Bears Offense Looks Explosive

I'll preface everything that follows this statement by saying that it's only the preseason. The history of the NFL is littered with preseason MVPs who never amount to anything, and good preseason records ultimately mean nothing. Just ask Peyton Manning, whose previous team, the Colts, nearly always lost most of their games in the preseason only to move on to their typical 12 win regular season. But all of that aside, the Bears, in particular their first team offense, looked spectacularly explosive last night. It is potentially the most explosive Bears offense I have seen in 25 years, and yes, I realize that is not saying much.

Catching Up With Chicago Sports in a Post Bar Exam World

There's the bar exam, and then there's the post bar exam celebration. Both are epic in their respective ways, and both have prevented me from writing on this blog until now. So, in that spirit, why don't we catch up on what we, or maybe just I, have been missing since the last post on this blog? We'll start with the Bears, who are currently in the midst of training camp with football on the horizon. Keeping with football, we can quickly examine the past month or so of both Notre Dame and Illinois football, who have both recently started camp as well, not to mention the near constant unhealthy addiction that is college football recruiting. Of course, there's the Cubs as well. You know it's one of those seasons on the Northside when the players leaving and those coming from the minors draw more interest than what's actually happening on the field. Let's not forget our favorite off season teams either, where the Hawks and Bulls have taken somewhat different paths as both prepare for the upcoming seasons. In a way, it was nice to have sports taking a back seat during the bar exam (if you can call it that), because it allows me to take a look back at the past month or so with each team. Let's get to it.

Cubs Look to Future with Rizzo Call Up

Every fanbase gets excited when a top prospect gets called up to the majors. Baseball fans have this fascination with top prospects; they represent a bright future and a sign that changes are coming at the major league level. Fair or unfair, whenever a top prospect is called up the expectations are that the kid is going to be instrumental in changing whatever event that precipitated his arrival in the first place. Now, this could involve becoming the final piece of a possible winning team (see Mark Prior and the 2003 Cubs) or being "The Man" who is going to start turning everything around. Regardless, the promotion of a top prospect to the majors places enormous pressure on that young player. And for Theo Epstein and the Cubs, the pressure is two-fold. Not only do they watch Anthony Rizzo arrive in the same fanfare as similar prospects with all of the above that comes along with it - his call up also will be used as a determination of how the new Epstein era is coming along as well.

Notre Dame Freshman Class Preview

It's been a trying summer. The Bulls season ended early with the horrific injury to Derrick Rose, which will even affect the next season going forward. The Cubs are awful; really, there's nothing else to say about that. The Hawks season ended early as well, and they're left with questions going forward as to whether their core can get the job done. And for me, personally, I'm left studying for the Bar Exam which leaves my free time (including posting here) sporadic and totally infrequent. So, the only reasonable thing to do during rough times such as these is to look forward. And with the incoming freshman class for Notre Dame arriving on campus this week for workouts and summer school, they're a perfect group to take a look at going forward.

Soler Signing Sends a Message

Let's face it: there hasn't been much to talk about in the way of baseball on the North Side this season. I haven't even written about the Cubs, aside from a specific piece on Kerry Wood, since their preview on April 4. Sure, I've been busy. But even more than that, the Cubs are downright terrible, finding themselves in the midst of a dogfight with the Minnesota Twins to secure the rights to the Number 1 pick in the 2013 MLB Draft. Such is the way things go after a regime change, and as Theo Epstein forewarned us in a refreshingly honest manner before the season, such is the way things will go for the foreseeable future. It takes a lot to tear down an underachieving, aging, and fundamentally unproductive team. This is especially true now that the foundation is being laid by Epstein, meaning the money overspent on veterans will no longer be the norm, and now will be the exception. Epstein has made it a point to establish the Cubs Way, and to bring players into the organization who will fulfill this calling. The problem is, when Theo got here the cupboard was relatively bare. But after some self-identification, some offseason moves, and a good 2012 draft, things are moving in the right direction. And yet still, none of these moves resonated with fans, even in a season desperate for news, quite like the signing of Jorge Soler today.

Two Years Later, Hawks Still Rebuilding

It's been two years since The Goal

Jesse Rogers, the Hawks beat writer for ESPNChicago.com, published an interesting article in rememberance of the Hawks' two year anniversary today of their 2010 Stanley Cup Victory. In the article, Rogers, who I respect very much for the work he puts into following the team, details the team's failures in achieving success in the two years since the Hawks won the title. He brings up several valid points, whether it be that only 8 players and 1 coach remain from that team, the general manager of that team is up for an award for a different team, and how all the expectations of the team's core have not thus far played out. But most importantly to me is the distinction that Rogers makes regarding "dynasties." His claim is that as of right now, the Hawks, who organized their core of players to resemble the dynastic underpinnings of the annual success of the Detroit Red Wings, more closely resemble the failed "dynasty" of the Chicago Bears in the mid to late 1980s than the Detroit Red Wings of the past 10-15 years. In a way, he's right. But I don't quite agree with him.

Smith Commitment Bolsters Already-Strong 2013 Irish Class

Jaylon Smith

In today's college football world, it seems like the biggest and brightest of the stars overwhelmingly head off to schools that operate with the mantra that if you aren't cheating, you aren't trying. College football fans see it time and time again. Whether it's Urban Meyer telling recruits that God would want Meyer to be the recruit's coach, Nick Saban oversigning recruits and simply cutting the ones he didn't want, or the general lack of academic integrity by most of the schools in the SEC and other power house programs, the fact is that a large portion of the highest level of talented prospects head to those programs. Sure, programs like Michigan and Notre Dame, among others, have landed great prospects while retaining both academic and ethical integrity, but in this day and age, it's only natural for an elite prospect to see the easy road at one of the aforementioned schools and go down that path. There's a reason the SEC has been dominating college football for the better part of the last decade.

Focus on Bears as Rest of Chicago Sports Suffer

You could make the argument that Chicago is, always has been, and always will be a Bears town. Sure, the Bulls are supremely popular, just as they were in the Michael Jordan era. But I personally know plenty of people who don't care for the NBA, so I'm assuming that this is a normal trend. You could also make a case for the Blackhawks, who have an enormous following. Yet, how many of those fans watched the team before they got popular again? I'm talking the days of not having home games broadcast on TV, or getting student discount tickets for practically nothing. I think that alone puts them slightly behind the Bears. Baseball can't come close, because Chicago has two teams that divide the city. The Cubs have a large fanbase, but the team stinks every year and a ton of fans show up to Wrigley for the experience, not the baseball. Thus, this year, as the Bulls and Hawks both made an early exit from the playoffs, the Cubs are woeful and the Sox are just ok, the Bears are going to bear the brunt of the attention from a rabid sports city.

Wood Ends Career On His Own Terms

It's hard to believe that it's been 14 years. It seems like only yesterday that Kerry Wood burst into the lives of Cubs fans on an early May day, a day that seemed to be the start of a long and prosperous career. Wood struck out 20 Astros that day and was instantly crowned the savior of Chicago baseball. It's hard to imagine more pressure being placed upon the right arm of a young player, an arm that we all now know couldn't hold up to it. Over the course of his career, we saw the dominating talent that made Wood such a prodigy when he arrived in the league, but we also saw the downside of the abuse of that arm, resulting in Wood taking up a second home on the disabled list for most of his career. Even through all of that, and the subsequent failure of another phenom, Mark Prior, and his career due to injury, Woody was a figure that endeared himself to Cubs fans. He was a Texas transplant, but over the past 14 or so years, he's become a Chicago man through and through. That's why, even though he was only a portion of what he could be, it was so hard to see him go yesterday.

Bulls' Strong Effort Comes Up Short as Season Comes to an End

Noooooo. In the matter of less than 10 seconds, the Bulls went from forcing a Game 7 to ending their season. After a season that started with so much promise, with the desire to build off last year's success, the number 1 seed for the second consecutive year, and another year filled with great teamwork, leadership, defense, and consistency, a couple serious injuries and their impact on the rest of the team led to a first round ouster. The Bulls got great games from Luol Deng, Rip Hamilton, Taj Gibson, and especially Omer Asik, but their lack of offensive execution, and really the loss of Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah, meant an end to the possibility of a special season, whether it was last night in Game 6, a potential Game 7, or in any subsequent round of the playoffs.