I’m not saying all Bears fans are stupid. They aren’t, and many did not participate in the behavior described in the next paragraph. But. If I had to pick a group of people dumb enough to immediately assign truth to the Alan Williams rumors spread today by a collection of Bears bloggers, it would be the people who were proclaiming Justin Fields an MVP-caliber quarterback eleven days ago and are now saying Caleb Williams will definitively save them.
Multiple Chicago Bears-themed websites published reports today saying Halas Hall was raided in connection with defensive coordinator Alan Williams’s absence from the team. One guy tweeted it had happened, added a detail that Charles Tillman (who’s evidently worked for the FBI since retirement) was the one to tell Bears leadership, and a bunch of people who lecture others about journalistic integrity and the importance of good journalism went and ran with it. One blogger even went so far as to say he’d been told there were children involved in whatever it was he was implying Williams allegedly did. It’s possible there is some truth in the rumors or that the speculation has coincidentally landed on something correct. If there is any legal process out there to play out, it will play out, and grown-ups will find the information and share it with us all. In the meantime, the Bears have firmly refuted the report about Halas Hall being raided, and Alan Williams has released a statement saying he’s resigning in order to take care of his health and his family. Those Bears bloggers? They might be reckless slanderers, throwing accusations at the wall in the hopes one sticks, but I will give them this: They know their audience. People did a lot of sharing before they tried to figure out if anything was true.
In dramatic Bears things that actually happened today: Justin Fields said he hasn’t been playing like himself, and that he “was kind of robotic.” When asked what could have led him to play this way, he said, “It could be coaching,” and while he later aggressively walked this back, that quote did get and will get a whole lot of attention.
Justin Fields is, of course, a highly talented quarterback. He’s a great quarterback prospect. There are such exciting raw tools there and he demonstrated so much poise and toughness at Ohio State that some level of excitement about Justin Fields has always been warranted. Justin Fields’s problem is that he plays for the Bears, who somehow manage to not only be the worst-run organization in a city where Jerry Reinsdorf owns multiple teams but potentially the worst-run organization in all of professional American sports. The Anaheim Angels are run as though they are listening to every whim of an impulsive fan. The Bears are run as though they are trying to bait Mike Ditka into taking a sledgehammer to Soldier Field. Is the coaching the problem with Justin Fields’ overthinking during games? Maybe, maybe not. But this definitely isn’t a franchise that knows how to build an environment in which talent can develop.
A few weeks ago, Caleb Williams’s dad made headlines by saying Caleb Williams might return for college for an extra season if he didn’t like the franchise picking at the front of the NFL Draft.
Everyone thought Caleb Williams’s dad was talking about the Cardinals.
Has Pittsburgh Gone Soft?
Something still echoing around my head after Nick Chubb’s injury on Monday night is the sound Steelers fans made as they saw the replay on the jumbotron. Here’s a video which does not include the injury up close but does include that sound:
I’m sorry, I thought this was the AFC North. I thought this was football. I was told the “Stillers” were gonna rip people limb from limb. Then one of them starts to do it, and the fans pull this shit? Masculine icon Andy Warhol must be rolling in his grave. (Holy heck, I just pictured Andy Warhol’s coffin and I bet that thing is nuts. I cannot comprehend what is painted on the outside of Andy Warhol’s coffin, or what shape it is. I certainly can’t imagine what’s on the inside. Besides his bones. I bet his bones are in there.)
Deion Sanders Agrees: Death Threats Are Bad
Deion Sanders came out strongly against the death threats we talked about on Monday, those made against Colorado State defensive back Henry Blackburn in the wake of his hit which injured Travis Hunter. Sanders did this emphatically, and Hunter said, “That stuff happens,” and hopefully Colorado fans have stopped calling Blackburn’s mom and we can all move on.
First, one bit of levity. Check out the last sentence of the ESPN article covering Sanders’s comments:
“I don’t mind getting death threats,” Sanders said. “I get them every week — but a kid, it’s not good.”
This is the hard thing with Deion Sanders. He says the things someone would say if they were aggressively trying to impress the world. In the case of Deion Sanders, though, he means the things, or the things in question are true. If Dan Lanning said, “I don’t mind getting death threats. I get them every week,” I would roll my eyes. When Deion Sanders says it, I start to roll my eyes, but then I realize he’s probably serious. This is a common thread in The Deion Sanders Experience™.
What Was Christopher Morel Doing With His Shirt?
Alexander Canario hit his first career home run last night, and it was a grand slam, and it turned a decisive win into a blowout. Great moment. One part of it I would like us to discuss: While Canario rounded the bases, our beloved Christopher Morel was shown on the broadcast celebrating in the dugout, pulling his jersey off over his head.
My theory on what happened here is that Christopher Morel is a puppy, and much like a puppy, Christopher Morel has so much happiness sometimes that he has nowhere to put it. When this happens with dogs, they grab toys or other objects that are nearby, sprinting to the person they’re so happy about while carrying a stuffed tiger or a plastic bone or a piece of laundry that was sitting in the laundry room. When it happens with Christopher Morel, I think he takes his shirt off. Personally? I love it. The only downside I can see is that should Christopher Morel ever father a child, I’m a little worried he’ll get himself in trouble at the moment of birth by running around the delivery room naked.
While we’re on the NL Central: I can’t decide how to feel about Adam Wainwright’s 200th win. It feels wrong of him to make the Cardinals put up with so much of his pitching this year just so he could hit that milestone, but I kind of like the Cardinals just sucking it up and showing loyalty to their guy. Even from a practical standpoint, if I were a free agent who just watched what the Cardinals did with Adam Wainwright, I would want to retire in St. Louis. The Cardinals will always be blindly loyal to their legends, and that’s cool. I just think it would’ve reflected better on Wainwright if he did the thing humans are said to have done back in our nomadic days, when elders who knew they were holding back the tribe would leave in the night and walk off alone into the woods to relieve the burden.
Err.
I think he should have done the baseball equivalent of that and just benched himself.
Is Harry Maguire Scared of Burnley?
Manchester United has a big list of injured players right now ahead of Saturday’s game at Turf Moor, and yesterday, Harry Maguire joined that list. This is important, because unlike most players in the Premier League, I know who Harry Maguire is. I went to an English bar to watch the game he and that ex-Tottenham striker (update, remembered the name, it’s Harry Kane) lost to France.
Anyway, not a lot of details on the Maguire injury, and I think that means Maguire is scared of the Burnleys.
Joe Kelly Looked *Good*
Joe Kelly pitched Monday night, and he looked the sharpest he’s looked in at least a couple months. Stuff was moving, stuff was catching corners, velocity was there. We may never relive that 2018 postseason when Joe Kelly was briefly the most effective pitcher on Earth, but we may get some nasty Joe Kelly postseason strikeouts. Each of those is a gift.
Spain Is Conscripting Soccer Players
We use the word “conscript” a lot around here, mostly in reference to how the NCAA forces a certain 68 college basketball teams to play in its preferred postseason tournament every March and April. Last night, though, we learned that Spain legitimately legally conscripts its athletes to play on the national team. There is evidently a law against refusing the call, punishable by fines and a suspended license. What do I mean by the license part? I don’t know. I’m seeing something about “the suspension of their federation licence,” and my interpretation is that you need a license to play professional sports in Spain, which feels even more heavy-handed by the government than the part where they conscript their athletes. The conscription thing’s kind of badass. The license thing is the opposite.
