ChicagoSportsBlogs : Non Compete

Many of you have heard the news. David Terrell has been released. It was an easy decision to make after yesterday's addition of  Muhammad. I think Terrell wasted his opportunity. Some would argue the past coaching regime didn't give him any opportunity to begin with. One thing is for sure, we have implemented two new football design patterns before even mini-camp begins: Addition through Addition, and Addition through Subtraction.

Sorry to get all geek on you guys, but I couldn't help it. The two moves are going to improve our team dramatically. The only question left is how much impact will these two moves have on the next big post season event, the draft. I'll do some coverage of the combine and the college prospects as I get my act together.

I read a quote in the paper this morning from Jerry Angello:  "There are as many busts in free agency as there are in the draft, so let's not get stupid with money.” Clearly we already know what he thinks of  the 31 year old Muhsin Muhammad. He is not a waste of money. We welcome him and his 16 TD catches last year with open arms. It seems we wasted little time. The Carolina Panther's loss is our gain. Muhammad is a good wide receiver. Proven. He has speed and he has talent. He does what receivers are supposed to do: CATCH THE FOOTBALL. The fact he can score after he catches the ball is gravy in my book. The question this evening is what happens to David Terrell? Personally, I think the only thing keeping him in Chicago is a court order and a ankle bracelet.

Looks like Angello knows his time might be up in Chicago. I like this first move. What you guys think? If you are curious about how much money we “wasted” in free agency: ESPN reports $12 million in total guarantees and $16 million over the first 3 years of a 6 year deal. Who wants to go shopping for a Porsche! Hell, make that a Ferrari.

I woke up this morning to a fantastic story sitting in my RSS reader. Go read it.

I am jealous of the relationship the Boston Red Sox fans have with New York Yankees fans. I wish the Cubs fans and the Sox fans in this city would pay attention. It's not what you think. I get tired of hearing them fight over Babe Ruth, A-Rod, Jeter or whatever it might be this week. I am sick of seeing them positioned on sports news shows as the story in baseball. Give me a break already with that nonsense. I grow tired of it. But this practical joke is different. It's two winning teams jawing at each other. It's classy organizations, with classy fans that show up to the polo match and switch the sugar for the salt during tea time. It's what happens when you both are great teams. You're both winners now. No need to fight it out like hooligans at a soccer match.

The fans elevate their game as well. No need to tell mother jokes any longer, Boston got their series. It was sweet as hell too. Insurmountable odds! Textbook finishes, and a fantastic comeback. So what if it was 80 years in the making. All it took was one win, and the nastiness vaporized. I don't claim there is more mutual respect between these teams, cities, or fans. There probably isn't. But winners jaw at each other differently. They argue about how many championships they have. The rivalry seems different now. Boston is an upstart team that isn't going to let the Yankees step on them.

This is starkly different in Chicago for a number of reasons. First, we are cross-town rivals. We are also in two different leagues. That keeps us from really building a solid rivalry. Cubs fans and Sox fans hate each other because of the opposite ends of the city are so different. The North siders are a bunch of Land Rover-loving yuppies who care about “hooking up” at the ballpark than the actual game. The Southsiders are blue collar, pick-up driving, trashy stiffs. They go to games to get away from all the drywall dust they breathe in while at work. How wrong both sides are. What we both are is a bunch of losers. Mediocre at best, and that only shows up as frequently as Haley's comet. The bottom line is that we trash talk about how crappy each other's ballparks are. We don't argue over our championships. We don't have any. We take low blow cheap shots at each other. How many times have we heard about corked bats, or wife beatings, or jokes about the Cuban National Team playing on the SouthSide (that one is new). Wrigley is a dump, the food sucks. The Cell is appropriately named. Crap like that. If we ever held a contest like the one mentioned in this article do you think we could avoid cracks like these? No. When your teams are crap, you have to resort to things like “The beer sucks at Wrigley” or “It's easier to park at the Cell”. I look forward to the day when we can crack jokes like “Only 1 more championship to catch up!”

Well, well, well. It looks like someone at the Vikings organization was paying attention. My main man, Randy Moss is going to get traded to the Oakland Raiders. That's the news coming out of Minneapolis tonight. ( I started writing this late last night). The Vikings get  Napoleon Harris and a first round draft pick. Not quite what I expected them to get, but it still gets the job done. The Bears will benefit greatly from this transaction when it is finalized. If it is finalized. I can't believe this thing leaked a week before trades are allowed to happen. This will have impact on the NFC North. Especially on the Bears, who couldn't cover Moss to save their lives. Peanut Tillman excluded of course.

The NFL combines are starting soon.(already started? Anyone in Indy?) Let's hope Angello brings his reading glasses with him. One final word of advice, don't let him pick our next quarterback. It's just a suggestion.

The Bears released Jonathan Quinn, Medicine Woman yesterday. They are also hinting that Jeff George is going to be sent on his merry way too. It's safe to say the release of Quinn is not a surprise. He was touted as a reliable backup quarterback by our former offensive coordinator Terry Shea. It turned out that Shea was wrong. He lost his job as a result of this mistake, and now Quinn gets to move on to another team -- or perhaps retirement if he knows what's good for him. With the release of Quinn, and the eminent jettison of George, the Bears are going with Hutch, Grossman, and Krenzel at QB. There are other QBs who are being thrown around this week as potential invites to camp. They include Garcia, Bledsoe, Warner (enough already), Griese, and Brad Johnson. The list could continue forever. Our illustrious GM has learned from his mistake last year. He is going after a proven, starting-capable quarterback. I wonder if Grossman is nervous today. I would be if someone like Warner or Griese shows up. This sounds like a good poll -- I'll get right on it.

Back in 5!

It's finally here. Spring training has begun. Therefore, it's time to start over-analyzing this past off-season's transactions. The major White Sox transaction this off-season is the one that never happened. The lack of contract for Mags. Kenny Williams and staff will either look like geniuses or morons when it's all said and done. How's that for walking a tight rope?

I for one can understand not wanting to extend an offer to a guy who had a questionable bill of health coming into this season. I can also understand why the organization would want to avoid negotiating with Ordonez's new agent, affectionately known in these parts as “The Devil”. The whole situation reeks of common sense. I want to sign a player because he is going to produce for my team. This player is coming off an injury, and before I can sign him I'd like to see him run the bases a little. Please? Nope. That didn't happen. Instead we read about it in newspapers and on blogs how Mags has a bum knee and is damaged goods. The rest of the league is scared off by these reports. The rumors had him signing a one year deal to prove he is healthy. The reality of the situation became clear until the Detroit Tigers showed up.

Ordonez showed up to camp 3 days early for the Tigers. He must have walked on water to get to the ballpark. Everyone is acting like they have seen a miracle. He participated in every drill. He ran sprints. He hopped around in the outfield. He even smacked a few balls out of the park during batting practice. The Tigers must be quietly optimistic about this season. In the White Sox case, I wonder how long before we can say the same thing.

Baseball is back and its going to be a good year in Chicago, or in Detroit, depending on who you believe.

My good friend, and former contributor Shaj316 stopped over for some breakfast yesterday. (Bagels, eggs, and some spicy breakfast sausage for those of you who are hungry.) Our discussion floated back and forth between the relevance of the blog and quality of news in general. This was an interesting discussion. Especially when we got to the sports bits. Specifically, the new Jose Canseco book. You don't need my little site to tell you that Canseco is giving Barry Bonds a run for his money as the most hated man in baseball. Steroid allegations from the monstrous Canseco are no surprise to either me or my pals. What is surprising is that there are people who think that Canseco is lying. I don't agree with this assessment. Canseco is being portrayed as a spoiled sport or a traitor to his fellow players. He is violating an unspoken, unwritten, but understood rule of clubhouse secrecy. Is this courageous? Is this just an another example of a bitter former star who is going broke and needs a payday?  I believe it might be a little of both. While Canseco is an arrogant, unpleasant human being who probably needs the cash -- there is no way all this stuff is fabricated. The publisher's lawyers went through this manuscript and removed things that could not be substantiated. These people aren't stupid. They know the liability. They know the lawsuits are on the way. Canseco might have embellished a few things, but his base claim that there are guys who were doing steroids is true in my opinion. The old school way of playing baseball died off as soon as these guys started getting bigger -- illegally.

I don't know if it was the league's desperate need to bounce back from multiple business threatening work stoppages, or the extra endorsements some guys got from smashing homers. Maybe it was the simple desire for a Sports Center highlight every night. It could have been our fault as fans. We cheer like mad when the ball flies out of the park. Not in the stands folks, but out on Waveland. We even have new stadiums that have been built with targets surrounding them to make it that much more exciting. Smash a homer into the bay! Crack one over the fence and into an apartment building. Slug one onto the roof! We love the long ball. I think it's time we go back to the basics. Perhaps the Canseco book, whether true or false will change people's opinions on the game. Perhaps we will stand up and let players and league alike know we want a clean game and we want it now.

I'll cut to the chase. I thought that was a great game. I was admittedly on the fence pre-kick off as far as who I would back in this game. I knew that it didn't matter who I would root for. The Patriots would complete this season, once again, as NFL Champions. Congrats to the coaching staff and the players for winning their 3rd Superbowl in 4 years. I will come clean and admit that I wanted to see Donovan win a ring. He just wasn't sharp enough to get the job done. So let's jump into a brief rant on a few things I noticed about SuperBowl XXXIX (did I get that right?!)

• Donovan McNabb was either super nervous at the start of this game, or he had too much caffeine. He was not sharp early. He over threw receives a bunch of times. He would eventually calm down enough to throw for a touchdown early in the game, but I got the sense he was just out of his element the entire game. Yes, even when he made that amazing throw in the fourth quarter with 1:40+ left to play.
• T.O. is the man. I was afraid that he was going to be a decoy. I was more afraid the Eagles and Coach Reed's staff would take a page out of the Vikings playbook and have T.O. pretend to be Randy Moss. Boy, am I glad I was wrong. Strong work to T.O.
• Brady is a born winner. I have hated on him in the past. I can admit to being rough on my evaluations of Mr. Brady since his days at the Big M. But no more. I can't deny it, you can't deny it. Winner.
• Jim Miller -- What's that you say? Why am I mentioning a former Bear QB? Because he got a ring holding a clipboard. Add Colvin and Traylor to the mix for a big Congrats.
  [UPDATE:I clearly was smoking crack when I wrote this -- it was former Bear Keith Traylor, not Teddie Washington. Thanks to our devout readers for pointing this huge mistake out.]Rosie was quoted on the local news as saying something like “Keep sending those Chicago guys up here“. Great.
• Let's see how good the Pats are next season without their Defensive and Offensive coordinators.
• The halftime show was vanilla. Sort of like the Bears offense.

Overall, I would say this was a very good game to watch. I could handle the nerves at the start of the game. It was entertaining enough that I wasn't constantly heading to the fridge to get a beer. That is, until that half time show started. It was a great season for the NFL, ratings be damned. We got a chance to see arguably the two best teams fight it out for the championship and in the end, the best team won. Here's to hoping the Bears get into the mix next season. Now, on to baseball!

Yesterday was the big Letter of Intent day for high school football players. It's a big deal for some fanatics out there. It is also a big deal for the schools, parents, and kids. This is one of the most difficult decisions an athlete can make.  For the parents it most likely comes down to getting a free ride for their son's education. For the kids, it's about going to a good program that could give them that shot at becoming either a college football hero, or perhaps a future NFL player. The schools need to generate revenue. Football (surprise, surprise) is big money for universities. Yes, they want to educate the kids. Everyone wants to educate the kids, but they need cash to do it. Football brings in a good amount of this cash. Winning programs generate millions of dollars for schools, and it all starts with building it off this recruiting class. There are a ton of sites out there that cover this stuff in great detail. I'm curious as to how they come to some of their conclusions, and as a result I'm off to find someone who can explain it. So if you're curious, stick around and perhaps we will get lucky with an interview or two about this subject.  If you are really curious, head off to Rivals.com and start reading.

Sammy is gone. Finally. Be careful what you wish for Cubs fans! I still don't see how losing Alou, Sammy, and Clement is going to make you a playoff team...but then again I don't see how the Sox are going to be one either. Speaking of the Sox, does anyone else think that Scott Boras is sticking it to us by having the Tigers offer Mags a real deal worth $50 million? If he is healthy, it's not going to be pretty on the Southside...We will have to sit down and discuss all the MLB happenings right after the Superbowl finishes...

Stay tuned for some other big news in the coming weeks as we get ramped up to cover baseball this season. The site is still being rocked by spammers, so bear with me as I try to clean this mess up.