Category: Chicago Bears

Buckeyes Will Squeak By With Gator Bait: Frank the Tank’s 2006-2007 BCS Bowl Picks

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Basketball, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports6 Comments

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It’s only a few days until we ring in the New Year, which means it’s also time for the BCS bowls. Last year featured a pretty good lineup of games, but this season leaves a whole lot to be desired as evidenced by the touchdown-or-more point spreads with the exception of the Rose Bowl. Regardless, here are my BCS bowl picks against the spread:

(1) Rose Bowl: Michigan (+1) over USC – As an Illinois fan whose continuous dream is to one day be able to spend New Year’s Day in Pasadena to watch the Orange and Blue compete, it’s going to be strange to see a Rose Bowl where both participants are utterly disappointed to be there with USC blowing a chance to be in the national championship game on the last day of the regular season and Michigan feeling jipped by the BCS system. The Wolverines have a bit more of a chip on their shoulders and the defense is simply stifling, so I’m giving Michigan the edge in what will probably be the closest of any of the BCS matchups.

(2) Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma (-7) over Boise State – The Smurf Turf won’t be in place at the Pink Taco, nor will it be able to stop the return of Adrian Peterson. With the Rose Bowl and a couple of intriguing Big Ten vs. SEC contests with Penn State – Tennessee in the Outback Bowl and Wisconsin – Arkansas in the Capital One Bowl already occurring earlier in the day, I can’t think of a less enticing capper to New Year’s Day.

(3) Orange Bowl: Wake Forest (+10) over Louisville – The over/under on the number of minutes into this game where I’ll be wishing for that Oklahoma – Boise State matchup: 12. I foresee Louisville prevailing in terms of the final score, but this spread is way too large for a subpar defense that played a Big East schedule. Take the points here.

(4) Sugar Bowl: LSU (-9) over Notre Dame – The Tigers are playing a virtual home game in the Superdome with a charged up fanbase celebrating the Sugar Bowl’s return to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina disaster. Meanwhile, the Irish continue to be perpetually overrated despite failing in every single true challenge they’ve faced over the past two seasons (USC twice, Ohio State in last year’s Fiesta Bowl, Michigan this year). Give the points here.

(5) BCS National Championship Game: Florida (+7) over Ohio State – Ohio State is winning this game, but I’m wary of the 7-point spread here considering that the Buckeyes only beat Michigan by 3 (granted, that game wasn’t as close as the final score) with a huge home field advantage in Columbus. (Sidenote: While the Florida basketball team ended up pounding Greg Oden and Ohio State in Gainesville last Saturday, we could very well end up with the national championship games in both football and basketball this year featuring the same 2 schools, not the mention the fact that the Gators could end up holding both championships at the same time if they prevail in Glendale. The 2001 Illini exacta of appearances in the Elite Eight and Sugar Bowl seems like eons ago.) The Ohio State defense is going to bend enough against Chris Leak and company where the game is going to be closer than what the prognosticators are saying right now. However, I’m as big of a believer in Troy Smith as anyone, so the Buckeyes are going to pull it out even though they won’t win it for the gamblers out there.

Enjoy the bowl games along with, in the NFL’s infinite wisdom, a prime time New Year’s Eve game between the Bears and Packers, which combined with the regular host of yahoos in downtown Chicago on that evening makes sleeping in the Primate House at the Lincoln Park Zoo a more appealing and certainly safer alternative. That being said, if you need to get rid of your tickets, feel free to call me up.

Happy New Year everyone!

(Image from MovieGoods.com)

WTF Rex???!!! and Land-o-Links for 11/6/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Basketball, College Football, DePaul Blue Demons, Golf, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, Music, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

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There are times when superior football teams play down to their opponents’ levels, such as Ohio State letting Illinois hang around on Saturday. The Bears performance yesterday against the Dolphins, however, qualified as an unmitigated disaster where we just got pummeled. (Kudos to TK for predicting both the Illini thriller and a Bears letdown on Friday. You can see in the comment section that I was a doubter at the time, but now I’m in awe of his Karnak-like prognasticative abilities.) Rex Grossman is showing that he’s either throwing for a 130 QB rating or a 30 with nothing in between. The Bears offensive line was shredded by Jason Taylor and company, which just shouldn’t happen when a five-time Pro Bowler is your anchor at center. Devin Hester, for all of his electricity on kickoff and punt returns, continues to have a nasty habit of starting to run before the ball is in his hands. The vaunted Bears defense looked hapless against Ronnie Brown and Joey Freaking Harrington out of all people. I just didn’t understand what was happening.

Not only that, long bomb threat Bernard Berrian is going to be out for 2 to 4 weeks with a rib injury, which means that the Bears’ vertical passing game might end up looking like what we had yesterday for the next month – as in non-existant. Even potentially worse, Brian Urlacher is going in for an MRI today after getting his foot rolled up near the end of Sunday’s game, so who knows what we’re going to do if he’s out for an extended period of time when Mike Brown is already on the shelf. It’s hard to say that the Bears are going to tank when they still have a 7-1 record (as Mike Downey seems to believe), but getting demolished by a straight-up piece of shit Dolphins team at Soldier Field just before two straight games at Jimmy Hoffa’s final resting place against the Giants and Jets and then another road game at Foxboro versus the continuously dangerous Patriots isn’t the way to inspire confidence with your hyper-analytic fan base.

At the end of the day, Rex needs to figure out at some point that if he’s feeling that his timing is off, he needs to simmer down and not chuck the ball thirty yards downfield into the hands of the opposing defense. I don’t agree with Rick Morrissey’s sentiment today in the Chicago Tribune that Rex should have been yanked for Brian Griese when it was evident that the younger quarterback was going to struggle all day (similar rumblings were made at a lower level in the wake of the Arizona “They Were Who We Thought They Were” game but subsided when the Bears put up 41 points in the first half against San Francisco last week). Switching out the starting QB is not the same as taking out your starting pitcher for a reliever in baseball – the ramifications from a QB change have a much greater long-term impact than just one game. If you live or have lived in Chicago, you know that the coverage of the Bears during the week can be all-consuming when they are in last place, much less contending for a berth in the Super Bowl, so a potential QB controversy ought to be the last thing anyone wants here. The Bears, so far, have won a lot more than they have lost with Rex and his gunner’s mentality at the helm, so it would be foolish to jump off the badnwagon so quickly. That being said, until Grossman can calm down on those days when everything’s not there for him, the Bears are going to be at a severe risk of losing more games to inferior teams.

Enough of the Bears rant… here are today’s links:

1) Illini Give Gritty Effort vs. Ohio State (Mark Tupper Weblog) – As mentioned before, one of my football teams gave a great effort in a losing cause this past weekend, but it wasn’t the Bears. (Okay, I’ll seriously stop with the Bears rant.)

2) Top 50 Basketball Player Finds DePaul (Chicago Tribune) – In other news, one of my alma maters is going to sign great college basketball recruiting class this week, but it won’t be Illinois. (The Eric Gordon-to-Indiana rant, however, will continue for the foreseeable future. If you thought T.O. returning to Philly was ugly, just wait until the Hoosiers visit Champaign on January 23rd.)

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3) Kenny G Blows Away All Musical Golfers (Yahoo! News) – I enjoyed Alice Cooper’s comment that golf is “The Crack of Sports”.

4) When Being a Fake Rock Star Is Better Than the Reality (Wall Street Journal) – Speaking of musicians, real rock stars seem to love Guitar Hero.

5) Einstein, Hawking… Manning? (Minneapolis Red Sox) – I agree with Minneapolis Red Sox here – there’s no real reason why I should dislike Peyton Manning and Colts, yet they always seem to rub me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because I grew up on smash-mouth Bears and Big Ten football and cannot stand it when the national media slobs the knob of sexy offensive teams that can’t play a lick of defense. As a result, I get a perverse joy out of watching those types of teams get demolished in the playoffs.

6) I Am a Fairy (Chronically Insane) – Parental advice on how to tell your kids that everything that they’ve known and loved has been a sham.

7) Assessing Bob Barker (Slate) – The price is wrong, bitch!

And finally…

8) ‘Wedgie’ Gets Principal 6-Day Suspension (San Francisco Chronicle) – The principal was sent to the principal’s office!

As the late Richard J. Daley would say, vote early and vote often tomorrow.

(Images from Chicago Tribune and Rolling Stone)

The Bears Are Who We Thought They Were!

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, NFL Football, Sports5 Comments

By the middle of the fourth quarter of last night’s game between the Bears and Cardinals, I was pretty convinced that this was going to be the capper of the one of the worst sports weeks I’ve endured in a long time. Illinois basketball lost its prize recruit in Eric Gordon, Illinois football managed to lose to a MAC school, and the White Sox might need a new starting shortstop since Juan Uribe could soon be rotting in a prison in the Domincan Republic by the time next season rolls around. However, at that point, the sports gods made up for it all and then some. I don’t know how much more I can add to the commentary on the ridiculous comeback by the Bears within the last five minutes of the game against Arizona. I’m still on a buzz after witnessing the Bears give up six turnovers yet score three touchdowns without the use of its offense. Windy City Gridiron posted some initial thoughts on the Bears side, while Deadspin’s Will Leitch, an avowed Cardinals fan (both Phoenix football and St. Louis baseball), will almost certainly be under suicide watch if the Mets end up winning tonight. Honestly, that was one of the most thrilling ends to any football game that I’ve ever seen, much less one involving my favorite NFL team on the winning end. A few other thoughts:

1) I profusely apologize to Jerry Angelo for ripping his draft picks this past spring. Devin Hester alone has made that day a success for Bears management. Once again, I’m sorry.

2) Brian Urlacher proved again why he’s one of the biggest superstars to ever come out of Briscoe High. There are only a handful of defensive players ever that have almost single-handedly taken over a game the way he did in the fourth quarter last night.

3) There was no doubt in my mind that Neil Rackers was going to miss the field goal at the end. Not only is he cursed by being an Arizona Cardinal, but there’s also been an obvious hex on all Illini not named Steve Chen over the past couple of weeks. There might as well been the Bambino throwing a black cat in the middle of the field while riding a billy goat.

4) The everlasting memory from this game will almost assuredly be Dennis Green’s postgame press conference (shown above uncensored), which I believe will rank up there with Jim Mora’s “Playoffs?!” tirade and Rick Pitino’s speech about how “Larry Bird’s not walking through that door”. I must have watched Green’s press conference at least a dozen times since last night and I still (a) can’t figure out who they thought we were and (b) laugh my ass off every single time.

And finally…

5) There’s certainly a lot of critical analysis on tap about Rex Grossman’s putrid performance and how our defense allowed the Cardinals to pass unabated in the first half, but considering that there’s plenty of time to talk about that since the Bears are heading into a bye week, we’ll save that for later. For now, let’s just enjoy one of the most stunning comebacks in the history of Monday Night Football. Hooray Bears!!!

Land-o-Links – 10/10/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports2 Comments

Prediction for next Monday Night’s game: Bears 423, Cardinals -7.

On to today’s links:

1) A Message From Chad and Steve (YouTube) – With hundreds of millions of Google stock in his pocket at age 28, it looks like Steve Chen has leapfrogged me as the most successful member of the Class of 2000 from the University of Illinois.

2) Rocky Horror Football Show (Chicago Tribune) – Eric Zorn’s history of the “There’s a Timeout… Where?… On the Field” ritual between the Soldier Field PA announcer and Bears fans. (Question for the Illini faithful out there: didn’t we do this long before 2000 or is my memory colored? Help me out here!)

3) Zook Defends Decision To Go For Two Early (Chicago Sun-Times) – Initially, I thought Florida fans would have eaten even Bill Belichick alive if he were the first Gator coach to follow Steve Spurrier, but now I’m starting to realize why Ron Zook didn’t last very long in Gainesville.

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4) Most Overexposed Celebrities (Forbes) – No surprise at #1 here, although K-Fed can never be too high for my tastes.

5) Steve Irwin Memorial Meast of the Week – Week 5 (Kissing Suzy Kolber) – A fitting honor for our beloved Bears defense.

And finally…

6) IHEARTBACON.COM – I want to eat my computer right now.

(Image from Deadspin)

I Doubted the Madden Jinx and Got Punk’d (Plus Other Random Thoughts)

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports6 Comments

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I’ve tried to avoid much fantasy sports talk on this blog, but I need to vent here. I heard all of the calls prior to the season about the Madden Jinx and that I should avoid drafting Shaun Alexander for my fantasy football team. However, I’m way too left-brained to believe in such theories, so I ignored all of such talk and grabbed the Seahawks running back when I got the number three pick in one of my drafts (although I would have taken my main man LaDainian Tomlinson if he had been available). Needless to say, we’re not even a month into the season and Shaun Alexander went ahead and broke his foot, meaning that he will be out indefinitely. With the long list of marquee players (compiled nicely by the SportsColumn Blog) either having injuries or numbers drop off drastically immediately after being on the cover of Madden, I’m now a full believer in the jinx. Some other random thoughts:

1) Bears Escape the Hump Dome – Without Tommie Harris, the Bears would have lost Sunday’s game against the Vikings. That being said, Rex Grossman showed that he could rebound from a Favre-esque aggressive mistake with a clutch play at the end. At the same time, it was jarring to no longer see Mike Tice prowl the sidelines in Minnesota after he was hired away in a bidding war by Isiah Thomas to be an assistant coach with the Knicks.

2) Juice Needs Some More Fermenting – Ron Zook finally decided to start Juice Williams at quarterback on Saturday for the Illini, which resulted in the freshman not completing his first 450 passes of the game. I’ve come to the point where I was actually ecstatic when the game was still scoreless near the end of first half for Illinois (although Iowa promptly scoring three touchdowns in the last five minutes of the second quarter snapped me out of my semi-joy). What kind of crack/smack/crank hybrid was I smoking when I said the Illini were going to make a bowl this season?! I’m sure all of you have learned by now to never take me seriously on anything.

3) Sparty Crying in His Irish Coffee – I’ve watched countless Bears and Illini games in my lifetime, which means that I’m a certified expert in pathetic football performances. Therefore, I can unequivocally tell you that Michigan State played the worst fourth quarter I have ever seen in my life against Notre Dame on Saturday. I don’t think anyone watching that game on Saturday thought there was any way that the Irish would come back against the Spartans. In fact, the Chicago Tribune that arrived on my doorstep on Sunday morning, which was published before the game ended, had headlines and a page-long article proclaiming MSU’s dominance along with ripping the lackluster performance of Notre Dame. With the new college rules in place that make the clock run faster than even the NFL and the way that Michigan State was running the ball, even the worst coach could avoid giving up three touchdowns in the final quarter, right? Well, the flurry of turnovers, botched play calls, and the continued insistence of the Spartans to run the option even though they kept getting stuffed as opposed to using their 260-pound running back to pound the ball downhill (it should be noted that ABC announcer and former Notre Dame coach Bob Davie said on multiple occasions that MSU ought to keep using the option to keep the Irish off-balance, which is empirical evidence of why he is no longer coaching anywhere). Congratulations, Michigan State – your 2006 team picture is now next to the definition of “fugly” in the dictionary. I’m not even a Spartan fan and I was mortified by that performance, so you can only imagine how the Enlightened Spartan feels. I think I just saw John L. Smith’s head roll by my desk.

A post-mortem on the disappointing White Sox season will come at some point. Until then, enjoy your Tuesday!

(Image from Wikipedia)

Hooray Bears! Frank the Tank’s NFL Preview 2006

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, NFL Football, SportsLeave a comment

Last week it was the start of college football, while the pro game kicks off tonight. Here’s my preview of the Bears and the rest of the NFL:

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1) Super Bears Super Bowl? Uhhh… – The people of Chicago are in their typical manic depressive mood about the Bears. On the one hand, the team is returning all of their starters from the 2005 NFC North champions, which includes one of the top defenses in football in the past decade. At the same time, the Bears finally have an experienced backup quarterback in Brian Griese just in case Rex Grossman snaps a leg again (better than even odds on that one). As a result, Bears fans are riding high with optimism going into this season.

However, most Bears fans are clairvoyant enough to realize that there aren’t only holes in a historically anemic offense, but the vaunted defense isn’t impenetrable, as well. As I alluded to above, the quarterback situation looks alright with Grossman, Griese, and our champion drinker Kyle Orton. The problem, though, is that those quarterbacks still have little to throw to outside of Mushin Muhammad as of today while having an unsettled situation in the backfield. Is Mark Bradley going to stay healthy enough to become a viable #2 wide receiver? Can the Bears incorporate the tight ends into their passing schemes even though the club didn’t use an opportunity to upgrade at that position through the draft? Will the team ever settle on an appropriate way to use both Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson at running back? Can we bring Matt Suhey out of retirement so that we have a viable fullback again? In the six weeks since the start of training camp, none of these questions on offense have been fully answered.

Meanwhile, the defense isn’t necessarily going to continue on an upward trajectory. The cornerback position is on the uptick with computer nerd beater Rick Manning Jr., but that’s countered by the injury situation with Mike Brown at safety. While Brian Urlacher has the national attention, Nike commercials, and 98 rating on Madden ’07, the performance of the Bears defense really depends upon the presence of Brown more than anyone else. Remember how Steve Smith was more open than the gap between the teeth of Flavor of Love’s Buckwild (if you took every single guest in the history of the Jerry Springer Show and put them into a blender, Buckwild would be the resulting smoothie) against the Bears in the playoffs last season? Well, it just so happened that Mike Brown had to sit out of that game due to injuries. That wasn’t a coincidence at all. If Brown is healthy and able to avoid the injured list, the Bears defense is going to improve upon last season with a stronger secondary. On the other hand, if Mike Brown ends up missing several games, the Bears are going to have a hugely disappointing year on the defensive side of the ball.

I don’t put too much stock in the fact that the Bears supposedly have the weakest schedule in the NFL based upon last year’s records since parity is so rampant in the pro football. However, I do believe that the rest of the NFC North is awful on the field and every single team in that division other than the Bears has a new head coach. This means that, at the very least, the Bears should be able to back into the playoffs even with some holes on offense and defense. How far they can go after that, though, depends upon whether they can answer all of those offensive questions and Mike Brown is healthy. I put the over/under on regular season wins for the Bears at 10.

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2) NFC North Final Standings Prediction – As I said above, the Bears can back into the playoffs with these guys as the prime competition, although Minnesota and Detroit aren’t as bad as advertised. There’s no hope for the Packers. The projected NFC north standings: (1) Chicago Bears, (2) Minnesota Vikings, (3) Detroit Lions, (4) Green Bay Packers.

3) NFC East Final Standings Prediction – ESPN is going to slob the knob of the NFC East as being the best division in the NFL all year long. If you’re smart, you’ll ignore this sentiment and bet heavily against whoever comes out of this division in the playoffs. This division is definitely the most competitive from the standpoint that every team has a chance to finish on top, but that’s due to parity as opposed to quality. With or without Terrell Owens, the Cowboys are still a team where a geriatric Drew Beldsoe is battling for a spot with a quarterback from Eastern Illinois, which is not exactly the mark of a Super Bowl contender. That being said, when it comes to non-Bears games this season, I’m a whole lot more interested in the Dallas-Philadelphia matchups than the overblown “Manning Bowl” coming up on Sunday night. In fact, I think Philly will recapture a little bit of pre-T.O. debacle magic this year and surprise a whole lot of people (even though they shouldn’t be a sleeper considering that they made the Super Bowl two years ago). The projected NFC East standings: (1) Philadelphia Eagles, (2) New York Giants, (3) Dallas Cowboys, (4) Washington Redskins.

4) NFC South Final Standings Prediction – In terms of pure athletes, this division is stacked with Michael Vick, Reggie Bush, and Steve Smith. In terms of teams, there’s only one true Super Bowl contender, which is Carolina. Jon Gruden is due for some success, though, so I foresee a wild card spot for Tampa Bay. The projected NFC South standings: (1) Carolina Panthers, (2) Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Wild Card), (3) Atlanta Falcons, (4) New Orleans Saints.

5) NFC West Final Standings Prediction – This division looks like the run-and-shoot west of the 1980s all over again. Seattle, St. Louis, and Arizona are all going to have high octane offensive units. I can’t tell you much about San Francisco other than the Niners still suck and have a really young quarterback at the helm. The Seahawks will continue to be the class of the division while the Rams will bounce back to take the second wild card spot from the fashionable pick of the Cardinals. The projected NFC West standings: (1) Seattle Seahawks, (2) St. Louis Rams (Wild Card), (3) Arizona Cardinals, (4) San Francisco 49ers.

6) AFC North Final Standings Prediction – This division is the real class of the NFL as opposed to the NFC East. Pittsburgh has the returning Super Bowl champs, Cincinnati looks to be back on track with Carson Palmer back in the fold, Baltimore will still have a top tier defense, and Cleveland has some playmakers on both sides of the ball with Willie McGinest and my main man Reuben Droughns (okay, Reuben isn’t exactly as barn burner, but I’ve got him as a #2 running back on one of my fantasy teams, so here’s to hoping). The Steelers and Bengals are locks to make the playoffs out of this division. The projected AFC North standings: (1) Pittsburgh Steelers, (2) Cincinnati Bengals (Wild Card), (3) Cleveland Browns, (4) Baltimore Ravens.

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7) AFC East Final Standings Prediction – I’m going with old reliable here with New England. Miami is going to be an extremely interesting team with Daunte Culpepper in the fold, if only for the fact that a boat party on the Atlantic Ocean off of South Beach has got to be a step up over anything that could possibly be put together on Lake Minnetonka. I’m a believer in the coaching skills of Nick Saban, so I’ll slot the Dolphins as a Wild Card team this season. Feel free to ignore the team from New York and also that one from New Jersey called the Jets. The projected AFC East standings: (1) New England Patriots, (2) Miami Dolphins (Wild Card), (3) Buffalo Bills, (4) New York Jets.

8) AFC South Final Standings Prediction – NFL prognosticators across the world pick Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts to win the Super Bowl before the season starts. Indy blows through the regular season with mind-blowing offensive stats, perpetuating the belief that they are unstoppable. Manning picks apart a subpar defense in the Wild Card round with a numbing number of audibles at the line of scrimmage, cementing the perception that he’s a quarterbacking genius. The Colts then get “stunned” in the next round of the playoffs by a team with a great defense (i.e. Steelers or Patriots), which leads to everyone questioning whether Manning can win the big one. Lather, rinse, repeat. The projected AFC South standings: (1) Indianapolis Colts, (2) Tennessee Titans, (3) Jacksonville Jaguars, (4) Houston Texans.

9) AFC West Final Standings Prediction – On fantasy football draft boards across the nation, a Chiefs running back was the consensus #1 pick. If he wasn’t taken in the first spot, he was almost certainly gone at #2 or #3. The name of that player was Priest Holmes and the year was 2004, which was only two seasons ago. Flash forward to 2006 and we see the current Chiefs running back, Larry Johnson, in the same vaunted position. Maybe it’s just me, but isn’t the whole reason why Johnson rose in value so quickly was because Kansas City employed a platoon at the running back position and the reason why he got so many carries last year was that Holmes got injured? Even with a new head coach in Herman Edwards, is there any reason why the Chiefs wouldn’t go back to a tandem running back corps with a solid runner in Michael Bennett as the #2 guy? LJ is going to score a bunch of touchdowns, but his rushing yards aren’t going to be anywhere near what they were last season. Those that took division rival LaDainian Tomlinson, however, are going to be very happy. Back to real life… The projected AFC West standings: (1) Denver Broncos, (2) Kansas City Chiefs, (3) San Diego Chargers, (4) Oakland Raiders.

10) Super Bowl Prediction – I love my Bears, but I just don’t see a better team than Carolina in the NFC this season. In the AFC, I believe that Tom Brady is out for blood money after that ugly performance against Denver last year. Since the AFC is once again several steps above the NFC in quality… New England Patriots over Carolina Panthers.

And finally…

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11) Remembering Sweetness – When I was a young kid back in the mid-1980s, I owned an NFL Films video called “The NFL’s Greatest Hits”, which was a compilation of bone rattling tackles and hits by defensive players that would be penalized today in the wussy world that bans spears with the helmet and protects the quarterback like a piece of Waterford crystal. In middle of this ode to the great defenders of the day such as Lawrence Taylor and Mike Singletary, however, was a segment on Walter Payton. NFL Films included a special reel of Payton runs where he put his shoulder down and smacked the guys that tried to tackle him back five or ten yards. With apologies to Barry Sanders, that highlight reel epitomized why Walter Payton was and is the greatest football player of all time – never before and never again will you ever see another running back, or for that matter, any offensive player, get canonized on an NFL Greatest Hits video.

I searched all over YouTube for this film but wasn’t able to find it. However, I did come across this awesome Walter Payton montage that will give even the most hardened Packers fan goosebumps – I’ve already watched it ten times. If and when the Bears or whoever your favorite team is fumbles in the red zone or blows some coverage on a mediocre wide receiver this season, think back to this Payton film displaying a man that had the ultimate combination of class, skill, work ethic, and competitiveness. He’s the reason why I fell in love with sports. Rest in peace, Sweetness.

(Images from ImageShack, eBay, Deadspin, and Encarta)

Leinart, Lachey, and Land-o-Links for 8/29/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports3 Comments

I can start thinking about the White Sox again, but I will continue to just ignore what my eyes are telling me about the Bears offense. By the way, regardless of what anyone might have thought of him at USC, Nick Lachey’s wingman Matt Leinart (or maybe it’s the other way around) looked incredible for the Arizona Cardinals while playing against the first team Bears defensive unit on Friday night. I know I’ve said before that the NFL preseason is worthless, yet it’s still pretty impressive when a rookie is able to more than hold his own against one of the league’s supposed top defenses. Of course, how great can the Bears defense be if they can’t stop a rookie, no matter how great he was in college? At least I can take solace in that the Packers look worse than ever. Here are today’s links:

1) Big Ten Preview (Views From Life on a Bench) (from Deadspin) – An entertaining look at the upcoming Big Ten football season, but I was curious as to the hateration for our Illini uniforms. Then, I found out that we are getting new uniforms this season, which include some Miami Hurricanes-style piping for our standard jerseys and then a special orange incarnation (a variety of which has appeared before). Let’s just say that my eyes haven’t burned this badly since K-Fed’s “performance” last week. Look, I love our orange basketball uniforms, but we really need to shelve the monochromatic orange football unis. Teams such as Penn State, Michigan, and Notre Dame are dressed to play football. Our Illini, however, are straight out of a Charlie Brown Halloween special.

2) Watch What You Snap (Chicagoist) – Don’t let the terrorists win. Be alert of those people taking pictures of, uh, Metra trains.

3) Do Not Draft Domanick Davis, People (Deadspin) – I cannot tell you how close I was to drafting Domanick Davis in my first fantasy football draft of the season this past Saturday – it was between him and Reuben Droughns for my #2 running back. On a split second decision, I went with Reuben because, well, that’s a damn fine sandwich. Plus, I’ve had Davis on at least one of my teams for the past two years and he has provided diminishing returns since David Carr’s passer rating has hovered in the low teens (the football equivalent of the Mendoza Line should heretofore be called the “Carr Line”), which gave opposing defenses the opportunity to stack 11 teams in the box against the Texans. Still, until I saw this, I had a little bit of buyer’s remorse since Davis historically has put up decent receiving numbers in addition to his running stats. For once, the fantasy football gods might have thrown me a bone. In the real football world, it’s a good thing for Houston that they took Reggie Bush with the biggest no-brainer #1 draft pick since Peyton Manning. Oh, hold on a second…

4) Web Guitar Wizard Revealed at Last (New York Times) – The identity of funtwo has been uncovered. If you haven’t seen this kid’s technically astounding rock rendition of Pachelbel’s Canon on YouTube, here you go.

5) NBC Expresses Regret for Air-Crash Skit (Washington Post) – The P.C. brigade marches on. By this logic, ABC will need to apologize for airing “Lost” in the first place.

And finally…

6) Hip-Hop Infused Poker Show Coming to Television (AllHipHop.com) – Something tells me that this is going to be a cross between the World Series of Poker and Wilmer Valderrama’s latest MTV vehicle “Yo Momma”, which means that this is a virtual lock to be the greatest program in the history of television.

(UPDATE: Speaking of Matt Leinart, it looks like he’s going to be a daddy.) 

Football vs. Football: Pro or College?

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports4 Comments

To me, there’s no question that the college game is superior to the pro game in the basketball world. Even though I enjoy the NBA and believe that, pound for pound, its players are the best athletes in the world, it doesn’t hold a candle to the passion associated with college basketball from the first game of the regular season up until the Final Four.

Comparing college football with pro football, on the other hand, is a much tougher task for me. ESPN.com is currently running a debate on which style of football is better, with Ivan Maisel supporting the college game and Len Pasquerelli championing the NFL. Choosing one over the other is kind of like asking a mother which child is her favorite or whether it was more shocking to find out that Liberace was gay versus Lance Bass – if there’s any answer at all, we’re definitely splitting hairs here. From my personal perspective, the fact that the earliest concrete sports memories that I have are of the 1985 Bears Super Bowl season means that the NFL has the oldest roots of my sports fandom (as well as creating a lifetime of unreasonable expectations for the Bears). On the other hand, as I’ve mentioned previously, since I’ve gone to college, there is now no team that I care about more in any sport at any level than the Illinois Fighting Illini (which has been great for basketball, but not so hot lately for football), meaning that the college game has deeper roots for me.

Obviously, the quality of play is going to be higher in the NFL since the players re paid professionals as opposed to amatuer students, so that’s a given. However, there are a whole host of other factors that are in play here in a best-of-seven format:

1) Watching Teams That You Care About – I don’t care that the Packers are owned by the citizens of Green Bay. If you went to a BCS school, the allegiance to your college program runs deeper than anyone could ever have with a pro team.  As of yesterday on Stubhub.com, the least expensive tickets (where you can buy at least a pair) for the New Year’s Eve game between the Bears and Packers, which is the NFL matchup with the highest demand in one of the most expensive scalping markets in the country, are $175 apiece.  In contrast, the cheapest tickets for the September 9th game between Notre Dame and Penn State in South Bend (and these are among the worst seats in a stadium with nearly 20,000 more seats than Soldier Field) are currently $725 each.  When a regular season college football game can command higher ticket prices than the Super Bowl, you can see who has the most obsessive fans.

EDGE: College Football

2) Watching Teams That You Don’t Care About – While I program the Illini and Bears schedules into my electronic calendar every year, I’m also the type of guy that will end up watching a whole lot more football games that don’t involve my teams at all. On the college side, there are the superior rivalries (see #3 below), where the classic games end up getting names like the “Game of the Century” and are are talked about years later in the manner of the great heavyweight boxing matches involving Muhammad Ali or Joe Louis. However, NFL football has the fantasy football component, which means I suddenly end up having a vested interest in nearly every game on the docket. As Adam Smith would say…

EDGE: NFL Football

3) Rivalries – I’m saying this as someone that prays at the alter of the rivalry between the Bears and the Packers: the NFL has nothing on Michigan vs. Ohio State, Army vs. Navy, Florida vs. Florida State, Texas vs. Texas A&M, Alabama vs. Auburn, and a host of other college rivalries.

EDGE: College Football

4) Postseason – I’m hoping that one of these days, the BCS college presidents will accept my modest proposal for a playoff system that uses the bowls. Until then…

HUGE EDGE BY DEFAULT: NFL Football

5) Television Pregame Shows – On the college side, ESPN has an immensely entertaining pregame show hosted by Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, and Lee Corso that is on location as part of the tailgate scene at one of the top games of the week.  For the NFL, there is a choice of an extra hour of Joe Buck, the unstoppable yapping of Chris “YWML” Berman, or an Isotoner gloves spokesman.

MONSTER EDGE: College Football

6) Offseason Activities – When the season is over, pro football has the NFL Draft, which I believe is usually more entertaining than the Super Bowl itself.  As for college, there are spring football practices and middle-aged guys with receding hairlines complaining on internet message boards about the school choices of pimply-faced 17-year kids.

EDGE: NFL Football

7) Miscellaneous – College football has great marching bands, fight songs ingrained in your brain, extreme tailgating, the way Keith Jackson pronounces “A-LA-BAM-A!!!”, drunk student cheering sections, perky cheerleaders, real mascots, and school pride.  Meanwhile, NFL Football has booze at the game that you don’t have to smuggle into the stadium in a flask, Madden NFL for the PS2 or Xbox 360, cheerleaders that were trained at the Admiral Theatre, a plethora of teaser bets, and the gift that keeps on giving with the Super Bowl Shuffle.  It’s a tight one here, but this has got to go this way…

EDGE: College Football

So there you have it.  College Football slightly edges out NFL Football 4-3 on the preference scale for Frank the Tank.  It would be even more preferable if Illinois could win a Big Ten conference game or two each season.  Regardless, I’ll be a happy man in September when the Bears and Illini are both back on the gridiron for real again.

Preseason Blues and Land-o-Links for 8/5/2006

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, Land-o-Links, NFL Football, Random Thoughts, Sports5 Comments

I love football. It doesn’t matter whether it’s pro football or college football – I’ll watch it all. I run multiple fantasy football teams every year. There have to be monstrous extraneous factors for me to miss watching a Bears or Illini game. However, for all of this love for the pigskin, there’s one thing that doesn’t excite me at all: preseason football.

Even though my heart flutters a little bit when NFL training camps open, preseason football just doesn’t do it for me. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll most likely end up watching the Hall of Fame Game this weekend along with all of the Bears preseason games (not to mention that a number of professional gamblers believe that the preseason presents great betting opportunities). Yet, as opposed to whetting my appetite for the upcoming regular season, which is what spring training does for me with baseball, the NFL preseason is an excruciatingly long month that puts me on edge.

The reason is that the NFL preseason has absolutely no correlation with what occurs during the regular season. (Random Factoid for Use in a Bar Bet – Question: What was the Bears’ preseason record before their 15-1 Super Bowl season in 1985? Answer: 1 win, 3 losses.) While the third game of the preseason is usually when teams leave their starters in for the most amount of time, the ultimate goal for most head coaches is to make sure they don’t have too many injuries going into the season opener. That means the average preseason game might see the starting units on the field for the first quarter, at most (I doubt we’ll see Rex Grossman take snaps for more than a series or two per game). After that, it’s a cacophony of scrubs trying to grab a third-string spot or a place on the practice squad. That’s not real football. At least in spring training baseball games, there is a feeling that the game of baseball is actually being played with the players that are going to be out there everyday.

There is nothing better in sports than a football game where both teams are playing at the highest level. However, preseason football is a bastardized version of this great sport. That being said, I’ll still watch it, though. On to today’s links:

1) Best Sports Cities 2006: Welcome Back, Chicago (Sporting News) – It’s no contest.

2) Zook’s Latest Coup Gives Hope (Mark Tupper Weblog) – How many “risks” are going to be acceptable for Ron Zook to take in order to get the Illini football program back on the map? Illinois just enrolled Melvin Alaeze, who was the number one rated defensive end in the nation out of the high school Class of 2005 but had his scholarship to Maryland rescinded because he (a) failed to qualify academically (which concerns me since Illinois is considerably more difficult to get into than Maryland) and (b) has some problems with the reefer. Of course, something tells me that if he really is the faster and stronger version of Simeon Rice that the scouts claim and Illinois turns into a perennial bowl game participant that we believe it should be, we’re going to end up forgetting these details within the next couple years. It’s somewhat sad, but it’s true everywhere in big-time college athletics.

3) Wee, Wee, Wee – Half the Way Home (Siberia, Minnesota) – Some of my Illini brethren have been foiled again. It’s probably a good thing that Facebook didn’t exist when I was in college (and an extremely good thing for Minneapolis Red Sox).

4) Whoa, Wait – You Meant That? (Chicagoist) – This is what happens when the Chicago City Council fails high school economics.

5) Bears Need Offense to Help Defense (ESPN.com) – The Bears training camp report filed by John Clayton AKA Bill Gates’ Dorkier Little Brother. Interesting tidbit: only one Bears team over the past 10 seasons has averaged more than 21 points a game, which was the 2001 club that averaged a huge 21.1. Bleh!

6) Top Ten Will Farrell SNL Skits of All Time (TK) – For anyone that has ever wondered, I seriously have had the nickname of Frank the Tank since my tenure at Brookwood Junior High at the beginning of the 1990s, which was long before Will Farrell’s character of the same name ever appeared in Old School.

frank_the_tank.jpg
And finally…

7) Write Your Very Own Sports Guy Column (The Chicago Sports Review) (from Deadspin) – Bill Simmons AKA The Sports Guy on ESPN’s Page 2 is one of my favorite columnists on any subject, whether it’s inside or outside of the sports arena. Over time, he has developed a distinct writing style which has influenced plenty of writers out there (including myself), where a column on a sports topic is heavily interspersed with reality TV show and ’80s pop culture references. In fact, Simmons’ writing style has become so pervasive that it was only a matter of time that someone put up a “Mad Libs”-style form to create your own Sports Guy column. You can take a look at my end product, which is on the next page, but you really need to try it out yourself first before reading anyone else’s versions in order to get the full effect.

(UPDATE: The real Sports Guy has new mailbag column today, where he provides an apt description of the cab line at the Las Vegas airport.)

Continue reading “Preseason Blues and Land-o-Links for 8/5/2006” →

Clueless Bears, Houston Has a Problem, and Other NFL Draft Thoughts

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Bears, NFL Football, Sports4 Comments

I watched NFL Draft coverage from its start on Saturday morning until my eyes finally glazed over after the Bears' second pick in the second round about seven hours later. After all of that "work," here's my synopsis of the event:

1) WTF, Bears?! – If you read my NFL Draft preview on Friday, you know that I'm not surprised that the Bears traded out of the first round on Saturday. However, there's nothing quite like watching the NFL Draft for four hours in anticipation of your team making a pick, getting excited because the top-rated and fastest wide receiver in the draft in Chad Jackson is unexepctedly there for the taking at the #26 spot, seeing the Buffalo Bills all of the sudden go up on the clock signaling that the Bears traded their first round pick, and then having to go online to find out exactly what happened since that blowhard Chris Berman and his ESPN crew didn't bother to explain the details of the trade (instead, Boomer chose to yap about how Bryant Young's uniform was hanging behind Steve Young, who was doing a live remote from the 49ers lockeroom, where Boomer then spent ten minutes about how it looked like Steve had his own jersey ready for a comeback attempt and blah blah blah blah redrum redrum).

Even better is waiting until the second round and seeing Sinorice Moss, another speedy wide receiver, fall into the Bears' lap in the second round yet watching Chicago take Danieal Manning, a defensive back from Abilene Christian (I won't knock Division 1-AA schools as a general principle only because Jackson State blessed the world with Walter Payton, but let's just say I was confused here considering we just signed a cornerback in Ricky Manning Jr. The only way this could possibly work is if Manning can play safety in order to spot oft-injured Mike Brown). The Bears then used their next pick in the second round to grab Devin Hester, another cornerback, who really will be used as a kick returner. That's fine, but I question this move when Hester's Miami teammate Moss could have been grabbed earlier which would have shored up both our kick returning and wide receiver needs in one swoop. Add in the fact that we subsequently failed to draft a tight end and I've got to tell you that I'm not impressed with the Bears' draft.

2) Mario "Sam Bowie" Williams – It's not Mario Williams' fault that he was the first pick in this year's NFL Draft. I wouldn't expect him to tell the Texans that they made what could turn out to be the most boneheaded mistake in NFL history by picking him over Reggie Bush when he's being offered the richest rookie contract ever. I'm sure Mario Williams will become an upper-tier defensive player. However, unless Williams at the very least becomes the Reggie White of his generation, Houston's decision to pass on Bush is going to be the football equivalent of the Portland Trailblazers taking Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan. I don't know if I've ever seen more of a sure thing to hit it big at the pro level than Reggie Bush in my lifetime, so the Texans either have the cajones of a bull or are recklessly endangering their franchise. Early returns point to the latter.

3) Jets Fans Have Some Brains – I was fully expecting the largest cascade of boos in the history of the NFL Draft (and that's saying something) when it was apparent that the Jets were going to be taking an offensive lineman over Hollywood heartthrob quarterback Matt Leinart. The average Jets fan would boo his own son being picked if he didn't believe that the move fit into the team's schemes. However, I was thoroughly impressed to see the Jets faithful at Radio City Music Hall applaud the pick of D'Brickashaw Ferguson at #4. I've got to give the Jets fans credit – they knew that a flashy QB wasn't nearly as important to their team as getting some semblance of protection for the QBs that they already have. New Yorkers might be loud and insufferable, but they have a pretty high collective sports IQ.

4) Leinart Comes Tumbling Down – Speaking of Matt Leinart, after the Titans and Jets passed him up, pretty much everyone knew that he would be dropping to at least the #10 spot since all of the teams in between had more pressing needs than quarterback. This goes to show you that if you are coming off a national championship in any sport and are projected to the #1 pick in the draft right afterwards, you've got to turn pro immediately for your own sake. Leinart was a complete lock to be the #1 pick last year if he had come out then but has now given up millions of dollars and didn't even win another national championship in the process. Apparently, basketball counterpart Joakim Noah hasn't learned anything from the Leinart experience.

5) Packers Scary Again – The proverbial "grass is always greener" line applies here, as uber-Packer fan Minneapolis Red Sox has bemoaned the Green Bay draft. From my perspective as a Bears fan, the Packers are back on the radar because they now have a defense again (which is more important for 2006 than Brett Favre returning). The combination of signing Charles Woodson and then drafting A.J. Hawk is going to give Green Bay two legitimate playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. (By the way, was it just me or did half of Ohio State's starting lineup on both offense and defense get drafted this past weekend? A lot of people believe that the Buckeyes will be the #1 college team this fall, yet it looks like they're going to have to replace a ridiculous number of people. Troy Smith better continue improving at the same rapid pace as he did last season if they're going to come close to meeting those expectations. Otherwise, I'm shorting OSU this year.) I don't buy Minneapolis Red Sox's thought that A.J. Hawk is the reincarnation of Brian Bosworth – Hawk, rather than being an underachieving showboating pompous ass, is one of the hardest-working players you'll ever see. Sure, the Packers are still going to need to develop a pass rush at some point (and I'm not in a rush to see that happen), but this is a great start.

All in all, it was another fun NFL Draft. I just hope that I'm wrong about the Bears.