Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

Barring more stupid shit happening, this will be the thread for the remainder of March. We are just over a month away from the NFL Draft.

Where do I start? I haven’t written about basketball in a long time. The Bulls are so irrelevant, I have watched maybe one or two games since November. So that leaves me with Illinois Basketball. This fucking team. Losing four overtime games in the last 45 days or so due to shitty free throw shooting and blowing leads. This sounds exactly like the shit I wrote 15 years ago when talking about the Bulls. Ill-annoyed, indeed.

This is fucking rotten. I have been praying for one National Championship in both football and basketball from this school my entire life. And every year, there seems to be some kind of prayer. Start off well. Then, find ways to lose and fuck themselves out of any chance. Two years ago, they made the Elite Eight only to get steamrolled by the eventual champions in UConn. Fine. But all these other years, they can’t even make it to the Sweet 16.

This year, it will probably be the same. Good teams don’t lose four overtime games out of their last 10 or 11. Good teams don’t blow big leads. Good teams don’t miss a bunch of free throws to cost them those same games.

Next, the state of Illinois. I try to avoid to politics on here for obvious reasons. But in this case, fuck all of these politicians. Both sides. All this time, they told everyone that they will not give any money to the Bears for a new stadium. Now, they are working diligently to “find” money to give George McCaskey. For the love of God, let Indiana and their residents pay the billions for the stadium. So the fat fuck in Springfield and all of his billionaire friends should tell Kevin Warren to eat a bag of dicks. If Kevin wants a stadium so bad, he should put the “shovels in the ground” himself and build it all on his own. After he gets done building it, he can bury himself under it so we don’t have to see this dipshit again. I seriously didn’t think it would get any worse after Ted Phillips mercifully left this dis-organization. And now, we’re stuck with this bald-headed idiot.

Let me say this for the 7,000th time: NOTHING IS WRONG WITH SOLDIER FIELD.

Everyone else claims it’s a dump and hard to travel in and out of. For many years, I have navigated my way around that place. I’ve had little-to-no issues. Why? Because I know my way around the city. I know where to park for free and walk 15-20 minutes to the stadium. And because this team is so fucking rotten, I can leave early and beat traffic without problems. Simple. Or even after last season’s opening night meltdown, I left the stadium with basically a couple minutes to go in the game. I got to my car in that same 15-20 minute span, drove out of the city and got home in a timely manner. So to these stupid fans that piss and moan about parking: Be smarter about how you arrive. Tailgate early if you desire.

Or again, go to Indiana. I probably won’t go since it will take me an extra half hour just to cross the border. But other fans can sit in traffic for hours and drive further all because Soldier Field “is a dump.” Let me remind everyone that the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority owe something like $500 million or whatever to the Chicago Park District due to the renovations on the stadium in 2002. If the Bears break the lease, they will owe $90 million. Where do you think that money is going to come from to pay for that? These fans that are pissing and moaning for a new stadium: You will get your wish. Not only will you pay for very expensive tickets in the new stadium, your tax dollars will still pay for the old one. All of us in the state will be on the hook for that exit fee.

Feelings seem to be split on the decision Drew Dalman made to retire. Some fans may believe he had planned this and it’s why he decided to play one more year (to get more guaranteed money). Some others could believe he wants to preserve his health. Regardless of whatever his decision was, it’s his choice. Now, the real work begins.

Ozzy Trapilo is going to be out for the entire season after tearing his patellar tendon. Just typing that out makes me shake.

So the Bears will need to get a left tackle and center. They have seven draft picks this upcoming draft. The way I see it, three offensive linemen need to be drafted out of that seven. All I’m hearing the last two days is Ryan Poles trying to sign or trade for a lineman. It worked last year as we witnessed with getting Dalman and Thuney. But again, this can’t be a reoccurring situation. The Bears must draft linemen who can start immediately.

How many times have we seen general managers try to spend a bunch of money to fix problems? It doesn’t work often. Super Bowl winning teams are made by drafting players who can provide immediate success. In other words, draft busts aren’t going to get it done and we’ve seen plenty of those from this franchise over the years.

I still have zero faith in Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson. People can scream “THEY WENT 11-6” all they want. The fact is it took several miracles to win most of the those games. And some of those came against really horrible teams. So don’t get upset if the Bears are awful next year to begin with. This all falls on management and coaches. If they want to prove me wrong by drafting players who will be ready to contribute to this team, go for it. If they want to prove me wrong by Ben Johnson deciding to stop being a stupid fuck with this play-calling, be my guest.