This has to be one of the worst and stupidest articles ever. Stylistically and content-wise, the quality is not much better than a high school freshman-level English paper, and I'm being kind. As if he were some Vegas insider or otherwise had some authority as a NFL football prognosticator, Batacola has to tell us that he has the Bears finishing 8-8 this year, which sounds a lot like what his two bosses were saying last week. How original. And if that isn't exploding with excitement, Batacola tries to make the argument that an 8-8 record this year after an 8-8 record last year will actually be an improvement, because the three wins with Josh McCown at QB last year shouldn't have counted because he played too well. Huh? Since when should wins by an NFL team be discounted because an impact player, even a back-up, played well? Isn't that what you want your players to do? So, following Batacola's non sequitur, we should then strike all the field goals by Robbie Gould because he, too, has been statistically unusual as the 3rd most accurate kicker in NFL history. But what has to be the biggest flaw in Batacola's analysis is that, even though McCown played great, it's still a team game. To assert, as Batacola does, that McCown was single-handedly responsible for the three wins the Bears had with him starting is just false. Clearly, there were other players on offense that played at a high level, too, during those games including Marshall, Jeffrey and Forte, despite the defense being historically bad.

So there you have it from the producer of Chicago's highest rated sports radio show. And Batacola, the idiom is not “play out your butt”, rather it’s “play your butt off.”

He is a columnist now as well?

_________________
Elections have consequences.

Asking Abbatacola to write is like asking pittmike to run a nunnery.

_________________

It's fairly routine to provide a link.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

Is that a shot?

_________________
Elections have consequences.

...

Here's the link:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/09/05/ ... rs-future/

Please don't ever link a mattabatta article again.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Is there a point to the article?

_________________

Christ on a cracker. The Score really is becoming a college level station. They are getting directives from CBS to just limp with whatever as the revenues work until they pull the plug.

_________________
Elections have consequences.

Seriously, what is he arguing?

_________________

Didn't make it past the first line, in which he explicitly apologizes to Bernstein. "Making predictions for an NFL season is pretty stupid, but I still do it every season." What a pussy.

_________________
Soccer 1,2,3
Spanish Honor Society 1,2,3,4
Forensics 1,2,3,4

"Smiles with Nostrils"

"...no Hmong, go find some blacks"

It's just a continuance on Josh McCown sucks stuff.

If the Bear were that record with a QB playing out of his mind, that same record is good because the backup this year will not be nearly as good.

Which means;

1. Matt assumes Jay will be out again
2. Matt assumes the backup will not have a Josh McCown 2013 season.

_________________
Ба́бушка гада́ла, да на́двое сказа́ла—то ли до́ждик, то ли снег, то ли бу́дет, то ли нет.

Last December, while listening to Cleveland radio I thought I heard one of the more idiotic sports thoughts expressed when a radio host said, "This year's 11-5 Browns team will be better than last year's 11-5 team." It is a statement I've repeated to others when I want them to think that they are making more than perfect sense. Now I have MattAbbatacola and he has trumped that special kind of insight. This year's 8-8 team will show improvement over last year's 8-8 team, and the reason according to him is simple: The franchise quarterback will lead the team this year!

No, I couldn't read the whole article as I began to wonder if it might cause me some kind of brain damage in contemplation. But the one thought that crept into my mind is that this article is just another stellar example that Chicago is little more than Cleveland on steroids.

_________________
DRINK BƎTTƎR. @theRIPH

The point is moot as they're not going to win 8.

_________________
"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

That really is a dreadful piece of writing for anyone over the age of twelve.

Having said that, I don't think it's a STRETCH to think he was more 'forced' into writing that nonsense rather than chomping at the bit to get something published on perhaps the worst corporate media family of websites on the internet, and thus didn't exactly kill himself to put together a Pulitzer piece or prose. It almost seems like he's mocking the kind of piece he wrote by writing it as he did.

_________________
Power is always in the hands of the masses of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ignorance, their own short-sighted selfishness.
- Henry George

That should have been his angle.

When Briggs, Tillman, Allen and jennings get hurt and shut it down for the year things are going to get even worse.

This is why vegas liked 7 wins. Such a lack of overall athelticism on this team.

_________________
"That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously." Banky
“Been that way since one monkey looked at the sun and told the other monkey ‘He said for you to give me your fuckin’ share.’”

"nunnery" was slang for house of ill repute back in the day...not my day, but a day

_________________
O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The point is it's stupid to make NFL predictions, but since I'm ignoring conventional wisdom by writing about it for everyone to see, I've gone well beyond stupidity.

He actually edited it, I think. It was even worse before, if that's even believable.

The way that the article reads is that the Bears should have lost the three games last year under McCown without McCown, even if they had had Cutler, which is self-defeating to his original purpose of trying to say that the team this year is better with Cutler than it would be with McCown.

That's exactly how I felt. I wasn't sure the chain reaction it was going to cause, like destroying the universe in an unpredictable way as Stephen Hawking recently described in talking about the God particle, where the universe could undergo a catastrophic vacuum decay.

I had to stop reading this halfway through , it was giving me a headache .
This is Mitch's plan...tout these career bush leaguers n give em more responsibility .

Fuck you Mitch !

_________________

8-8 would be an improvement and a success? If that article was written by a printed paper this show would be killing that terrible thought.

I didn't even think about that point.

We can now compare Hypothetical Josh McCown with Hypothetical Jay Cutler!

_________________
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!

No, it's hypothetical below last-year's Josh McCown against hypothetical Jay Cutler. He doesn't allow his hypothetical McCown to be of same ability he has shown.

How does this article get you closer to winning the title of Senor Columnist?

_________________
https://twitter.com/HFsMustache

Junior Columnist? That is an insult to all Junior Columnists. I would say the correct term is Mentally Impaired Columnist.

funny how some newspaper writers have successfully made the transition from writer to radio host.... but good god being a radio host does not make you qualified to write articles.... maybe ben rosen ghost wrote this?

_________________
I'm going to bounce from the spot for awhile but I will be back at some point to argue with you about this hoops stuff again. Playoffs have been great this season. See ya up the road.

I'm out.

Batacola makes even George Ofman look like a genius.

Beginning of B&B today had Batacola doubling down on his analysis piece by replaying the caller asking whether McCown is better than Cutler from a couple of days ago, leading to Bernstein's nervous laughing and cutting the guy off. But soon after it didn't take Bernstein long to get back to Penn St. He knows he can't win the McCown argument.

Considering the content...he could have written the article in March....I would even bet he STARTED it in March and JUST FINISHED IT NOW!!!