Bill Simmons Gets The Bears

Bill Simmons updated his NFL Power Poll today and had this to say about our beloved Chicago Bears:

LINGERING LIKE A STALE FART

14. Chicago Bears
Chicago's new offense: "Throw the ball up to Devin Hester and hope he either catches it or draws an interference penalty." In other words, the Bears are using the same offense my buddy Geoff mastered in "Madden '96," only without the wrinkle of Kyle Orton running backward for 20 yards, scrambling around for eight seconds and heaving a Hail Mary downfield. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say this fails.

First of all, this is so dead-on that I literally began nodding my head while reading it. Somehow, we are still in the playoff race, not good enough to close out the conference but not bad enough that you can rule us out against most teams in the league.  I would actually elaborate and describe the Bears as a lingering stale fart of your own - you know the smell, you know it's yours and you know it's not going anywhere anytime soon.

We also commented on the Orton to Hester playbook after last week here, but I'm still hopeful that Ron Turner can add some tricks to the offense (including teaching Orton to take ONLY 3 steps on a 3 step drop and using Forte for some screens once in a while). This probably won't happen.

Big game this week against the Packers obviously and with Minnesota nursing injuries, we've got a chance to make up ground.

-KEG

Bill Simmons what if...

Big Bill had a speculative article yesterday about what would have happened if Jay Williams wasn't a fucktard and if the Bulls got Garnett for Deng, Chandler and the #4 pick.

14. What if Jason Williams never crashed his motorcycle?

"I predicted Williams (the No. 2 pick in 2003) would be a better pro than Yao Ming (the No. 1 pick).

Well, you know what? I was right. I was DEAD right.

A lightning-quick, physical 6-footer who would have been unstoppable after they changed the hand-check rules in 2004, Williams had his moments as a rookie, including the 26-14-13 he slapped on J-Kidd and the Nets. He would have been a stud. There's no doubt in my mind. But Williams stupidly crashed his motorcycle that summer -- I say "stupidly" because there's no acceptable scenario when a professional athlete with a chance to sign a $70 million contract some day should ever own a motorcycle -- and that was that. How did Jay's injury change what transpired with Chicago over the next five years? Imagine Utah only getting one season out of Deron Williams and you have some idea."

Fuck, he is totally right. Look at the renaissance in PG's accross the league since the rule change: Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Gilbert Arenas, Baron Davis, Tony Parker and a revitalized Nash and Kidd.

JW would have been nasty. And that was back when we had a decent nucleus (even after the Brand/Artest mistake). JW, Curry, Chandler, Crawford and Pfizer (WTF happened to HIM? He didn't even get in a mortercycle accident!). Still... that's a solid squad. We also got Deng and Bogo in the next draft.

Fuck.

Scroll down to 13b. "What if Kevin McHale had taken Chicago's "Godfather" offer for KG before the 2006 draft?"

"...Meanwhile, Chicago would have ended up with Garnett, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Andres Nocioni and the typical flood of discount free agents and February buyout guys who follow a guy like KG, and on top of that Garnett would have ignited Chicago as a basketball city just like he ignited Boston (and potentially pushed the Bulls into the NBA Finals in a weak conference last spring). Instead, they gave away Chandler, turned Aldridge into Ty Thomas and wasted all their cap space on Ben Wallace. So, um ... that kind of sucked. "

Well, that makes is sound pretty bad.

Then I remember that it IS pretty bad. Not only did we pass on KG, but we also passed on Aldridge (which might end up being as bad) and we lost chandler for nothing, who is playing good ball in NO.

Well, "what if's" are really a waste of time. Shit happens and you make the best of it.

At least we've got this guy: