Jim Dabrowski

OTA's, mini-camps, rookie camps, etc. are all over, the Bears are in hibernation for a brief period and the real training camp is about to begin next week. Therefore it's time for me to talk about their off season and make my predictions for the 2022 season.

As everyone knows, the Bears fired their head coach and GM at the end of last season and replaced them with GM Ryan Poles and new Head Coach Matt Eberflus (Ryan and Matt? Again?) I'm not going to rehash all the discussion around who they hired and why or whether they are good choices. They're here and we have to wait and see how they perform.

In my opinion, Ryan Poles' primary goal this season is to see whether Justin Fields is going to be the franchise quarterback all of Chicagoland hopes he is. Like it or not, we just don't know yet. In college, he demonstrated lots of talent but his first year in the NFL was not very encouraging. Flashes of really good play combined with a lot of rookie mistakes. We can argue all day about whose fault all that was, but at the end of the day, he didn't perform all that well and we don't really know what he'll do in the future. Therefore that is Job #1 for Poles.

During the draft, Poles spent his first two picks on the defensive side of the ball leaving many fans confused and angry but I can respect the plan. With those additions and a defense-minded head coach, the Bears defense this season should be good. Not great, not the best in the league, but better than average. I think they'll certainly be in the top half of the league and may even squeak into the top 10. The defense will be good enough to keep the Bears in just about every game this season. This means that on the offensive side of the ball, winning or losing will be determined by how well Justin Fields and the rest of the offense execute. If Poles let the defense slide and focused solely on the offensive side of the ball like many fans wanted them to, they'd wind up being down 20+ points by half-time causing them to have to regularly abandon whatever offensive game plan they had. Not a good way to evaluate how Fields can play. So I like what Poles did on defense.

On the offensive side of the ball, many people wanted him to shore up the line and provide Fields with high-caliber wide receivers—and he didn't. I admit to my own concerns about the lack of overall talent on the offensive side, but disagree with the people who claim it will therefore be impossible to determine if Fields is truly a franchise QB. Regardless of how the line protects or enables the running game, regardless of whether the receivers can get open and catch the ball when thrown, we'll still be able to see whether Fields has what it takes to be a starting NFL quarterback. Does he make the right reads at the line of scrimmage and adjust the play calls accordingly? How does he react when plays break down? Does he know when to live to fight another day and throw the ball away or does he try too hard to make things happen and end up making things worse? Regardless of the team's record or his stats, by the end of the season if we're saying, "Man, if we had some better talent on this team, we'd be cruising to the playoffs and be legit Super Bowl contenders." we'll all know the future for the Bears is bright. If not, then we know we're back to looking for the QB of the future.

And now on to my prediction for the 2022 season. I'm firmly in the camp of believing Fields is a franchise QB and am looking forward to watching them this season. I predict they'll win 8 or 9 games with 2 or 3 of them due solely to Fields putting the team on his back and willing them to a win. By the end of the season we'll know he's the guy and 2023 and beyond will be looking bright for the Chicago Bears and their fans.

Go Bears!

JIm

I've been bothered by my Jekyll setup for my blog posting. I post so infrequently I found I'd forget how to post things, what the commands were, committing to git, etc. Too much friction for me and so whenever I thought of a post I'd like to do, I'd usually just say, "ugh" and not bother. What can I say, I'm lazy.

On my recent trip to Hawaii, I started to use my micro.blog site and I really liked it but I still wanted an easier way to do longer posts. So I decided to finally pull the trigger and move my site over to Wordpress. Today being a holiday here in the US (Memorial Day), I decided to spend the day doing just that.

AND IT WORKED! (well, mostly)

I got my whole site ported over, imported all my old posts, had some issues with the RSS feed, but I think that's working now (we'll see after I post this). Still don't have all the images updated. I think that's going to be a bigger project, but overall I'm happy now with what I have. We'll see if I actually write more here or not.

While importing all my old posts, I re-read my latest one and hoo boy! Was I wrong in there! In that post I said:

I think this much is clear: neither Nagy nor Pace are going to be fired after the 2021 season regardless of how it turns out. 

me :o

Oh well. As pretty much anyone who reads this knows, they were indeed fired and I have to say, I'm kinda happy with what the new guys are doing there. Still have some questions/concerns in my mind, but we'll see. Perhaps I'll post something longer and more thoughtful about the state of the Bears now that I have a nifty new Wordpress site up and running.

That's it. Take care. See you all around.

JIm

Unfortunately, my frustration continues. Today I read this article wherein the author says, “The Chicago Sports Alliance isn’t just issuing statements. It’s taking action.” Apparently the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, Sox and Blackhawks got together and donated $300,000 to a couple of charities in response to the Uvalde Massacre. This is considered “taking action”.

Let’s put this in perspective.

The Bears, Bulls, Cubs, Sox, and Blackhawks have a combined net worth of over $14 billion. They just donated .002% of their combined net worth to those charities, and this is “taking action”.

According to this site, the average Illinois resident has a net worth of just over $690,000. Keeping things proportional, this is like that average resident donating $14 to those same charities. I’ll bet most of those people with a net worth of $690,000 spend that much on lunch on any given day.

This isn’t “taking action”. Taking action would be publicly supporting political candidates who actually do something about passing legislation to end gun violence. Taking action would be actively speaking out against those politicians who don’t. Taking action would be allowing the entire team to boycott a game or more until meaningful change happens similar to what the Milwaukee Bucks did a couple of years ago. That would be taking action. Donating what amounts to pocket change so you can wipe your hands of the issue and feel good about yourself isn’t taking action.

Unfortunately, my frustration continues. Today I read this article wherein the author says, “The Chicago Sports Alliance isn’t just issuing statements. It’s taking action.” Apparently the Bears, Bulls, Cubs, Sox and Blackhawks got together and donated $300,000 to a couple of charities in response to the Uvalde Massacre. This is considered “taking action”.

Let’s put this in perspective.

The Bears, Bulls, Cubs, Sox, and Blackhawks have a combined net worth of over $14 billion. They just donated .002% of their combined net worth to those charities, and this is “taking action”.

According to this site, the average Illinois resident has a net worth of just over $690,000. Keeping things proportional, this is like that average resident donating $14 to those same charities. I’ll bet most of those people with a net worth of $690,000 spend that much on lunch on any given day.

This isn’t “taking action”. Taking action would be publicly supporting political candidates who actually do something about passing legislation to end gun violence. Taking action would be actively speaking out against those politicians who don’t. Taking action would be allowing the entire team to boycott a game or more until meaningful change happens similar to what the Milwaukee Bucks did a couple of years ago. That would be taking action. Donating what amounts to pocket change so you can wipe your hands of the issue and feel good about yourself isn’t taking action.

I’m so angry at our (I hate to use the term) “lame-stream media”. I tried listening to a podcast and of course they’re discussing the Uvalde Massacre and how or whether something political will be done.

Of course they talked about how after past massacres there seems to be momentum for change, but then “nothing happened”.

IT’S NOT THAT NOTHING HAPPENED!! It’s that ONE party, the Republican Party, refuses to do anything about the issue of gun violence. ONE PARTY refuses to bring any legislation to the floor. ONE PARTY filibusters anything that may actually make it to the floor. But the f-ing media never mentions that! They say, “nothing happened”, or they say “congress was unable to take action” without ever pointing out WHY nothing happened.

As long as the media refuse to lay blame where it belongs, the public will continue to be deluded into thinking it’s congress as a whole that is ineffectual when that simply isn’t true. It is the Republican Party that is solely responsible for the epidemic of gun violence in this country and the media refuses to say this.

Our democracy depends on a media that is unafraid of speaking truth to power and our media in this country is failing us.

I’m so angry at our (I hate to use the term) “lame-stream media”. I tried listening to a podcast and of course they’re discussing the Uvalde Massacre and how or whether something political will be done.

Of course they talked about how after past massacres there seems to be momentum for change, but then “nothing happened”.

IT’S NOT THAT NOTHING HAPPENED!! It’s that ONE party, the Republican Party, refuses to do anything about the issue of gun violence. ONE PARTY refuses to bring any legislation to the floor. ONE PARTY filibusters anything that may actually make it to the floor. But the f-ing media never mentions that! They say, “nothing happened”, or they say “congress was unable to take action” without ever pointing out WHY nothing happened.

As long as the media refuse to lay blame where it belongs, the public will continue to be deluded into thinking it’s congress as a whole that is ineffectual when that simply isn’t true. It is the Republican Party that is solely responsible for the epidemic of gun violence in this country and the media refuses to say this.

Our democracy depends on a media that is unafraid of speaking truth to power and our media in this country is failing us.

Misoyaki Butterfish

Ok time to get off that topic. Last night on Oahu, last night of our vacation. Dena and I want to Roy’s and had the most amazing fish I’ve ever had for dinner. Now time for dessert.

Misoyaki Butterfish

Ok time to get off that topic. Last night on Oahu, last night of our vacation. Dena and I want to Roy’s and had the most amazing fish I’ve ever had for dinner. Now time for dessert.

What can be done? I think we need to elect people who commit to passing responsible gun ownership laws at the local, state and federal level. If you own a gun, you should be held responsible for what happens with it. Jim Wright proposed this years ago and I think it makes sense.

What can be done? I think we need to elect people who commit to passing responsible gun ownership laws at the local, state and federal level. If you own a gun, you should be held responsible for what happens with it. Jim Wright proposed this years ago and I think it makes sense.