those times, at worst, you’re down 19-12 and still losing by a touchdown. If you get one of those conversions, you’re in the same place. If you convert both, you’re only down a field goal at 19-16.
More on the refereeing later, but why did the Bears not challenge the non-call offensive pass interference on Zach Ertz during his second-quarter touchdown? He clearly shoved Kyle Fuller’s face mask before catching the pass. Why a flag was thrown and then picked up, I have no idea. But there’s no reason a challenge flag shouldn’t have been thrown in that situation. Again—what do you have to lose?
Why is Adam Shaheen on the field on the biggest offensive third down of the entire game? Even worse, why was he targeted? Why was he targeted two yards from the line of scrimmage when the first down marker was nine yards away? A better question at this point is probably—why is Adam Shaheen still on this team? More on him later.
If you were skeptical of the idea that the defense has played more deflated because of the offensive struggles, re-watch the second half of yesterday’s game. When the Bears offense showed a sliver of competence, the defense once again looked like a top-5 unit and it was evident that new life had been gifted to them. There was both body language and auditory evidence that the defense’s mindset had changed once the game seemed in reach. It turns out that when there’s actually a chance your team will score when given the ball back, it motivates you more to give them that chance.
Still, the Bears defense was again out there for over twice as much time as they were off the field. A 40:18-19:42 possession split is not a winning formula.
Back to the referees. That Ertz non-call is inexcusable. So was the pass interference call on Fuller in the first half. I’m well aware that the NFL has been stubborn when it comes to overturning these calls. I probably wouldn’t have challenged the Fuller PI because of that. But when the call impacts the game as much as Ertz’s did, you have to pull out all of the stops. And how about the “roughing the passer” on Nick Williams? You cannot give the offense 15 yards and a first down on a failed third down conversion because the quarterback was lightly pushed a split second after the ball was thrown. The refs are there to regulate the game, not change it. It’s becoming increasingly frustrating to watch the NFL at all with these kinds of calls.
Jordan Howard appropriately ran for 82 yards and a touchdown and David Montgomery dropped a crucial pass on a screen play that had the chance to net the Bears a rare big play. I’m not saying that the Bears made the wrong choice with Montgomery or Howard, but remember when the front office couldn’t stop patting themselves on the back for the move? The football gods have strange ways of bringing hubris-stricken people back down to Earth. Both the above and 2nd-round pick “Baby Gronk” (Adam Shaheen) being a disaster in Sunday’s game were just the next steps.
The Bears are now a bad team that 1. doesn’t have a franchise quarterback 2. or cap space moving forward 3. or draft capital. That, my friends, is just about the worst spot you could be in.
Comment on this week’s thread—Should Nagy be fired? Where do the Bears go from here?
Trivia answer: Matt Nagy was calling the plays in both instances. On Sunday vs. the Eagles and when he took over for the Chiefs in late 2017.
Bulls:
The Bulls are 2-5 and three of their losses have come after they held significant leads in the fourth quarter against bad teams (Hornets, Knicks, Cavs). Another loss against the Pacers (right after the Bears game, great!) was a double-digit loss to a team missing its three best players (Victor Oladipo, Damantas Sabonis, and Myles Turner).
Why does a relatively talented team lose games in this fashion? The answer could be rebounding—they’ve accumulated a 68-rebound deficit in just seven games. It could be the defense—a team allowing over 108 points to bad teams will always struggle. And when your “star” player (Zach LaVine) is one of the worst defensive players in the NBA it doesn’t help. It also doesn’t help when that same “star” player (his words, not mine) is hellbent on controlling the offense down the stretch and uses that privilege to shoot awful shots and commit turnovers.
If I were to have dressed up for Halloween, I would’ve worn a LaVine jersey and carried around shots of tequila and bourbon (get it? bad shots? no?). That would’ve been a funny costume to about two people in the world, total, so I decided against it. When your “star” player plays basketball like an older kid at a middle school pick-up game, refusing to give up the ball or play team offense, you will always struggle.
But most of this can be chalked up to bad coaching. Jim Boylen is simply not capable of doing anything productive for a basketball team besides kissing the asses of the front office and clapping at inappropriate times during the game. Other team just went on a 12-0 run? Clap it up. The Bulls just allowed back-to-back wide open threes? Clap it up.
It’s not just about the now, either. The bad coaching our young players are receiving now will take years to correct. For Wendell Carter Jr. (20 points on 90 percent shooting at Indiana), Lauri Markkanen, Coby White, and “All-Star Zach LaVine”, this is troubling news.
At this point, I genuinely think the Bulls would be better off in crunch time without LaVine on the floor. He is so worried about getting a shot for himself that it ends up as a self-sabotage for the offense.
I’ll be writing about the Bulls throughout the week and posting it on the Twitter feed, so follow @stillgottaChi.
As to my over season win total bettors, keep the faith. The Bulls incompetence won’t steer us away from our one goal. FiveThirtyEight’s predictor still has the Bulls winning 34 games, which is exactly where we need to be.
Blackhawks:
The Hawks had a three-point weekend, losing in overtime to the Kings on the first half of a back-to-back and winning in overtime over the Ducks on the second half. But they’re still 6th out of seven teams in the Central Division at 4-6-3.
Jeremy Colliton has been Matt Nagy-esque at his press conferences. In other words, he could really use someone telling him that he hasn’t won anything and that the guy he replaced (along with multiple players on the roster) won three Stanley Cups without him.
Brent Seabrook was visibly upset about his healthy scratch last week and even said he still thinks he could be a good player for “somebody” moving forward. Things seem to be just great in the locker room.
The Hawks have been engaging in some nifty PR, announcing that third overall pick Kirby Dach would stay up with the team throughout the season a day after getting smoked by Nashville. A couple days after that, when it was tough to find any positive storyline about the team, they announced that they were calling up Adam Boqvist, the 8th overall pick in the 2019 draft.
If things don’t improve rather quickly, jobs could (and should) be at stake at the United Center. If you fire a hall of fame coach and then don’t improve with the 34-year-old no-name you were insistent on hiring, that leads to bad optics, both from the fan and player perspective.
Baseball:
The Sox dealt Catcher Wellington Castillo and international draft pool money ($250k) to the Texas Rangers for Jonah McReynolds, who is a prospect capable of playing the corner infield positions and outfield. The Texans will buy Castillo out and end up with international draft pool money that they didn’t have before. The Sox will end up with a guy who hit .239 as a 23-year-old in “A” ball last year.
But hey, at least they won’t have to watch Wellington Castillo play baseball anymore.
Historical perspective:
This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. Does anyone remember Mitch Trubisky’s 2017 preseason? I remember where I was in his first game ever, for crying out loud. We thought we had ourselves a quarterback.
Here are Mitch’s 2017 preseason stats:
18/25, 1 TD, 0 INT
6/8, 1 TD, 0 INT
10/15, 1 TD, 0 INT
The more I’ve thought back to that 2017 preseason, which is why we were all so ready for him to replace Mike Glennon (well that among other things), I’ve realized how badly Mitch has actually looked of late. What happened?
“Trubisky throws to Shaheen. Boy, the Bears would like that combination to be around for a long time.”
Preseason or not, you cannot convince me that Trubisky looks better—or even as good—now as he did in his first game ever.
Betting Pick:
MACTION IS BACK!
An EASY win last week for the Heat over the Hawks. You would’ve won that if you took it when you got the letter or if you took it at game time. Still, the line shifted by 3 points so make sure you put these in immediately if you plan on heeding my advice. Record: 15-8-1
This week’s pick: Western Michigan -7 at home vs. Ball State on Tuesday (ESPN2)
Unofficial MACtion picks: Kent State +7.5 at Toledo on Tuesday (CBSSN), Miami (OH) +7 on Wednesday (ESPN2)
Again, I apologize for the late letter today. Let’s get a good conversation going in this week’s thread. Thank you as always for reading and thank you for telling your friends to subscribe. Big things are coming, let’s get as many people on board for the ride.