Fire Ryan Poles | Fire Ben Johnson

Monday Night Raw at the AllState Arena was pretty good even though it was yet, another grueling three-hour show. I’ll have a recap at Falls Count Anywhere in the next day or two. Here are some pics for you Chucky. Enjoy.

Enjoy the Labor Day weekend folks.

This is more of a rant (Which article I write ISN’T a rant?) but I am very ANGRY at the fact that EA Sports no longer features Gus Johnson in it’s Madden game. I read a few months back that the always awesome Jim Nantz Underpants and Phil Simms would take over for Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth. It’s enough Gus Johnson doesn’t do any more games in the NFL nor NCAA since being let go by CBS and now, he is not in even in the game. He took a job as Fox’s college football announcer so that’s what we, as fans have been reduced to.

Gus Johnson is one of the most entertaining announcers I have heard. If you search his name in YouTube, you’ll get many exciting calls from college basketball over the years and even some from the NFL. It’s a travesty that he doesn’t call more games. In the new Madden game, I have already been annoyed by Nantz and Simms. To make matters worse, there already seems to be a glitch in the game where Simms repeats the same damn sentence numerous times in one drive that I had playing the game the other night. It’s annoying to say the least and I already feel like shutting off the volume on the announcers part of the game.

In a perfect world, Gus Johnson should be calling every hockey, basketball and football game. If any of you know how intense this guy gets, can you imagine him being an MC at a wedding? I can’t imagine him calling the toss of the boutique by the bride or announcing the people who are walking down the aisle. I would pay him to call my wedding.

Note to Fox: Give this guy more games to call. Sundays will suck when I am forced to listen to morons like Kenny Albert, Thom Brenneman and the kiss of death to Chicago sports, Dick Stockton. Sam Rosen is awesome but it’s just not enough. WE WANT GUS DAMNIT.

I’ll try to keep this short but first, the game Saturday was exciting even though it was preseason. For the first time in a long time, the Bears have receivers who can actually run a route correctly and catch the ball. So far, it looks like Emery has nailed it with picking up Brandon Marshall on Alshon Jeffrey. There was one slant I believe in that game that Jeffrey ran to perfection and nearly scored a touchdown on it. Michael Bush (by cracky) also looked pretty good running the ball.

For the game Friday, I think most of us will be paying attention to the offensive line and how they react to quite possibly, the best defense in the NFL. Their front four is scary and has been for quite a while. That is one of the main reasons why they have won two Super Bowls in the last five years. All around, the defense is spectacular. I only pray that the Bears cornerbacks and safeties take notes. On the offensive side, we have to pray that Cutler doesn’t get killed. I thought the line looked much better against the Redskins on Saturday but this is a much different story. The starters are expected to play into the third quarter.

Discuss.

We are just one preseason game into the year and Lovie Smith has already tried to feed the fans bullshit. Last week, he says Brian Urlacher misses practice for “personal reasons”. Everyone knew that Urlacher was probably going from doctor to doctor to find out what is wrong with this knee. Then, the news the breaks on Tuesday that he ended up getting his knee cleaned out.

Reports say that he should be ready go by the season opener but let’s be honest, I don’t believe anything that comes out of Lovie’s mouth or anyone else on that team. I understand why the players would have to say that crap but the fact that Lovie Smith, has continuously insulted the paying customers by lying, is unnecessary. I’ll speak for myself as well as the guys at Fire Ron Turner, that we’re the guys who put money into that franchise by going to nearly every home game every season. If I shoved bullshit down every customer at my business like Lovie Smith does, I wouldn’t have enough to make ends meet.

Along with the consistent lying, the guy is also an idiot for playing Urlacher in the final regular season game which was meaningless to begin with. Being that it’s the Bears, fans always have a feeling that something bad is going to happen anyway, so prevent it when you can. In all these years he has been the coach, he has mismanaged his players and put some of them (Hester at wide receiver) in a position to fail. Instead of playing some of these players to their strengths, he plays them to their weaknesses because he “thinks they can help the team”.

I remember a game against the Seahawks in 2007 where the Bears were just trying to stay in the wild card race. Cedric Benson on his first run, goes 50 or 60 yards for a touchdown and the Bears are up early. The rest of the game, he hardly had the chance to touch the ball and the Bears insisted on passing the rest. The Bears promptly lose the game and the season is in turmoil if it already wasn’t. I remember it as if it were yesterday when Lovie took the podium after the game. Someone asked about Cedric Benson not getting many carries after that. Lovie replied with something along the lines of, “Well, if you keep doing that, they’ll eventually stop that”. That’s stupidity at it’s finest.

I’ll be glad when Lovie Smith is shown the door shortly after the New Year because even with the vast improvements of the team, if Urlacher isn’t healthy which he won’t be, they are screwed before it even begins. I’ll be shocked and I am sure most will agree if he is healthy. The defense sucks even more without him. In addition, after seeing J’Marcus Webb in the game against the Broncos last week, we need to pick a week when Cutler will have his season-ending injury. Look on the bright side though, at least Johnny Knox won’t cause it by slipping and forcing Jay to run 50 yards down the field to prevent the other team from scoring.

No worries though ladies and gentleman. We have the shitty combo of Jason Campbell and Josh McCown ready to go and if anything happens to those guys, Todd Collins is only one call away.

Your thoughts on the Bears opening up the preseason this Thursday against the Broncos and anything else that is on your mind.

Enjoy the week folks.

It was August 1st, 2008. This site picked up where the old one left off. If I thought this place would last longer than a year, I would have probably be called insane. But that seems to be the case. There have been fun moments on here as well as some that weren’t all that great. We’ve spent a total of six-seven years as a group.

This is a site where all of you can write just about what you want, when you want. Anything is up for discussion even if it’s not sports. As every year goes by, I cannot thank all of you guys enough. First off, thanks to Scott and Keith for contributing their own articles on this site. Keith, if you’re reading this, get better my friend and we’ll see you back on here soon.

In the last year, the hits have been up and while we’ve lost some old-timers, we’ve gained many new readers and that is an awesome thing. I know I provide this place for you guys, but all of you keep it running. Some of us has disagreed on some stuff but we keep it friendly and that’s how it always should be. One thing we can all agree on, Chucky’s rants are always the best even if he is a lunatic but he’s OUR lunatic.

Here’s to four more.

I am sincere when I say that too. With training camp here, Phil Emery is still finding ways to improve the Bears. On Thursday, he traded next year’s seventh round draft pic for defensive tackle Brian Price from the Buccaneers. Stat time (Cue Irish Yeti): He had three sacks in 14 games while injured for most of the season. I think this is still good a pickup because if he stays healthy and contributes, it’s a steal. If he ends up being hurt and not producing, it didn’t cost the Bears much, if anything. If there is a fact in this article, it’s that we all know Chicago has had a history of some stupid general managers in sports over the years. It’s nice to see that change for once.

Another thing that I find refreshing in Phil Emery is that when he speaks, he actually sounds like he knows what he is talking about. Whether or not it all works out, I still feel much better about him than the idiot running the Bears before him. When Angelo spoke, he sounded lost and incoherent at times. When Emery speaks, he actually sounds like a man with intelligence and somebody who knows what he is talking about. You cannot argue, that he has done everything possible to turn this team around. I am sure our good friend and official lunatic, Chucky will tell you, he has done everything right except fire Lovie Smith. It’s been mentioned several times over the last few months by myself here, that Emery took this job knowing that the Bears told him to keep Lovie for at least one more season. Emery knows that this is Lovie’s last hurrah as head coach. Us fans who actually watch the games know that too unless the Bears, of course, win the Super Bowl.

Expectations are high. I am always excited for a new season for any of my teams. Even though I still feel the secondary needs some help along with the offensive line, I feel a lot of better going forward as a fan than I have in past years and that’s because Emery is in charge of this team and not Jerry Angelo. Another example I look at is what he did last week with Forte. He was able to get the deal done just hours before the deadline. If anybody else thought that Angelo would have sealed the deal, you’re dumber than I thought. Angelo had at least two seasons to give Forte what he wanted and he continued to low-ball him. Luckily, Emery came right in and cleaned up the mess and I feel he will continue to do so in the future.

Also, check out the video below. The impressive part isn’t the dance either. I am in love with Michelle Jenneke.

Phil Emery has pushed all the right buttons so far this offseason. If he couldn’t get Matt Forte signed, I wasn’t going to blame him. I was going to blame Jerry Angelo. Forte should have been signed in training camp last year. Had that happened, he would have received less money and therefore, more cap space for the Bears in the future. Regardless, Emery bailed the franchise out of a potentially shitty situation come next offseason because had Forte not been signed, both him and Urlacher would need new contracts at the same time.

I won’t say Forte was overpaid, but he earned a long-term contract. He has busted his ass from day one and did everything that was asked of him. I was screaming on this site for the last year to just give this guy whatever he wants. Instead, Jerry Angelo was low-balling him all of last season and Emery had to come in and clean the mess up just hours before the deadline.

Feel free to add your thoughts.