because they are fans, deep down.

My sense on the Marshall thing is that they're not so much maligning writers for mitigating Marshall's illness as they are maligning them for bringing it up at all. I assume this is partially because the story is legitimately a dead horse at this point; partially because Dan earnestly believes no one but himself is smart enough to approve or disapprove of anyone, as CH theorized; but mainly because at his core Dan is a screaming meatball, and his burgeoning man-crush has rendered Marshall a GROWN-ASS MAN who plays in the NATIONAL DAMNED FOOTBALL LEAGUE, and is therefore beyond reproach.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

I think they just like getting mad at trivial shit and unfortunately it has come to dominate the show.

The reading of e-mails by dick-spinners regurgitating B&B jokes/memes is getting more prevalent. Sucks.

This is also a good theory.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Listing to the podcast now. Their position on Marshal makes absolutely no sense to me (though to be fair, Terry said he'd take Marshall over anyone else in the league this season, slightly misinformed/stupid yes, but not that far from the objective truth) based on their past assessment of Chicago athletes.

That shit about Harvin is just awful, awful stuff. It makes no sense that B&B isn't calling out whomever wrote that terrible article about Harvin. What Harvin is being called out for doing is exactly what B&B love (yelling at coaches, not beating up women, smoking the occasional spliff) what on God's green earth is going on here?

Percy Harvin is an "idiot" according to Terry and Dan just nods his head? What the fuck is this?

WHY ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT THIS? EVERYONE IN THE CITY AGREES WITH B&B: JAY CUTLER AND BRANDON MARSHALL ARE THE BEST QB/WR COMBO IN BEARS HISTORY. What are they doing? Why are they acting like CJH up the dial on this? It's so confusing and upsetting to me that they are taking a meatball position on Marshall.

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More from the podcast:

If you can have fun watching the Bulls that fine until you text us and tell us that watching the Bulls might be fun, in which case you would be an idiot with an incorrect opinion.

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Don't go in the Boers and Bernstein facebook group. Unless, of course, you like reading 100 comments of

Beard!
By cracky!
Sack machine!
By cracky!!!
Hello, may I come in BY CRACKY!!!
Charlie Furbush!

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I thought this same thing. They go through all their reasons why this is a "on hold" season but you go ahead and enjoy it... we dare you to call lol.

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Elections have consequences.

But does he go to the locker room after warm ups AND. HAVE. COFFEE. before the game?

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Elections have consequences.

No, it is. Just not for any reason Dan or Terry could possibly understand.

The Harvin stuff was bizarre. The undertone of the conversation seemed to be See? SEE??? Other wide receivers have problems too, so stop talking about our special little Brandon you big meanies!!!!!!

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Do you think Brandon Marshall might be...intimidated?

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Talk more etymology! STOP TALKING ETYMOLOGY!

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Apart from A.J. Green, Calvin Johnson, this year's Reggie Wayne, maybe Julio Jones/Victor Cruz/Vincent Jackson, who else would you rather have catching passes from Jay Cutler? I'll admit that Terry's assertion that Brandon Marshall is the best receiver in the league is straight up stupid, but placing him among the top 5 receivers in the league is not outside the realm of possibility.

Unless they decide to clarify what exactly it was they were talking about regarding Percy Harvin I'll have absolutely no idea what their intent was. Protecting Marshall doesn't seem like their intent considering Dan's previous dehumanization of him.

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Among the all-time low points of the show, that day was, right on the shelf next to the White Sox Attendance And Bigotry roundtable.

Oh, and when they started talking about Harvin's erratic behavior accompanying migraines, I thought it was going to be about how CTE was turning him into a monster.

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Sack Machine and Chef Boy-AR-dee can stay forever.

I'm getting more annoyed by the increased bitching about bad callers and reading of e-mails complaining about bad callers. No other show has this issue and it can be easily remedied.

That's what I've been doing lately. I never thought I'd care for Mac but he has really grown on me.

Bad callers are still funny -- "I'm wondering if the knee injury actually makes Urlacher better" is an all-timer* -- but I can do without people emailing in just to say people are dumb. No shit.

The worst was when they took a call from Schmutzie who spent oh god like at least 45 seconds just riffing on how stupid everyone was. "Hey, all these callers are really bad! I'm just sittin' here at work listening and man they're all so bad! I just had to call you to tell you how bad they were! I'm having a drink and thinking oh man, are these guys bad! Hey, did you read the latest Ben Joravsky column? It was about as good as these idiots were bad! But anyway, the reason I called..."

*thought experiment: say that line in Zach's halting whisper and it sounds not implausible

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I like dumb callers and them making fun of them. My issue is when they spend significant time playing the "woe is us" victim card and feign dread when having to take calls. They bait and desire bad callers.

The Shmutzie call was the worst.

This was my only point. I have my own issues with Marshall's performance, but they have to do with advanced statistics that other posters here have conclusively proven are meaningless and gay, so I won't get into them again.



I've always thought the dehumanization and the meatballery were two sides of the same coin. With rare exceptions (Derrick Rose), Dan doesn't really care about athletes as human beings, so he shouts down any discussion of their personal lives that doesn't directly affect on-field performance as stupid and irrelevant. Meanwhile he sits back and praises their athleticism in vaguely homoerotic terms. Don't talk about Marshall's serial abuse of women, because that means you're a racist, and don't talk about his mental problems, because that implies that there are mental problems, and there aren't, because he's manifestly a BIG STRONG STUD who plays BIG BOY FOOTBALL and that's all that matters. BEARS!!!

Could be wrong though. My listening has been pretty sporadic recently.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

I can see where you're coming from if that's how you're describing Dan's view on sports. That is, his meatballery is his dehumanization of athletes. This is not the same as the Doug and OB style of meatballery which is built almost entirely on the human element of sports (ie. who is tougher than who, Bear weather, momentum in baseball, people being clutch).

This is why I find their talk on Harvin so confusing. It seemed like Dan was arguing that Harvin's off the field activities have some bearing on his on the field performance, which is the kind of dick spinning speculation that he routinely decries as stupid.

Or maybe he was trying to fill a segment, in which case none of this matters.

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