SEEEE YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Atleast the Bulls start in two weeks.

Blackhawks are 5-3, including 2 wins over Detroit.

And you won't hear a word about it on WSCR.

_________________

While I am a huge fan of both the Blackhawks and WSCR, I completely understand the complete absence of Hawks talk on the station. The team has not deserved to be covered or talked about seriously for a long time now. If they go out and win the Cup this season then I think they should get some more time. Until they prove that they are serious about being a competitive franchise, though, I see no reason for hosts be pretend like they care.

_________________

I don't even think it's a decision. Nobody cares about the Hawks. They have an extremely small fan base, and they aren't adding many younger fans since they refuse to market their team. Hockey talk is an instant 'change the channel' for me.

I'm a member of that generation of fan that grew up without Blackhawks hockey on TV. All of my friends are huge sports fans, and not once have I ever gotten into a hockey discussion. I was amazed went I went to DC and my roomates were Capitals fans and all I heard about in DC was Ovechkin. I didn't realize that people still cared about hockey anywhere.

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Fire Phil Emery

It's depressing to be in October and already be dead.

Lovie and the whole staff may be fired by the end of next season, and they deserve to be if they can't turn it around.

Only in Chicago.

_________________
"Ditkith"? See that? That's your I.Q. Buddy! ZERO! ....I'd rather talk to HIM!"

And the Hawks deserve whatever they get until they wake up and smell the 21st century. They are as dead as Dollar Bill.

_________________
"Ditkith"? See that? That's your I.Q. Buddy! ZERO! ....I'd rather talk to HIM!"

Calling for his firing is a bit premature.

Did you watch the game? The coaching is pathetic.

I dont think so. I cant name one good quality he has as a head coach. He may be a terrific Dcoord, just like Norv is a terrific Ocoord, but he is a very lousy coach. But hey at least Babich and him fixed all of Rivera's problems from last season

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

That's insane. The team went from doormat to SB in just a couple of years under Smith's watch. I think that fans just want change for the sake of change sometimes.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

The coaching is pretty bad, and Lovie needs to be held accountable for bringing his boy in at D-coordinator and the defense being shitty. I know they have injuries, but the tackling is horrible and the play calling is horrible.

They wont an extremely weak conference last year and predictably lost when they got to the SB. If the NFC was as weak in 2001 as it was last year Dick Jauron also would have led them from doormat to the SB. Lovie Smith has been routinely outcoached all year long, including by Norv Turner. That name should speak for itself.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Bring back Chico Rivera. This Bob Babich defense blows and when the Green Bay Packers run all over you know it's time to make some changes. Peterson is a good back but he made the Bears look as if they were in a dime package all day. I needed a dime bag after watching this today.

BTW, we can hand the Patriots the Vince Lombardi trophy any day now.

_________________
When you hear sirens , duck and cover and kiss your ass good-bye!

any day being Feb. 3rd 2008, if they can make it there and beat the NFC team.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I hope you are just as condescending to the conference this year if the Packers do well. The conference is just as bad this year as it was last year.

_________________
You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I don't buy it. The Bears made the playoffs and won the NFC North two straight seasons with practically no offense behind what was very largely Smith's system. Going 11-5 and 13-3 in successive seasons wasn't a statistical fluke in the same way that the 2001 season was. And the issue that was most complained about- the QB switch- has been largely muted by Griese sucking. Talent evaluation, in terms of making sure that the best people on the team see the field, has been absolutely fine (which was a huge issue under Jauron and Wannstedt.)

The best teams are very often the teams that retain some form of stability at the head coaching position. After three years of continuous improvement, the Bears have gone into decline. That's the NFL. But as soon as there is any decline, fans need someone to blame, and more times than not it's the coach or the GM that get's blamed. But the key is whether a team can rebound from the lows quickly. You can't decide 6 weeks into the first bad season in three years that the coaching staff is horrible, because then 90% of head coaches would be horrible. No head coach passes the test, except for maybe the few that have hall of fame quarterbacks. Who makes the cut as a good or even average coach?

And it seems like the things that most irk fans are ridiculous "move Zorich to linebacker" type complaints. Why isn't Griese starting? Well, because he's bad, and because, unlike Grossman, there's no chance that he could turn out to be really good. So why not start Orton? Because Orton is really, REALLY bad, that's why. But it's different, so a bunch of fans will want it because they figure that there must be some magic bullet.

Same thing at running back. Cedric Benson hasn't been good (I think that most of that is because of the O-line, but whatever.) So why didn't they keep Thomas Jones? Well, first off Thomas Jones sucked for the first half of last year (am I the only person that remembers that the Bears couldn't run in September?), and he's not exactly lighting it up in New York either (though like Benson, he had a better game today.) So why not start Adrian Peterson? Great, and let's bring back Marlon Barnes while we're at it.

Sometimes you're just in a bad position. As a team in the salary cap era, you need to take calculated risks with personel. A lot of those calculated risks did not pay off, and compund that with a lot of injuries on defense and you have the makings of disaster. But there's absolutely nothing that a different coach could do about it. They're just going to be bad, and the 2005-2006 championship cycle attempt has closed. Grossman ended up sucking. The defense couldn't avoid injuries for long enough. The Colts learned how to play defense at just the right time. Now, give the regime a chance to rebuild and develop a plan. These failures are going to happen to every team, and the key is to recover and regroup as quickly as possible.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

I understand that the Blackhawks have not deserved coverage on the Score for many years, but if this is going to be the year that starts the turnaround, I'd appreciate a little bit of a push down the hill, so to speak. The Hawks have had three huge wins so far that have been more exciting than anything the Bears have done this year. We've been mired in a vicious cycle of shitty team-->no coverage-->no fans-->shitty team, and if Rocky Wirtz is going to make at least a superficial attempt to break this cycle, then it'd be nice if the team's radio flagship could follow suit and try to generate some interest for a team that is playing like they deserve it. I don't expect a sudden deluge of Hawk talk a day, just an acknowledgement that things are looking up, and there's a fair bit to talk about again. Unfortunately, I'm afraid all we'll get is stuff like this (and I apologize to Beardown, because B&B transcripts are his thing, not mine):

Dan "Bill from McHenry, you're on WSCR."
Dope "Yeah I was just wonderin why don't you guys ever talk about the Hawks?"
Dan "I don't like hockey."
Dope "Well, I mean, you guys carry the Hawks, so maybe once in a while,"
Terry "Fine."
Dope "huh?"
Dan "Fine. Go ahead. Fine. Talk about the Blackhawks. Go. Talk."
Dope "...uh, well, they've got Denny Savard back, so they should be abl--"
Dan "Okay, thank you."
Terry "Hello, friend."
Dan "DA BLACKHAWKS HAVE DA FIRE!"
Terry "AND THE PAYSHIN!"
Dan "So anyway, Rex Grossman."

_________________

I understand the NFL has its' ebbs and flows, but watching the Bears and then watching the Patriots, is like watching college and pro football.

Why can't the Bears put together a team with the staying power like the Pats?

_________________
RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

Too often this year the team does the same dumb shit thing they did the first half in the second half, the only exception being last week. Lovie just sits there with the Art Shell face and calmly talks about having patience when his team is completely underachieving. Griese is definitely not great, but it so obvious right now that the whole "Rex is the best QB on the team" argument has completely flown out the window. Rex is probably not one of the best 32 QBs in the NFL, Griese without a doubt is, probably somewhere in the 22-25 area off the top of my head. Thats pretty bad but definitely better than Rex. Rex doesnt beat GB last week, he just evens up the turnover battle and they lose an ugly game. Lovie is the reason Rivera was run out of town and this defense is way way worse, and dont give me the injury excuse cuz they had em last year too. The entire team has underachieved all year long, and are routinely out of position and outschemed. Thats the coaches.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Because the Bears don't have a hall of fame quarterback. It's that simple. There are two hall of fame quarterbacks in the prime of their careers right now. Both of those teams will be really good until they are no longer in their primes. Every other team is going to go through what the Bears are going through.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

But this Bears team is pedestrian from all sides barring special teams.
Why can't they put the pieces together like New England.

Their D is good, the receivers are outstanding, the RB's are good.

Is it that hard, or is it lack of vision?

_________________
RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

First off, their D isn't that good. It's pretty good, but it's not nearly the same level of the Bears D from 2005 or 2006. Their LB core is one of the weakest in the league. It's just that when you get up big early, a lot of those deficiencies get covered up. Their RBs are also not great, at least not this year; it's easy to get a lot of space to run when you have so may weapons on the edge and a great QB.

The Patriots have been extremely smart about FA signings, draft picks, etc. But the job is infinitely easier when you have a hall-of-fame QB to build around; it covers up a lot of deficiencies. I'd be a lot more upset if this team had, say, Carson Palmer.

Look at it this way; the Bears had a top-5 defense, top-5 O-line, and historically good special teams last year. But they were weak at the skill positions, especially at the WR and QB positions, and so they lost. Right now the two best teams in the NFL are historically good at skill positions, and either pretty good or kinda mediocre everywhere else. I'd say that this is the gameplan the Bears should take, except that "find an all-pro QB" is easier said than done. I guess just hope that they go 3-13 and that Miami starts winning some games so that they can draft Brohm or Woodson, and then pray that the guy they get turns out to be more like a Palmer or Payton Manning than like a David Carr, Alex Smith, Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Ryan Leaf, Michael Vick, Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, or one of those other can't-miss prospects.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

It might be worse than last year, which is exactly why the Packers have a chance of winning it.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

You are not nearly giving the defense the credit it deserves and


is an overstatement and simply not true. Its probably somewhere along the lines of 10th in the NFL, maybe better.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The NFC is worse, specifically because there's no team as good as the Bears were last year, or the Seahawks the year before that, or the Eagles before that. Every year the NFC produced a team that could at least be competitive. This is the first year where we're likely to see a 1980s-style Super Bowl.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

I have a bunch of buddies from Saint Louis, and they were the same way with the Blues. And they're bad. I went to school with some girl who's dad played for the Blues and she thought she was hot shit. All I could think of was: "Who gives a fuck?"

Vrabel, Bruschi, and Seau are old, slow, and bad. Adalius Thomas is good but very overrated. Roosevelt Colvin is a one-trick pony who can rush the passer and do little else. The Patriot's primary weakness on defense is 1.) slot receivers and TEs, and 2.) Outside and off-tackle rushes. Both of those areas are the domain of the linebackers, and they are weak by leaguewide standards in both regards. All the names are recognizable, but they are just shells of their former selves at this point.

_________________
Fire Phil Emery

Witten is one of the best TE's in the NFL, and was held to 3 catches for 47 yds. Their slot WR's never caught a pass all game. Im not sure how much better you can get then that, and Seau got an INT. Seau, Vrabel, and Bruschi still have alot to contribute to a team, Adalius Thomas is definitely not over-rated, on the contrary I rarely hear him mentioned and he is an outstanding football player, and we agree on Colvin but hes pretty good at that one trick. Overall I dont think there are 16 LB corps. better than the Pats right now.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul