Soldier-ing on?

The Arlington Heights Bears.

Roll that one around in your head for a bit, while you remember the wind scything off the lake in the last blush of fall. Nothing colder in the world than that wind, unless it was whatever abomination the Chicago Bears were giving the faithful beneath those Roman colonnades in Soldier Field. And there were a lot of abominations to go with the occasional triumphs.

Me, I remember a particular Sunday in late fall, 40 years and more ago, when the Bears and Lions committed heinous acts against the NFL on a frigid afternoon. I wore six layers that day, and still the wind sliced to the bone.

How cold was it?

It was too cold to drink beer. Almost.

That was about the only way to watch what the Bears and Lions were doing, which only vaguely resembled football. The Bears had the worst offensive performance in club history that day, if memory serves. Or maybe the Lions did. Or maybe neither did.

Memory doesn't serve as well as it used to. Bare-wood truth.

In any case ...

In any case, they were still the Chicago Bears.

Now?

Who knows. Yesterday the news came down that the Bears had purchased the land upon which sits Arlington International Racecourse, an iconic site in itself. With Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot already talking potential new anchor tenants for Soldier Field, it seems a lock the Bears will be leaving Chicago for new digs in Arlington Heights, 35 miles out in the 'burbs.

So, yeah; The Arlington Heights Bears.

This will take be quite a change, if only to the number of layers you'll have to wear when late autumn settles in. No more Lake Michigan wind throwing carving knives at the patrons, so that would be good. No more Soldier Field, either, which ... well, yes, that'll take some getting used to.

The Bears have been playing there for 50 years, even after the hideous renovation in 2002 that transformed it into some sort of Millennium Falcon afterbirth. Even at that, it's now the smallest stadium in the NFL. So maybe it's time they moved on.

As it turns out, I was at Soldier Field for the beginning of the renovation, too. It was another cold day shading into night, this one in January, and the Bears were again the Bears, losing to Donovan McNabb and the Eagles in the divisional playoffs, 33-19. I was columnizing on the game for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette that night, and when our beat writer and I walked out after filing, construction crews were already tearing out the seats in one end zone. They were wasting no time.

Nor will they again, one guesses. And who knows? Maybe they can still get away with  calling themselves the Chicago Bears. 

After all, the New York Giants still call themselves the New York Giants, even though they play in a completely different state. Yet no one calls them the Jersey Giants or the Meadowlands Giants, or even the Where The Mob Buries People Who Cross It Giants. 

So, maybe they won't be the Arlington Heights Bears. Although lest we forget, the Chicago Bears weren't the Chicago Bears to begin with, either.

They were, rather famously, the Decatur Staleys.

The Arlington Heights Staleys?

Hmm.

The madness of blocked shots

 NBA media days happened this week, and, among other things, Andrew Wiggins said it's not the public's business whether or not he's been vaccinated against a killer virus that has ended the lives of some 670,000 of the public so far. 

Kyrie Irving, believer in the flatness of Earth and other kooky notions, maintains it's a personal choice not to be vaccinated. Ditto Bradley Beal, who wondered why he should get the shot when he can still get the Bastard Plague if he does, even while admitting it's extremely rare for it to happen.

"Like it's funny that it only reduces your chances of going to the hospital," he says.

Well, yes. It does. Actually it reduces those chances to practically zero.  Which is important given how many COVID-19 patients are going to the hospital, swamping resources and thus affecting far more than just COVID patients.

Not that Bradley Beal cares a whit about that, given his commitment to fighting tyranny and all.

"I don't think you can pressure anybody into making a decision about their body or what they can put into their body," is something the brave freedom fighter also said.

Well ... actually, you can. Just ask a pregnant woman in Texas.

Also, ask any employer about whether or not it's legal to impose workplace rules, especially if the workplace rules involve the health or safety of the workforce. He or she will look at you like you have two heads -- especially in so-called right-to-work states, which give employers the freedom to impose virtually any rules they want and to terminate  employment for virtually any reason, including no reason at all.

So the NBA can say, and has, that if you're a player and you're not vaccinated (again, against a virus that has killed 670,000 Americans), you will be subject to restrictions the rest of the organization will not be. And by "the rest of the organization," we mean "all of it," because the NBA requires team employees other than players to be vaccinated.

I find this entirely sensible, given it's a matter of public health and there are public health restrictions that we routinely accommodate every day. But then I haven't lost my damn mind like Kyrie or Bradley Beal or even Dak Prescott over in the NFL, who cited HIPAA laws that don't apply in defending his "personal choice" not to say whether or not he'd gotten the shot.

Which of course means he hadn't.

I do not get this, as someone who's been riding this rock for 66 years. I do not get how being vaccinated against a killer virus became some sort of half-assed live-free-or-die issue. I do not get it because Americans routinely have been getting vaccinated for stuff that used to kill us for almost all of my life.

I also I do not get, in a country where schoolkids have had to present vaccination records to the nurse's office since I was a schoolkid, how vaccinating your kid and having him or her wear a mask to school became King George III imposing the Stamp Act.

Yet suddenly this is so, in a nation gone mad. At school board meetings in a certain district in Allen County, for instance, anti-masker goons show up to shout down anyone who endorses the system's mask policy, force the board to exit the room because it can't get through the evening's agenda for all the hollering, and follow board members out to their cars and harass them in the parking lot.

Oh, yes: They also mock students who adhere to school policy by wearing masks.

Yelling at high school kids who are only following the rules. Wow. Now there's some grownup behavior for ya.

Thankfully, as I've been reminded lately, these halfwits are not the majority. Even in the NBA, some 90 percent of players have been vaccinated. 

So maybe most of America is still sane after all. Maybe most of us understand that licentiousness is not the same thing as freedom, that "freedom" doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want whenever you want. That in a free society, it comes with a measure of shared responsibility.

In other words, it ain't all about you, boys and girls. No matter how many shots Kyrie 'n' Andrew 'n' them try to block.

A few brief thoughts on NFL Week 3

And now this week's edition of The NFL In So Many Words, the incorrigible Blob feature of which critics have said "Well, I declare! You are just incorrigible!", and also "How did you become so incorrigible? I knew your mama, and your MAMA sure didn't raise you that way!":

1. And then, children, what do you suppose happened next? That's right! The Lions Lions-ed it up again ...

2. "A record 66-yard game-winning field goal that HIT THE CROSSBAR AND BOUNCED OVER? What's next, Matthew Stafford throwing four touchdown passes for the Rams to beat the Super Bowl champion Buccaneers?" (Lions fans)

3. "Heh." (Matthew Stafford, after throwing four touchdown passes for the Rams to beat the Super Bowl champion Buccaneers)

4. "Heh, heh." (The ghost of Bobby Layne, as in The Curse Of)

5. The Bucs lost. The Chiefs lost. Jameis Winston beat the Patriots in Foxborough. The Bengals be-

6. "Wait a minute! Jameis Winston did WHAT?" (America)

7. In other news, Aaron "OK, I Guess I'll Play If I HAVE To" Rodgers saved the Packers again, completing two deep passes to Davante Adams to set up Mason Crosby's game-winning field goal against the 49ers.

8. "Wait, I thought he quit. Didn't he quit?" (49ers fans)

9. Also in other news, Carson Wentz, playing on two sprained ankles, did not grow a third ankle and sprain it against the Titans.

10. Of course, the Colts still lost.

A brief celebration of youth

 Maybe you missed it yesterday, what with 'Merica spanking the Europes in the Ryder Cup, and the Rams clocking the Super Bowl champs by double digits, and the St. Louis Cardinals winning their 16th straight game. But out in Long Beach, some other stuff happened.

The 2021 IndyCar season wrapped, is what happened.

Just so you know, Colton Herta won the last race of the season. It was his second straight win. He's 21 years old.

Alex Palou finished fourth to claim the points title, his first. He's 24.

Josef Newgarden finished second, and finished second in the points. He's still just 30 and has already won two IndyCar titles.

Pato O'Ward, who entered the last race neck-and-neck with Palou for the title, tangled early with Ed Jones, broke an axle and finished 27th. He wound up 24 points behind Newgarden, third for the season.

And, oh, yes: He's 22.

I don't know what that says about the future of IndyCar, but it's sure nothin' bad. And if you think this year was fun, wait 'til next year.

Some of us hardly can.

QBNone, Part Deux

 So remember the other day, when the Blob relived some six decades of Chicago Bears quarterbacking tradition, which includes the likes of Gary Huff and Bob Avellini, but no Unitases, Elways, Montanas or Manning/Bradys?

The conclusion was the Bears do quarterback messes the way puppies do messes, period, and it's just a function of their being. Some football teams do linebackers or running backs; the Bears do linebackers, running backs, and Look at that, Concannon just threw the ball into Lake Michigan again.

This brings us to yesterday along the lake in Cleveland, where Justin Fields, the shiniest quarterback prospect the Bears have had since forever, got his first official NFL start. Needless to say it went the way the quarterback business tends to go for the Bears.

Behind an offensive line that couldn't block a random thought, Fields completed 6-of-20 passes for 68 yards while fleeing the Browns pass rush like Dr. Richard Kimble looking for the one-armed man. The Seven Blocks of Al Dente Spaghetti allowed him to be sacked nine times -- and Fields is not exactly the Statue of Liberty back there. The man's got some wheels.

Final score: Cleveland 26, Bears 6. And Fields finished with a QBR of 6.0.

Sooo. Now what?

Now Matt Nagy, already coaching for his job, has to decide whether to stick with the kid and risk destroying him completely behind that Oh-for-God's-sake O-line, or stick the veteran Andy Dalton back there as some sort of sacrifice to the quarterback gods. What to do, what to do.

In any event, the Bears, per tradition, don't have a QB1. They're still the home office for QBNone.

But, hey. At least they have a running back (David Montgomery) and some linebackers (Roquan Smith, Khalil Mack).

Again, per tradition.

The Complainer Report

 ... for which we go two places today: The shores of frigid Lake Michigan, and a football stadium in Alabama.

On the shores of frigid Lake Michigan, the American team continued to beat those European schmucks briskly about the head and neck in the Ryder Cup, doing a bit of golf running up the score in the second day's matches. The 'Mericans lead the Euros 11-5 heading into the last round of matches at Whistling Straits -- which means barring an historic collapse by Team USA, the Euros are in dire Straits, and that's not just Whistling Dixie.

Of course, not every American player was giddy about this. And you can probably guess who.

Yes, that's right, ol' Mr. Giddy himself, professional sourball Brooks Koepka, got all mad at the rules officials and said mean things after the officials denied him a drop on the 15th hole. Koepka argued he would hit a drain if he played it where it lay; the officials, one backing up the other, essentially told him to shut up and play.

This did not please Koepka, not the most genial of men under the best of circumstances.

"If I break my wrist, it's on f***ing both of you guys," he said, pointing at the officials.

This not being basketball, the officials couldn't T him up for that. A shame, really.

Because, of course, Koepka didn't hit the drain. 

Meanwhile, down in Auburn, Ala. ...

Well, the Tigers damn near lost to Georgia State, for starters. But they scored the go-ahead six with 45 seconds left and went on to win 34-24, thanks in part to a sketchy call on a pass reception that kept the winning drive alive.

The replay indicated the ball hit the ground. The officials, however, upheld the original call, which was a catch.

This did not please Georgia State coach Shawn Elliott, who in the postgame essentially said, "Typical SEC bull****."

"They had a little bit of help on that review where the ball was incomplete," is what Elliott actually said. "It should have been put back on the 30-yard line. But you know when you play in the SEC, you gotta take the hits. And they gave us a real gut punch on that call. So we appreciate that."

Georgia State fans no doubt said, "Damn skippy, Coach."

Auburn fans, on the other hand, no doubt responded with words like "sore loser" and "whiners."

Ah, college football. It's the best.

A statuary moment

 I imagine the website has grown a healthy beard of cobwebs, after all this time. I mean, even the cranks and the Dammit Where's Our National Title types have to be on board now, don't they?

No, I don't imagine firebriankelly.com is much of a going concern these days, now that Brian Kelly has done something that will result in statuary one of these days. Rockne ... Leahy ... Holtz ... Kelly. Yep, they're gonna have Notre Dame Stadium surrounded before this is all done.

See, Kelly went to the summit of Golden Dome Everest yesterday, after Wisconsin unraveled in the last 14 minutes in Soldier Field. Kelly's Irish were trailing the No. 17 Badgers 13-10 before Chris Tyree went cross country for 96 yards on a kickoff return, and then Wisky quarterback Graham Mertz graciously turned it into a blowout with two pick sixes in the last 2:30.

That made the final a somewhat deceptive blowout, 41-13, and gave Kelly his 106th victory as Notre Dame's coach. That puts him one W up on Knute Rockne and makes him the winningest coach in the school's considerable football history.

So, yes, the statuary is coming. And that's maybe a little startling to contemplate considering more than a few of us were doubting any Notre Dame coach would ever again stick around long enough to win so many games.

It was a pessimistic take but not an unreasonable one, given that Notre Dame had burned through four other coaches in the 13 seasons before Kelly stepped into the job. Bob Davie lasted five seasons as Holtz' immediate successor before getting the gate; his successor, George O'Leary, didn't even make it to his first game before Notre Dame booted him for ginning up his resume. 

Then came Tyrone Willingham, who lasted three seasons. Then Charlie "Schematic Advantage" Weis, who got fat on Willingham's recruits for a couple years and then went 16-21 in his last three.

In came Kelly. And 11 years later, he's still there. 

Only Rockne (13 years) has had a longer tenure, and only Holtz, Frank Leahy and Ara Parseghian were there as long. And perhaps that is as much a nod to the tectonic shift in college football realities in the last decade as it is to anything else.

See, as successful as Kelly has been, Notre Dame still is going on 33 years without a national title. Kelly got them to the championship game once, in 2013. Alabama blew out the undefeated and top-ranked Irish 42-14 -- a painful acknowledgment that while Kelly had restored Notre Dame to national prominence, there remained another level that was still beyond its reach.

Nothing that's happened since has altered that perception. Kelly got the Irish back into the national title hunt last January, but Alabama again beat them -- this time in the national semifinals, and this time by 17 points, 31-14.

So under the Kelly regime Notre Dame is there again, but not quite, you know, THERE. The Irish are back to being a  consistent top ten program. Across the last six seasons, they've averaged 9.5 wins; throw out the 4-8 aberration in 2016, and the number rises to 10,6 wins per year.

That's pretty Notre Dame-y, it seems to me. And plenty good enough for statuary.