BEARS AND BULLS

Bears look hungry in the NFL and on Wall Street.

One year ago, The Weekly Opine took the Chicago Bears to task, positing, “the grim truth is the Chicago Bears are the worst franchise in Chicago. Even the Bulls, who’ve become an NBA laughingstock, are a better franchise than the Bears.” The opinion is at theweeklyopine.com/blog/2017/12/7/are-bears-the-worst-franchise-in-sports.

Last year the opine continued, “for the Bears, what’s now at risk is becoming the worst franchise in American sports.”

At the time the article was written last December, the Chicago Bears were mired in historic franchise misery, having missed the playoffs seven consecutive seasons, four consecutive losing seasons and four consecutive seasons finishing in the basement (last place) in their division.

Last year, Bears General Manager Ryan Pace had stupefyingly paid $18 million, in guaranteed money, to a barely mediocre quarterback (don’t get me started on the fact Colin Kaepernick has been black-balled by the NFL) and then traded three draft picks to move up in the draft to get a rookie QB.

So, in fact there was a basis for the conclusion the Bears franchise was one of the worst sports franchises in America.

Mack the Knife

But the times they be changing for the Chicago Bears, led by GM Pace who has made a remarkable comeback to help the Bears reverse field faster than Gale Sayers or Tarik Cohen.

Midway through last season Pace promoted Mitchell Trubisky to starting QB, allowing Trubisky to gain valuable experience in his rookie year. Then Pace fired hapless head coach John Fox, replacing him with Matt Nagy, an innovative, expressive, likeable coach who resembles a balding Aaron Rogers.

Then, during the preseason, in a move as good as any in sports the past ten years, Pace brought in Khalil Mack, one of the top ten players in football (not just top ten defensive players but top ten players, period). Mack’s arrival inspired his new teammates, on both sides of the ball, coaches on defense and offense, and fans and media. Mack is indeed that rare transformative athlete.

The Chicago Bears have responded with an excellent season. The Bears are 9-4 and easily could be 12-1, if not for a dropped interception in the waning minutes against the Green Bay Packers, and sloppy play against the New York Football Giants and the Miami Dolphins.

Sunday night on national TV the Bears evoked memories of 1985, with their punishing 15-6 victory over the previously once-beaten, high-flying L.A. Rams.

It was a throwback game; temperature of 28 degrees, low-scoring, controlled by the Bears aggressive, swarming defense and ball-control rushing attack. It was a sweet respite from so many high-flying contests, illuminated by the video game-like score of 54-51 when the Rams defeated the Kansas City Chiefs a couple weeks prior.

(It turned out to be a delightful throwback sports weekend as I attended the Indiana-Louisville college basketball game on Saturday, won 68-67 by the Hoosiers. It was an old-school, grind-it-out, every-possession-is-critical, defensive-minded game that counterpunched today’s celebrated style of track-meet fast breaks highlighted by raining three-point shots.)

As for the Bears of Chicago, team ownership appears to finally recognize to step out of the way. For example, George McCaskey recently joined other Chicago pro sports team owners to form the Chicago Sports Alliance, whose goal is to reduce Chicago’s well-publicized gun violence problem.

It is the kind of civic duty the McCaskey family is better suited for and will hopefully keep them from reverting to a hands-on approach with their football team.

Not a Bulls market

On the other side of town, the Chicago Bulls, who have mostly wandered in the wilderness since the heyday of dual three-peat NBA championships in the 1990’s, have taken on the mantle of worst franchise in Chicago, and seemingly aspire to the national crown.

Just last week, the Bulls fired a coach (Fred Hoiberg) they never should have hired in the first place, replaced him with one of his assistant coaches who, rather than serve on an interim basis for now, has been promised the job for next year. And then the team lost to an injury-depleted Boston Celtics squad by 56 points last Saturday, leaving the court to resounding boos from fans.

Next came the crazy. New coach Jim Boylen, an admitted hard-ass type, announced post-Celtics debacle the Bulls would have a hard-ass practice on Sunday, which is not exactly the NBA norm following back-to-back games Friday and Saturday.

A small group of players began texting each other essentially saying, screw this, we ain’t practicing. Mutiny was averted when the team calmed down and agreed to a Sunday player’s only meeting, followed by a meeting that included the players, coaches and management.

By Monday, all were saying the air had been cleared and let’s move on. But reading quotes, from the coach and players, one can’t help but believe all is not well, despite the weekend revolt having been subdued.

Boylen admitted to making a mistake using the media as a megaphone to publicly call out his team to complain about their effort and conditioning. Many of the players feel Hoiberg, who by all accounts was too soft and over his skis coaching in the NBA, should have been given the chance to continue, now that several key Bulls players have returned from prolonged injury absences.

As is often the case, the Bulls front office has been derelict in duty for too long to still be employed by team owner Jerry Reinsdorf who, by the way, has run the other Chicago professional team he owns, baseball’s White Sox, into the ground. Only because they’ve become too dull to care much about are the White Sox not candidates for worst franchise.

Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations, John Paxson, and team GM Gar Forman somehow are still around to inflict more damage. After years of destroying what was once a proud, enviable franchise, these two overmatched men are still punching the clock at the Advocate Center, across the street from the United Center.

GarPax, as they are derisively nicknamed in Chicago, repeat the same yabba, dabba, doo about building a title contender any time they face the media, e.g. on draft day and after firing/hiring coaches. With Boylen being the 6th coach hired by GarPax, fans do not need a crib sheet to recite the worn-out malarkey coming from the Bulls executive suite.

And to drive home the point about all not being well, on Monday the Bulls were blown out again, on their home court, by the middle-of-the-pack Sacramento Kings. Losing by “only” 19 points felt like a tight game, following Saturday’s 56-point loss.

Bears and Bulls Part 2

Over on Wall Street, bears are putting fear into the nearly decade-long bull market, which looks to be running out of steam. American’s 401K and IRA retirement savings prospered after what started as a flicker, amongst the ashes of the 2008 financial meltdown, expanded into cha-ching, cha-ching music.

Now, not yet officially a bear market, nearly 50 percent of the stocks that make up the S&P 500 are down 20 percent or more. In other words, about half of the S&P 500 stocks are in bear market territory.

Market unease can be traced to several factors, a few of which are listed here.

For one thing, we are experiencing the second longest bull market in history. It will come to an end sometime. And the toxic combo of rising interest rates and soaring debt, crude oil uncertainty, global tensions, and political scrums make traders and investors reach for sleep aids.

Second, Trump, aka the goofball president, seems intent on demonstrating how he ran his businesses into bankruptcy not one, not two, not three, but six times.

Trump’s damaging tax break for the wealthy and corporations hasn’t produced many jobs but has funded shareholder satisfying corporate stock buybacks, which does not help Ma and Pa Kettle on Main Street. Industry rattling tariffs further prove Trump is a dumb businessman who, apparently, survived this long due to funny money loaned to his businesses by Russians and Saudis.

Trump’s trademark impulsiveness has Wall Street as jittery as a shy high school sophomore searching for the courage to ask a senior homecoming queen to dance.

Also, the decision to relieve the more-than-capable Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen of her duties, replacing her with non-economist Jerome Powell, may backfire. Trump has already begun bullying Powell.

Separate from Jerome Powell, it continues to amaze, Trump’s total lack of talent evaluation skill, which is evident in the people he’s chosen who now form the most incompetent administration in presidential history.

One wonders how the country will fare if financial clouds intensify, because bear markets and recessions present complex challenges that would overwhelm simpleton Trump, a man who lies about everything, including his taxes.

The Weekly Opine has taken President Obama to task on several occasions but no one with a lick of sense would deny that Obama, who inherited an economy in free fall, partnering with Fed Chair Ben Bernanke saved America from potentially another Great Depression.

And no one with a lick of sense can deny the Obama administration was stocked with intelligent pros who guided the country back on track, the result of which has been a 9-year economic expansion.

In the coming months, if the bears stampede, and the economy turns sour, does anybody trust Trump, aka Individual-1, aka unindicted Co-conspirator, to possess the acumen to steer us to safety?

I don’t.

Douglas FreelandDecember 13, 2018