Bleacher Report - Articles by brenden west

NFC North Update: Bears Shock the World

brenden west — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 15:46:06 -0400

Let us take things back to August.

It's preseason. Green Bay pulls the worst trade in history. Detroit has it's annual "something to prove" headlines. And the only question in Minnesota is, how exactly they'll go about dominating the North this year.

Chicago? They're not even in the conversation. They're a 4-12 team this year apparently. Orton doesn't have what it takes to lead a team. Matt Forte? Well, he won't do anything behind this porous o-line. The defense? A shadow of the 2006 juggernaut it once was.

Fast forward to opening weekend. Analysts across the continent unanimously pick Detroit to win, Chicago to lose, and generally split between the Monday Night Special: GB vs. MN.

Fast forward to Monday. The Lion's lost to Matt Ryan's Falcons. Green Bay commences the post-Favre era with a win.

But the story of the NFC North, is how the Chicago Bears shocked sports, shocked football, shocked everyone...

Except me. For three reasons.

Reason One:

I said it in '05, I said it last year, I said it this year. Rex Grossman is NOT the right quarterback for this team. It's not because he isn't necessarily talented, or that he doesn't have potential. He makes bad decisions. Decisions that lose football games.

Don't believe me? Tell me, when's the last time the Chicago lost a game without turning the ball over? In fact, when's the last time the Bears didn't turn the ball over?

Kyle Orton isn't Tony Romo. He isn't Tom Brady. He probably never will be.

But he doesn't turn the ball over. The Bears didn't lose games last year because they couldn't defend, it was because their offense couldn't stay on the field. It was because they couldn't keep teams out of the end zone when they started inside the 30 three or four times a game.

We don't need a pro bowler. We need a winning quarterback. That's the only stat where Orton has excelled.

Reason Two:

Did you see it? The Bears actually had a run game! An effective run game! They found a guy in the second round who can (get this) make people miss!

I'm not going to pretend that I foresaw a 100 yard game in his rookie debut, but when Matt Forte ran for a buck 25, again, I was not surprised.

Any Chicago team that has ever won anything in this league has been able to run the ball. 2006 was a success thanks largely to Thomas Jones. The year '85 had "Sweetness." The teams of old had players like Grange and Sayers.

Is Matt Forte the next Adrian Peterson? Too early to tell. But if he can keep things up he has rookie of the year on lock down, as well as a spot in the playoffs.

Reason Three:

The Bears defense is still something to be feared. Some will say that the Colt's line was incomplete last night. I wonder if they noticed that when Chicago got to Manning it was on the outside...

Thanks to Orton's astounding stat of ZERO turnovers, the defense was allowed to settle in and do it's job. Sure they had holes in the coverage. Sure Peyton exploited it. But when crunch time came, which is within the 20 yard line on either side of the field, the Bears tightened up (like they had in the past) and forced turnovers and field goals.

This wasn't a fluke win. This wasn't a week one relapse. This was a Chicago team with "something to prove." They held on to the ball, moved up the field with the run game, and played ferocious D.

And they were the most fun to watch out of the teams in the North.

NBA Success: Formula One

brenden west — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:26:03 -0500

It’s hard to believe, being a Chicago fan for all my life, that it will be 10 years since my city was the cream of the crop.

The Bulls were, dare I say, unstoppable. It was a formula that would never work today. You had the greatest player in the game, Michael Jordan—a man who needs no introduction, a man who even owner Jerry Reinsdorf felt the necessity to honor (believe me, erecting that statue in front of the United Center is a bigger deal than most will recognize).

Alongside this Juggernaut was another, less noticed, less appreciated, but still required piece to the masterpiece—Scottie Pippen—at the very peak of his prime if not for a nagging injury.

The rest of the equation really didn’t matter. I suppose you could honorably mention Dennis Rodman for his ferocious defense and ridiculous hall-of-fame rebounding numbers, but his antics distinguish his accolades.

With the ’98 Bulls, like any of those teams that decade, it took two superstars in Jordan and Pippen and six or seven role players who did their job, and Abra-Kadabra! you had yourself a championship caliber team. A six-time championship caliber team no less.

Try making that formula work now against the likes of Duncan, Howard, Garnett, Yao, Dirk, Shaq, Amare, Boozer, and pretty soon maybe even Bynum. In addition to your two superstars, you need a force in the middle to win. There’s just no way around it.

Based on last year’s world champs, today’s formula for success requires at least three of the following: scorers (Lebron, Kobe, Melo, Pierce, Dwayne, Arenas, T-Mac, Dirk, and pretty soon maybe even Durant), elite point guard (Nash, Billups, Paul, Iverson, Williams, Parker, Baron Davis, Kidd), “wingmen” who quietly get the job done on offense or defense (Hamilton, Manu Ginobili, Jason Terry, Caron Butler, Jamison, Ray Allen, Barbosa), defensive enforcer (Ben Wallace, Rasheed, Shaq, Bowen, Camby), and probably the number one requirement—the inside scorer (Howard, Gasol, Amare, maybe Bynum, Boozer, Duncan, Garnet, Yao).

Last year’s champs, San Antonio Spurs, has four of the five factors of success fulfilled and there to stay in Duncan, Ginobili, Bowen, and Parker. It’s a team that is in the hunt ever single year and that’s the reason. All of the other top-tier teams—Denver, Detroit, Boston, Phoenix, Dallas—have at least three of the five factors satisfied.

We digress from my point however.

Remember at the beginning of the season when we all picked up that annual issue of SI and read about how this season was supposed to turn out? Remember flipping through a few pages and seeing, low and behold, the Chicago Bulls, are picked to finish third in the Eastern Conference?

My question for all of you is...WHY?!?!

Granted, it’s almost hard to argue that the east is even comparable to the west, with all of our western foes seemingly getting the sweeter end of the deal this deadline. You don’t need a “strong” team to make it out of there in one piece.

But still, third?

Here’s why you’re wrong SI: You need your elite point guards, your scorers, your wingmen, and your big men to win nowadays.

The Bulls, both before and after the deadline, still have none. If they do then they have yet to establish themselves as such. Who was our scorer? Luol? That’s fine by me, but the problem is the ball somehow doesn’t end up in his hands. Is it Gordon? Not from what I’ve seen. He forces bad shots, turns the ball over, and is a huge liability on defense.

Who’s our elite point guard? Kirk? Maybe if he’s playing the one like he’s supposed to. On draft day the guy was receiving comparisons to Stockton. STOCKTON! JOHN STOCKTON! You know, the guy who holds all of those assists records? Maybe we should let him, I don’t know...DO WHAT HE WAS BROUGHT HERE TO DO! Unfortunately, Kirk is too streaky, and I think it’s time to move on.

Who are our wingmen? Nocioni? Thabo? Possibly, but they need to see some court time then. Neither have really shown they’re capable of being consistent yet. They either need to step up or ship out before their value goes below freezing.

Don’t even start me on big men. Ben Wallace, while a great acquisition, did not fit. The Bulls didn’t have trouble stopping the ball, it was scoring it inside the paint. If Thomas and Noah can grow up and mature, Chicago might have a front court that’s worth scouting. Only time will tell though. Don’t sleep on Aaron Gray either.

Again I digress.

What we’ve seen here is a formula that isn’t going to work in the NBA. The 90s are over Paxson. You can’t put the ball in the hands of a couple of scorers and surround them with mediocrity anymore. Had you traded for Kobe we would still be in the same hole.

Today’s NBA takes a formula of not one, not two, but three or four solid capable players in order to become elite. Luol Deng is not a superstar, not yet any way. Kirk Hinrich is not an elite point guard, though he’s shown glimpses. Gordon, Nocioni, Thabo—they aren’t the wingmen we need to bring home hardware.

The acquisition of Hughes and Gooden may turn out for the best. It may even lead to a playoff berth. But there is a bigger issue at hand here. Bulls fans around the globe are pleading. We’ve come so close. We drank from the fountain of youth and now we want it all.

I remember the Jordan Days. Those days when you needed a star or two and a JV team to win championships. But this is 2008, John, and you need to realize that in order to win in the 21st century, you need to have three or four capable players.

And if it doesn’t happen fast, a great opportunity will have been lost, and it will take a long time for us to get it back.

AFC: The Dominant Conference?

brenden west — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 17:32:08 -0500

It was fun listening to Chris Berman, Tom Jackson, and Sean Salisbury be the spokesmen for the AFC this NFL season. They said, “Clearly, the AFC is the more dominant conference!” It’s tough to argue with success.

Six of the last seven Super Bowl Champs had come from the AFC; the Colts own the longest streak of reaching the playoffs at six straight years, and who could argue with the Patriots going undefeated? Why not just give them the crown mid-season?

The script was going according to plan. New England had won every game making the Super Bowl for the fifth time this decade. All that was left was to beat the snot out of an inferior NFC team. This time around it would be the Giants, a team they’d already beaten.

Then, almost inexplicably, the most dominant team from the most dominant conference got outplayed by a “lesser” NFC team, with plenty of 'what if’s" to follow.

Like, what if the Patriots had learned some humility by losing in the regular season? What if they spent less time running up the score on clearly weaker teams? What if seven of their wins hadn’t come from other “dominant” AFC teams like Baltimore, New York, Buffalo, and Miami?

But the biggest “what if” that comes to my mind: What if the AFC isn’t as dominant as we all thought? Then again, maybe I’m just crazy, but let’s go there for a moment.

We all know the Patriots went 16-0 in the regular season, but if you combine that record with the likes of AFC East foes New York, Buffalo, and Miami, they are a combined 28-36, which is third worst among combined division records. One of those four teams didn’t lose a game. Conversely, the Super Bowl Champs hail from a division with three playoff teams and an overall record of 40-24.

When two teams from the opposite conference squared off this year, it was the NFC that won the head-to-head battle more times than not. That’s right, Chris Berman’s “inferior conference,” won more games when it came to AFC vs. NFC.

I will concede, it’s hard to argue with success. The Colts and Patriots have made it to postseason play each of the last five seasons. Then again, so have the Seahawks. No one views them as “dominant.” Do two teams that make the playoffs every year make an entire conference elite, top to bottom? According to NFL “experts” the answer apparently is an emphatic yes.

Explain then, why a “dominant AFC team” owns the first pick in the draft, Chris Berman? Are not the Dolphins, Raiders, Ravens, Chiefs, and Jets part of the AFC as well, Sean Salisbury?

Now, I’m not trying to say that the NFC is better than the AFC. What I’m trying to say, rather, is that there is no such thing as “conference supremacy” like these so-called experts tell us every week.

Colts, Patriots, Chargers, Steelers…they’re all very good teams, and dare I say, elite. But that doesn’t make their competition elite. Seahawks, Giants, Cowboys…they see the same foes, and beat up on them just as much, if not more, according to the stats.

There are no “dynasties,” defense doesn’t “win championships,” there is no formula for success. A team cannot be judged based on their history or their conference or division. This isn’t the NCAA.

This season has no bearing on next year. The Giants will have to go out and earn it again, just like they did last year. Their Super Bowl victory doesn’t make the NFC supreme. Because the team that wins on any given Sunday is the team that shows up to play the game.

For nearly twenty consecutive weeks, the New England Patriots were that team. The days leading up were a focus on their Sunday rivals and when they walked on the field they knew they were going to win the game. They didn’t play the media circus with the teams that would weekly bash them. They knew they were above those people.

The New York Giants defied the nation when they won the Super Bowl, no question about it. They did it because they were the team that showed up that Sunday.

Perhaps now their conference will get the respect it deserves.