49ers @ Bears game prediction: In a low-scoring affair (fewer than 40 points in total) the Bears give us four full quarters of exciting football, keeping it close until the end, but fall to the Niners.
Source: Micro.blog Feed
49ers @ Bears game prediction: In a low-scoring affair (fewer than 40 points in total) the Bears give us four full quarters of exciting football, keeping it close until the end, but fall to the Niners.
We're on the eve of the 2022 NFL season (well, OK, it actually started on Thursday, but we all know Sunday is the REAL start of the NFL season) and there are 2 teams I'm interested in following—besides the Bears of course—and I have a couple of other thoughts to share.
Is one of the teams I'll be watching this season due to their hiring of Josh McDaniels as their new head coach. He famously became the coach of the Broncos in 2009 and quickly flamed out. His tenure there was not good and he himself admits he was too new, too controlling, too young, and wasn't very good. He goes back to New England and in 2018 accepts the head coaching job of the Indianapolis Colts but bails on them leaving them, coaches and coordinators in a lurch. Some thought he burned all his bridges and would never get another head coaching offer again, but along come the Raiders in 2022 and off he goes. I'm interested to see what he does there. How he coaches, how much he's learned and grown over the years since Denver. He's not lacking in talent there but that division is full of good teams. I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Are the other team I'm watching this season because they seem to have done what just about all of Bears fandom and media wanted the Bears to do: they've gone all in on Tua. They went out and spent a lot on high-priced veterans to surround Tua with the talent he needs to succeed. This is what most people wanted the Bears to do with Justin Fields. However, there are still questions as to whether Tua really is a franchise quarterback just like there are questions as to whether Fields can be a franchise QB. So this is an interesting experiment. Let's say by the end of the 2022 season it's clear Tua isn't—where does that leave the Dolphins? They'll be in a position where they need to go get a new QB high in the 2023 draft who will take at least a year or two to be really ready to lead the team, assuming the pick works out. Meanwhile all those expensive veterans they went out and got will be eating up cap space, getting older and their deals will be running out by the time the new guy is ready to lead the team. I don't know that's a good plan. The Bears, on the other hand, are taking a different approach. They didn't surround Fields with proven talent because Fields hasn't proven he's "the guy". Their plan is to find that out this year. If he is, then next season they will have plenty of cap space and draft picks to surround him with the talent he needs to succeed. If it turns out he's not, they go draft a new QB and it's rebuild all over again, but with a more or less clean slate. This will be fun to watch.
Aside from those two teams, there are two coaches that I find intriguing right now: Matt LaFleur of the Green Bay Packers and Sean McVay of the Rams.
Having lived in Wisconsin most of my adult life, I've been exposed to plenty of Packers media coverage. Watching the LaFleur tenure has been interesting. He came in as the new head coach and had to deal with the the notoriously prickly and sensitive Aaron Rodgers. By drafting Jordan Love, it seems clear the Packers were ready to move on from Rodgers if things didn't work out between him and LaFleur. But LaFleur was able to win over Rodgers, install a whole new offensive scheme, one Rodgers admittedly doesn't like as much, and keep him playing at a high level. When he was hired, I didn't think LaFleur would last. I thought the Packers were joining the pack in hiring any young guy who may have been somewhat influenced by McVay in the hopes he'd bring some of that Rams magic to the Packers. Now, I think he has shown himself to be a really good head coach who may just be in Green Bay for a long time.
As for Sean McVay, I'm beginning to think he may end up being known as one of the best head coaches in NFL history. He and the Rams GM, Les Snead, are doing things differently and succeeding at it. McVay isn't afraid to swap out players, define unconventional roles for them, find ways to get the most out of them, and work around their deficiencies. All the hallmarks of a good coach. Many coaches say they do that, or at least try to do that, I think few succeed. McVay is one that really does that. He's not afraid to try new things, and to change things up based on how the players and the league changes around him. As for the Rams organization, they've completely upended the way they go about acquiring players. They toss around draft picks like they're nothing, pay free agents tons of money to come there, and aren't afraid to let talented players go to other teams. I think in several years we'll look back and see that the Rams organization has changed the way many teams operate.
That's it for me for today. The NFL season is about to start for me and I'm excited to watch the Bears play the 49ers.
Go Bears!
JIm
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.
Source: Micro.blog Feed
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.
Source: Micro.blog Feed
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.
Source: Micro.blog Feed
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.
The Republican Party has consistently opposed any actions that would reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. If you vote for a Republican for any office you are supporting the continued mass murder of children in schools.
It’s that simple.
Source: Micro.blog Feed
The Republican Party has consistently opposed any actions that would reduce the epidemic of gun violence in this country. If you vote for a Republican for any office you are supporting the continued mass murder of children in schools.
It’s that simple.
Waikiki Beach
Made it to Oahu the other day on the last leg of our trip. We’re pretty much just planning on chilling here by Waikiki Beach. Might go do stuff. Who knows? We’re on vacation. 🙂
And finally made our way up to Waimoku Falls. That’s a really tall waterfall!!
Spent today at Kipahuna which is on the south end of Haleakala National Park. This is a bamboo forest we walked through on our hike up the 7 pools. That was amazing.
View of Haleakala crater
This was the view of Haleakala crater from partway down. We walked a couple of miles down. They way back up was pretty tiring!
View from my Bedroom Window
In Maui. Staying at a Honey Bee Sanctuary and this is the view out the open door of our camper van. That would be the island of Kaho’ olawe out there. Tomorrow, up to the top of Haleakala to do some hiking!!
Embarking on the second phase of our trip, heading to the island of Maui for 4 days.
See that lump in the distance behind the cliffs? That’s Maui! For most of our time here we thought that was on this island. Nope. That’s a whole nuther island. See you there!
Dena and I at a luau on our last night on the big island.
And before the sunset we walked through some lava tubes.
Sunset from our balcony
On vacation on the big island of Hawaii.
Pretty
Today Dena and I went for a hike in the San Tan Regional Park. It was a nice easy hike. About 4 miles but it was all pretty flat. The sun was out and it was kinda warm but we brought water.
Things are starting to bloom here in the desert. This is an Ocotillo cactus.
The creosote have some pretty yellow flowers with little white puff-balls on them.
I forget what this is called. Some sort of spiky thing.
And finally, watch out for rattlesnakes. A biker who just passed us saw it on the path up ahead and came back to warn us. That was very nice of them. By the time we got there, it moved under the bush. I kept my distance, the phone has a pretty good zoom on it. :)
That’s it. Had a good day so far. Catch you next time.
JIm