Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by Rick Morrissey

Bears predictions: Week 15 at Browns

2023-12-14T11:09:53.621-06:00

Bears defensive tackle Justin Jones celebrates during a preseason game against the Browns last year.

Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images

The Sun-Times’ experts offer their picks for the Bears’ game Sunday in Cleveland:

Rick Morrissey

Bears, 20-17: If the Bears can make Jared Goff look like an interception-throwing statue, surely they can do the same with 38-year-old Joe Flacco, who leaves the pocket only for bingo and bathroom breaks. A huge question is whether Justin Fields can survive the Browns’ defense. Season: 9-4.

Rick Telander

Bears, 28-24: Wherever you go, whatever you do, no matter how bad it gets, the Browns are worse. Tim Couch, Kellen Winslow Jr, “Johnny Football” Manziel, Deshaun Watson ($230 million guaranteed), etc. Season: 9-4.

Scoop Jackson

Bears, 19-16: Stefanski vs. Eberflus. This will not be a matchup against teams as much as it will be about Matt’s future. Going against an 8-5 team that has the most wins in the NFL against teams with winning records — with their own polarized coach — this will be the “gauge game” the Bears use to confirm who Eberflus is and what he’s capable (or incapable) of becoming. Season: 9-4.

Patrick Finley

Browns, 23-20 (OT): Winning on the road is hard. Since going 5-3 away from Soldier Field in 2020, the Bears have won just six times in 24 road games. Only one team the Bears have played on the road this year, the Lions, have a better record than the Browns right now. Season: 10-3.

Jason Lieser

Browns, 19-17: While the spike in scoring with 28 points against the Lions was nice, the Bears are two games removed from managing just four field goals against the Vikings. And Cleveland has one of the NFL’s best defenses. Season: 6-7.

Mark Potash

Browns, 20-19: The Bears are heading in the right direction under Eberflus, with three victories in their last four games, and are in position for a third consecutive upset. This should go down the last play. Season: 7-6.

Bulls try to deflect from bad basketball

2023-12-13T13:47:30.898-06:00

Bulls guard Zach LaVine is out several weeks with a foot injury.

Stacy Revere/Getty Images

The Bulls’ season has been reduced to wondering where Zach LaVine will be traded and debating who should or shouldn’t be on the team’s new Ring of Honor.

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It’s not what you’d call much-watch basketball, but we’re used to that with the Bulls. They haven’t been excellent in a long time. They’re not broken. They’re not fighting with each other or with the coaching staff. It’s simply that the pieces that came in the box don’t fit. It’s bad meets boring. At this point, I’d take the drama of brokenness over the tedium of round holes and square pegs.

Doesn’t it figure that just when the Bulls are welcoming trade inquiries for LaVine — and tacitly acknowledging that they can’t win with him — he goes down with a foot injury and is out three to four weeks? This being the Bulls, it would surprise no one if LaVine’s foot simply fell off. And doesn’t it figure that the Bulls start winning with LaVine sidelined? That has somewhat quieted the fans who think that everybody beside LaVine is to blame for the futility of LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic.

The problem we’re confronted with here is the same exasperating problem we’ve had with the Bulls for much of the past 25 years: The same people who likely will be responsible for making this right are the same people who made it wrong in the first place. This time around, that’s Bulls vice president Artūras Karnišovas and his staff.

Here’s a one-sentence defense of Karnišovas: It’s still surprising that what looked so good on paper — LaVine, DeRozan and Vucevic — is so below-average in reality.

You’d think it would have worked. It didn’t, and that’s on the guy making the personnel decisions. LaVine’s fondness for having the ball in his hands isn’t conducive to winning. That’s it. Show’s over. Thanks for coming, folks. Some other team will find that out, eventually. But it was Karnišovas’ job to know it in the first place. Hindsight doesn’t matter now. What we’ve seen in LaVine’s time here matters. Great individual talent. Can’t win with this version of him.

And now we’re supposed to trust that Karnišovas is going to take whatever players and draft picks he gets for LaVine — and maybe for DeRozan and Vucevic, too — and win? If you say so.

For emotional protection, Bulls fans might want to hope for the best and don body armor in anticipation of the worst. It’s worked for Bears fans.

In sports, the Chicago Way has nothing to do with Sean Connery talking about Al Capone. It has to do with Chicago teams’ habit of celebrating the past as a way of obscuring the fact that the present and the future are so unattractive. It’s a way of life with the Bears. If you ask them for an NFC North title for Christmas, you’ll find a Walter Payton jersey under the tree instead.

The Bulls recently announced their new Ring of Honor. The team’s record stands at a slump-shouldered 9-16. They’ll probably call that a coincidence, but they could have honored the past when they were winning with Tom Thibodeau and Derrick Rose. But they chose now, with hope in short supply. They know that nothing brightens up a dark day like Michael Jordan-generated warm and fuzzy feelings. He gave the Bulls six NBA titles and several lifetimes of cover.

There’s nothing wrong with the inaugural Ring of Honor. It hits most of the right notes: Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Phil Jackson, Artis Gilmore, Johnny “Red” Kerr, Dick Klein, Jerry Krause, Toni Kukoc, Bob Love, Dennis Rodman, Jerry Sloan, Chet Walker and Tex Winter. It also will include the entire 1995-96 team, which won 72 regular-season games and an NBA championship.

The problem with the honor roll will become obvious going forward. The Bulls plan to add to the list every two years. That means they’re going to run out of worthy candidates at some point. Rose deserves to be there. So do Luol Deng, Joakim Noah and Jimmy Butler. Jerry Reinsdorf will get his due. So will LaVine.

What about Reggie Theus? Tom Boerwinkle? Kirk Hinrich? Norm Van Lier? Do they belong?

Are Bulls fans really going to see Carlos Boozer’s name on the same United Center shrine as Jordan’s?

Are we going to celebrate the two-year Elton Brand era?

The Ring of Honor eventually could turn into the Ring of Pretty Good, the Ring of We Hardly Knew Ye and the Ring of John “Crash” Mengelt.

Unless Karnišovas gets busy.

Bears make football fun again in win over the Lions

2023-12-10T17:33:20.653-06:00

Bears wide receiver DJ Moore celebrates after scoring a touchdown in the third quarter Sunday.

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

However you see the Bears’ future shaping up, no matter where you fall on the hope-nope spectrum, it’s hard to disagree with the contention that 2023 hasn’t been a lot of fun.

Even the victories have been short on excitement. You know what I’m talking about if you watched the Bears’ 12-10 yawner over Minnesota two weeks ago. You know what I’m talking about provided the catatonia has worn off.

And then came Sunday.

The Bears were a blast.

There’s nothing wrong with looking for signs of progress from a football team or analyzing every play on a microscope slide, but entertainment value matters, too. The Bears beat the Lions 28-13 at Soldier Field, and it was compelling, captivating and, yes, fun. I didn’t realize how much I missed fun until I was in the middle of the game.

Wide receiver DJ Moore scored on a trick-play run on the first drive of the game, and the tone was set. School was in session, but instead of teachers, books and dirty looks from sports columnists, this was going to be a field trip.

Fun was Justin Fields making the Lions look silly with his ability to escape pressure, and fun was Fields looking like a real, live throwing quarterback. He rushed for 58 yards and a touchdown, and threw for 223 yards and a touchdown.

Fun was watching Fields walk away relatively unscathed from Detroit’s dangerous pass rush. And, if we’re being twistedly honest, fun was seeing if he’d get up. He did, again and again.

Fun was Fields hitting Moore for a 38-yard touchdown in the third quarter, taking advantage of a free play on a Lions offside penalty,. On fourth-and-13. Ridiculous.

Fun was the Bears intercepting Jared Goff two times, giving them five in two games against the Lions quarterback this season. If Goff were offered the opportunity to bundle his games going forward, he’d drop the Bears.

Fun was the defense shutting down the Lions on the first five drives of the second half, which included a lost Goff fumble and a stop on fourth-and-one.

Fun was safety Jaquan Brisker having 17 tackles. He was everywhere he wanted to be, everywhere the Lions didn’t want him to be and, apparently, everywhere all at once.

Fun was the Bears winning back-to-back games for the first time in Matt Eberflus’ tenure as head coach.

Fun was the Bears holding on to a big lead, unlike three weeks ago, when they blew a 12-point fourth-quarter advantage and lost to the Lions.

The Bears outscored Detroit 18-0 in the second half Sunday. That shouldn’t be glossed over. Their habit of late has been to score early on scripted plays and then be less than impressive without that structure. There was a consistency to their approach this time. Consistency: also fun.

It was nice to watch a Bears game without the weight of What It All Means hanging over everything. It was possible to marvel at some of Fields’ needle-threaders without wondering what it meant for his future. Here was a quarterback having fun out there. Did his looseness and our enjoyment have something to do with the fact he had no interceptions Sunday? Absolutely. More of that, please.

Detroit came into the game with a 9-3 record, the Bears with a 4-8 record. Then the clock started, and you never would have known who was who.

The Fox halftime crew gushed about Fields’ athleticism as if it were a news flash. His ability to run is not a revelation. His ability to throw accurate passes has been a massive question mark since he arrived in Chicago three seasons ago. He was excellent at it Sunday. A few of those passes looked ill-advised until they dropped onto the fingertips of his receivers. Then they looked like great throws. There’s a fine line between excellence and crazy town for NFL quarterbacks, and Fields has been on the wrong side a lot in his career. But he gets props for doing Sunday what we praise the great ones for doing.

“Like Cole [Kmet] said, we probably could have put up 40 if … we could have executed better,’’ Fields said.

These aren’t heady days for the Bears just yet, but this was a heady day. It’ll do.

“It’s been a long time coming, to win two in a row, and it’s two division opponents, which is big,’’ Eberflus said. “The guys are super-excited. But we could feel this coming. The improvement was happening over time.’’

Several of the questions at the postgame news conference centered on what the winning “streak’’ could do for the Bears in the final four games of the season. I’ll call it a success if the carryover has to do with the entertainment level.

The Bears have crossed over into the living. Let’s keep it that way.

Bears coach Matt Eberflus has a signature win, finally — now he needs more

Bears predictions: Week 14 vs. Lions

2023-12-07T08:22:10.017-06:00

Brothers Amon-Ra and Equanimeous St. Brown chat after the Lions-Bears game last month.

Photo by Mike Mulholland/Getty Images

The Sun-Times’ experts offer their picks for the Bears’ game against the Lions on Sunday at Soldier Field:

Rick Morrissey

Lions, 28-20: The Lions have not been playing well. We know this because they eked out a victory over the lowly Bears on Nov. 19. Detroit’s Jared Goff threw three interceptions in that game. Hard to picture it happening again. Season: 9-3.

Rick Telander

Bears, 21-20: Jared Goff has that tall, skinny retro QB look to him, and he throws like the No. 1 overall draft pick he once was. But someday the Bears have to beat somebody as good as him and pals. Don’t they? Season: 8-4.

Scoop Jackson

Bears, 27-21: The Bears had the Lions’ offense on lock for 55 of the 60 minutes in their loss to them three weeks ago. Expect the new-feel, post-bye-week team to do the same without giving the game away at the end. Season: 8-4.

Patrick Finley

Bears, 24-19: The Lions have given up the third-most points in the NFL since Week 7. During that same half-season span, only seven teams have given up fewer than the Bears and their resurgent defense. Season: 9-3.

Jason Lieser

Lions, 20-16: The Lions, winners of four of their last five, supposedly are in a rut. The last time the Bears were that good in a five-game stretch was early in 2020. These teams are in very different places. Season: 6-6.

Mark Potash

Bears, 24-20: The Bears are healthy, at home, refreshed off a bye and motivated to finish what they started at Ford Field. The Lions have been shaky in their last three games, and losing defensive tackle Alim McNeill doesn’t help a leaky defense. Season: 6-6.

Uh-oh, Bears fans: The Packers have another good quarterback

2023-12-06T13:57:24.348-06:00

Jordan Love celebrates after the Packers beat the Chiefs 27-19 on Sunday night in Green Bay.

Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images

Return with me now to those glory days of yore when the Packers didn’t have a good quarterback.

You know, way back in the latter part of September.

And all of October.

And that one Sunday in November.

Remember the spring in your step, Bears fans? Aaron Rodgers was gone, and there was no one standing between your team and eventual dominance in the NFC North. Finally, the 30-year-plus nightmare of Rodgers and Brett Favre before him was over.

After a strong start to the season against the Bears and the Falcons, Jordan Love spent the next seven games living up to the dream Chicago had laid out for him. He threw 10 interceptions as the Packers went 2-5.

Oh, the joy! The Bears weren’t any good but – and this couldn’t be overstated – the Packers did not have a good quarterback, did not have a future that included a slinging superhero.

Um.

How do I put this without setting off a run on antidepressants in the greater Chicago metropolitan area?

The Packers have a good quarterback.

His name is Love, and there’s potential trouble ahead for the Bears and a fan base that has known only envy when looking north to Wisconsin. He has been spectacular the past three weeks, including standout performances in victories over the first-place Lions and the Chiefs, last season’s Super Bowl champs. In those three games, he had a combined eight touchdown passes and no interceptions.

That’s not a small sample size. That’s a dark turn of events that should come with its own foreboding music.

I’m not sure why some people allowed themselves to believe that the Packers, who know quarterbacks like most of us know breathing, made a big mistake when they made Love a first-round pick in 2020. Just because he sat behind Rodgers for three years didn’t mean he was mediocre or bad. Just because he was stashed on the sideline didn’t mean he wasn’t learning his craft. It meant he was backing up a multiple league MVP.

Some of us tried to warn you. Tried to tell you not to offend the quarterback gods, who, for unclear reasons, like to winter in Green Bay. Tried to tell you that the smart bet was on Love turning into a superstar because that’s how the cookie always crumbles for the Bears.

Why in the world would any Bears fan of the past four decades think the coast was clear now that Rodgers was gone? Why would anyone in Chicago consider the Packers vulnerable?

In a column before the season, I called such thinking “reckless.’’ I wrote it because I know first-hand what reckless looks like. In August 2008, about seven months after the Packers had lost in the NFC Championship Game, I asked then-head coach Mike McCarthy at a press conference why the Packers were moving on from Favre. If I could have found a way to respectfully say, “You fools!’’ I would have.

McCarthy said that this Rodgers kid was pretty good. He was kind enough not to ask what someone from Chicago would know about quarterbacks.

Fifteen years later, I had learned enough to not question whether the next Green Bay quarterback would be any good. That quarterback could have been an alpaca, and I would have said, “It’ll take quite a tailor to make his Pro Football Hall of Fame jacket someday.’’

So I was never going to question Love’s worthiness and, 12 games into his career as a full-time starter, I’ve seen enough of him to believe he has staying power. I’ve seen enough of the Bears’ luck to figure he’ll eventually be excellent.

If you saw him take apart the Chiefs on Sunday, you know this is not a blip or an overreaction or a fever dream. Yes, he certainly did have some wild completions that he might not be able to duplicate if asked to, but isn’t that what everyone celebrated Favre for during his Hall of Fame career?

What stood out more than the splashy plays was Love’s demeanor. There was no indication he cared that the Chiefs had one of the best defenses in the league. That’s how the great ones approach challenges: with disregard.

He’s not there yet. It’s possible he’ll never get there. But something has clicked for him, and if it sounds to Bears fans like a pistol being cocked by a Wild West gunslinger, it’s probably because it is. These are the Packers. This is their quarterback. And that’s how these things go.

Corey Perry/Connor Bedard rumor a lesson in media responsibility

2023-12-03T13:31:08.663-06:00

Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard skates against the Red Wings on Thursday.

Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

It’s hard to argue with the notion that social media, in the wrong hands, is a cesspool of mean-spirited bile. There are a lot of wrong hands out there.

We might not accept the ugliness of online communities, but we’ve come to expect it.

I’d like to think that the media manage to stay above the fray most of the time, but the Corey Perry mess serves as a warning that, if we don’t watch out, we’re going to be swimming in the same sludge as the bad actors on social media.

Once the Blackhawks’ decision to scratch Perry from the lineup before a Nov. 22 game in Columbus extended to multiple games, it didn’t take long for the rumors to start oozing. The most nefarious rumor was that the “workplace misconduct’’ that led to Perry’s termination involved the family of Hawks rookie Connor Bedard. That’s the nicest, most-sanitized way to describe social media’s version of what happened. That version didn’t happen, but you know what they say: Too late!

The matter would have stayed there had it not been for Yahoo Sports, which ran a Men’s Journal story Friday saying that Bedard denied the specific, unpleasant rumor that, just to be clear, was not true. The story included quotes from Bedard the day before responding to the rumor.

Why was he responding to the rumor? Because several Winnipeg-based reporters had asked him about it while the Hawks were on the road to play the Jets over the weekend.

Connor Bedard shows maturity, poise when interrogated about false Corey Perry rumors

This was a fire hose pumping gasoline on a blaze that should have been allowed to go out by itself. Bedard’s quotes went all over the world.

Now, what will have staying power — the rumor or Bedard’s response to the rumor?

The rumor, of course.

It’s why the questions never should have been asked of him. He never should have been asked about something that had never occurred. And if the Winnipeg reporters went on to write sympathetic stories that painted the rookie as a victim, it doesn’t change the fact that the stories’ foundation was a false rumor – even if the Winnipeg media reported his response, not the rumor itself. You can put nice wrapping paper around a box of poop, but it doesn’t change the box’s contents.

I’ve tap danced around the Perry/Bedard rumor, and that’s as far as I’ll go. I’m uncomfortable writing the little I’ve written about it here. But this strikes deep at the heart of journalism. We’re supposed to deal in truth. That statement will raise a cry from those of you who believe the news is biased, but it doesn’t change the goal: We’re supposed to trade in facts.

When we know something is false, we shouldn’t ask about it, write it or broadcast it, even if it’s to shoot down the rumor.

Bedard could be the face of the NHL for years to come. Part of the anger over the rumor is the unfairness of an 18-year-old kid having to deal with something like this. But star power gives oxygen to hearsay and innuendo. And, so, here we are, mucking about in a nasty fiction.

There has been no clarity on what Perry did that led the Hawks to terminate his contract. But in a statement, he went out of his way to say it had nothing to do with his teammates.

“I am sickened by the impact this has had on others, and I want to make it clear that in no way did this involve any of my teammates or their families,” he said. “Most importantly, I want to directly apologize to those who have been negatively affected, and I am sorry for the additional impact to others it has created. My behavior was inappropriate and wrong.”

Just because Perry responded publicly and obliquely to the rumor Thursday doesn’t mean it opened the door for reporters to ask Bedard about it the next day. Perry’s statement didn’t legitimize the rumor. It only showed the power that rumors have.

We media members are supposed to be better than this. Men’s Journal never should have written a story using Bedard’s quotes as a jumping-off point to detail what the rumor alleged. And Yahoo Sports shouldn’t have run it. It seems so blatantly obvious. That it wasn’t to more than a few journalists is frightening.

Standards separate the media from social media. Reporters have standards that are meant to keep them in check and push them to be fair. Social media has few restrictions, very little conscience and a snuffed-out guiding light.

If we’re not careful, we in the media eventually will be doing laps in that same cesspool.

Is the Bears’ bye good or would you rather get the season over with?

2023-11-29T13:59:00.414-06:00

Justin Fields’ future with the Bears has been the main topic of conversation this season.

Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images

My wife hates hypothetical questions. Which is why I regularly pose them to her.

No matter what I ask, her answer almost always is, ‘‘That would never happen.’’ And it’s true. Jennifer Lawrence and Scarlett Johansson probably never will get into a fistfight. But, still, who ya got?

I recently asked her what tattoo she would get if she were forced to get one. She said no one could make her do that, so what’s the point?

‘‘What would you get?’’ she said.

‘‘A teardrop under my eye,’’ I said. ‘‘For all the hypothetical questions that have gone unanswered.’’

I have a hypothetical for Bears fans: If you had the choice, would you rather enjoy a week away from this trying season or get the last five games over with, the way you’d like to get a tooth extraction over with?

I’ll take the bye week that the Bears are enjoying this week. This team is so exhausting to watch and the storylines are so unchanging that a respite comes at just the right time. Will there be a pause in the raging debate about Justin Fields’ abilities and future? No. I’m convinced he’s responsible for the most content on social media, just ahead of the ‘‘Golden Bachelor.’’ So, Fields or USC’s Caleb Williams as the Bears’ quarterback in 2024? Who ya got, X users?

Count me out.

Here’s what I won’t miss this week: During the Bears-Vikings game Monday night, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, speaking for broadcasters everywhere, went out of their way to say how important the rest of the season was for Fields. ABC cameras found Bears general manager Ryan Poles several times during the game, giving visual weight to the contention that Fields’ fate would be decided by how he played down the stretch.

Poles likely is leaving a bit of room for the possibility that Fields will turn into Patrick Mahomes in the last portion of the season or that Fields will disappear in a massive dust cloud of interceptions and fumbles. But it’s hard to believe that 33 starts by Fields over almost three seasons haven’t led Poles to certainty. That’s a nice way of saying, if he doesn’t know what Fields is by now, maybe he should consider a career shift.

This is why the bye couldn’t come at a better time. If we choose, we can get a rest from the ‘‘What Will Poles Do?’’ game for at least a week. Trust me, a week away from broadcast crews following the same storylines will add a year to your life. Game after game, they talk about all the potential Fields has. It’s like being force-fed the same feel-good movie.

I’ve spent much of the season trying to understand the fascination with Fields. I’ve been trying to understand why his fans are so ardent in their support of him. Any criticism of him is considered an affront. Any discussion of the Bears’ possibly moving on from him is a declaration of war.

A few things seem to be at work: The networks are in the business of selling a product. The Bears aren’t good, but there’s intrigue surrounding Fields. So they sell him. Actually, they oversell him. Getting hit over the head with it got old by Week 3. It’s an insult even to those of us with trace amounts of intelligence.

The enchantment with Fields didn’t come out of nowhere, of course. He was so exciting as a runner last season that you dared not look away, lest you miss him making defenders look stupid. He was The Show, and the proof was in the four prime-time games the lowly Bears were featured in this season. (He missed two of them with a thumb injury. Undaunted, the networks redirected their obsession to Tyson Bagent’s humble football pedigree and his arm-wrestling dad.)

But ‘‘great running quarterback’’ and ‘‘great quarterback’’ are two different things. I can make this argument until I’m blue-and-orange in the face, and Fields fanatics will tell me that his offensive line, not his on-field judgment, is the problem.

His fans have become entrenched. His skeptics have become entrenched. You want to be right. I want to be right.

It’s exhausting, isn’t it?

I can’t wait until the end of the season, but I’ll enjoy the week off from watching the Bears. The defense did indeed look good in the victory against the Vikings, but the offense made me question the meaning of life. Fields’ admirers will choose to focus on his 36-yard completion to a wide-open DJ Moore to help set up Cairo Santos’ game-winning field goal.

You know what I say to that?

Whatever.

Let’s spend the week pondering bigger questions than whether Fields is the guy or not.

If you had been abducted by aliens and forced to sing Broadway show tunes, would you tell anyone? And don’t tell me it couldn’t happen.

NFL power rankings: Bears’ draft hopes hinge on Panthers’ plunge to bottom

Would the McCaskeys want a Mike Ditka-type personality? Hard to see it.

2023-11-27T18:08:28.196-06:00

Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh reacts during the 2021 Orange Bowl. Georgia won the national playoff semifinal 34-11.

Michael Reaves/Getty Images

I picture Bears chairman George McCaskey deep in concentration, a No. 2 pencil in his hand, a legal pad in front of him, his tongue sticking out the side of his mouth as he writes. I see him putting together a list of pros and cons while contemplating whether to hire Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh as his next head coach.

Harbaugh Pros:

Is a former Bear.
Has won at the NFL and collegiate levels.
Possesses an uncanny ability to know what his opponent is going to do before the ball is snapped.

Harbaugh Cons:

Played for Mike Ditka.
Has a big personality, like Mike Ditka.
Could be another Mike Ditka.

As far as we know, the Bears aren’t yet in the market for a new coach, but Matt Eberflus’ 7-22 record and a lack of clear progress during the team’s rebuild have made him vulnerable. That, of course, has led to public discussion about possible replacements.

That has led to Harbaugh, the successful, complicated, sometimes-difficult coach of the Wolverines. And that means he has two things going against him: The McCaskeys don’t like complicated, and they don’t like difficult. They definitely don’t want personality in whomever is running the show for them.

What has slowed GM Ryan Poles’ Bears rebuild and what could speed it up?

Look at the coaches they’ve hired since they canned the bigger-than-life Ditka after the 1992 season and tell me what they have in common:

Dave Wannstedt, Dick Jauron, Lovie Smith, Marc Trestman, John Fox, Matt Nagy and Eberflus.

If you guessed “tameness’’ as a common denominator, treat yourself to a bowl of vanilla ice cream. Only Wannstedt and Nagy tested positive for a personality.

The next wave the post-Ditka group makes will be its first.

Harbaugh, on the other hand, is a storm surge.

The McCaskeys’ historically bland choices have not been a coincidence, and that’s why it’s extremely difficult to see them hiring Michigan’s coach. I’m not making a judgment about whether the Bears would be doing themselves a favor by hiring Harbaugh as a leader of men, a builder of quarterbacks and a winner of games. That’s for another day. I’m dealing in reality here, and the chances of ownership wanting a headstrong head coach who might demand major input in personnel decisions are slim.

Harbaugh just finished a three-game suspension that the Big Ten imposed on him. He was in charge of a program that operated an illicit sign-stealing scheme. At a minimum, he seems to have been guilty of lax oversight. That doesn’t sound like a McCaskey hire. Too much controversy there, with suggestions of immorality thrown in. The Bears’ human-resources department already has had to deal with two assistant coaches in this turbulent season.

Harbaugh wouldn’t restore peace and quiet. Just like Ditka didn’t.

Iron Mike is the No. 1 reason for Harbaugh’s disqualification in Chicago. He’s the man who made the McCaskey family oh so uncomfortable, even through all that winning, even through that one glorious Super Bowl. Better to be mediocre or worse, apparently, than to have to put up with someone whose volatility might, on any day of the week, lead to an owner with singed eyebrows.

Is Harbaugh a Mini-Mike? No, he’s not. But there’s something about him that’s a degree or two off, something that makes him seem to wear out his welcome wherever he goes … except for Ann Arbor, Mich. It’s a convenient narrative until you get to his stay there. He coached four years at Stanford, four with the 49ers … and nine at Michigan.

So, he’s stable, right? The McCaskeys like stability, like to plant their feet on the ground and know it won’t shake. Look at Harbaugh, the rock of Michigan!

And, yet, wasn’t that Harbaugh talking with the Vikings last year about their then-vacant head coach position? It certainly was. He reportedly thought the job was his when he went to Minneapolis to interview, but the Vikings never offered it to him. Was it because of his personality? Had the 49ers badmouthed him? No one involved would say.

If he was too much for the Vikings, you’d have to believe he’d be too much for the McCaskeys. Casual Friday is too much for the McCaskeys.

Ditka’s time as head coach in Chicago was a wild ride and his end here a 50-car pileup. It’s safe to say the McCaskeys didn’t like any of the spectacle … safe because every hire since has been the opposite of that.

So Harbaugh as the next Bears coach? Hard to see it, no matter how much he’s won and no matter how much he might win. The pros get blown out by the cons.

Bears predictions: Week 12 at Vikings

2023-11-24T11:28:41.687-06:00

Vikings running back Alexander Mattison runs against the Bears last month.

Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images

The Sun-Times’ experts offer their picks for the Bears’ game Monday night in Minneapolis:

Rick Morrissey

Vikings, 23-20: The Bears are coming off a tough road loss in which they outplayed the Lions most of the game. Now they’re at the hot, but not-that-mighty Vikes. A case could be made for an uplifting victory. By why potentially spoil a good thing — the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft? Season: 9-2.

Rick Telander

Bears, 27-24: It seems there have been endless make-or-break, must-win games for the Bears this season. Kirk Cousins is gone, Justin Fields is healthy, so we really mean it this time. Silence that damn Viking horn! Season: 7-4.

Scoop Jackson

Bears, 24-20: Winning one more game than they did last season begins right now for the Bears. Not to save anyone’s job or position, but to at least say going into next season, “At least we showed growth.” Whatever that means. Season: 7-4.

Patrick Finley

Bears, 23-21: If Fields plays as well as he did last week, the Bears should score enough to win. Their defense needs to answer the bell after gagging away the win in Detroit. Season: 8-3.

Jason Lieser

Vikings, 25-23: This is an intriguing matchup of defensive play callers between Bears coach Matt Eberflus and Vikings coordinator Brian Flores. Flores won that battle decisively last time they played. Season: 6-5.

Mark Potash

Vikings, 24-23: The Bears are a better team than they were in Week 6 when they lost to the Vikings 19-13 at Soldier Field. But so are the Vikings, who have won two of three without Cousins and receiver Justin Jefferson. Season: 6-5.

Boring sideline reports are the culprit in the Charissa Thompson matter

2023-11-22T13:56:43.988-06:00

Sportscaster Charissa Thompson plays in a celebrity softball game prior to a game between the Rockies and the Royals in June.

Jay Biggerstaff/Getty Images

The most important facet of the Charissa Thompson semi-scandal is the one being talked about least.

The Fox Sports host admitted on a recent podcast that, as an NFL sideline reporter in the late 2000s, she sometimes made up quotes when the head coach or player she was supposed to interview blew her off or was late. Her admission brought on gales of criticism, especially from female reporters who were concerned that her lack of journalistic integrity would reverse gains they had made in a male-dominated profession.

Fair enough. No one who calls themselves a reporter would condone what Thompson claimed she did.

But what didn’t happen after she fabricated the quotes says everything you need to know about the painfully predictable interviews the networks keep shoving down our throats. Apparently, no one noticed.

Not the head coaches or players who had words put in their mouths.

Not the NFL, which only cares about ratings.

And certainly not those viewers who were used to getting very little meaningful information from sideline reporters. Which is to say most viewers.

All of this might seem odd if you were looking at the situation from a distance. No matter the circumstances, a reporter making up quotes is outrageous. Surely an NFL head coach, the maximum leader of a not-insignificant fiefdom, would be furious, right? But closer inspection reveals the unspoken agreement between professional sports leagues and the networks that televise their games:

The coaches and players will pretend they’re saying something of substance, and the reporters will relay that ‘‘information’’ as though it were 1971 and they just had gotten hold of the Pentagon Papers.

The truth is that the person being interviewed usually says nothing that resembles news or requires brain activity.

That’s how Thompson could get away with making up quotes.

‘‘No coach is gonna get mad if I say, ‘Hey, we need to stop hurting ourselves, we need to be better on third down, we need to stop turning the ball over and do a better job of getting off the field,’ ’’ she said on the ‘‘Pardon My Take’’ podcast. ‘‘Like, they’re not gonna correct me on that. I’m like, ‘It’s fine, I’ll just make up the report.’ ’’

The faux quotes she offered in the podcast are exactly the type of things we hear coaches say when they talk with sideline reporters at halftime. The type of things that make a coma sound inviting to a viewer.

What we never hear coaches say to a reporter on the way to the locker room:

‘‘About 100 pounds of lard apparently has settled in our left tackle’s butt. He’s going to get our quarterback killed.’’

‘‘Hard to be a genius when you don’t have Tom Brady, isn’t it, Bill?’’

‘‘We’re going to run the ball right down their throats in the second half. Extensive scouting has revealed that they don’t know how to tackle.’’’

The say-nothing approach to interviews is not the NFL’s exclusive property. The in-game Q&A’s with NBA coaches are just as excruciating. The only exception is Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, who enjoys being a jerk to whichever poor soul is given the task of interviewing him. That passes as entertainment these days.

The concept of coaches imparting wisdom during games sounds good in theory, but it was doomed from the start. Coaches, from time immemorial, have looked at opening their mouths publicly as a trap. They don’t want to say anything that gives the other team an advantage or motivation. They don’t want to say anything that can get them in trouble. So they whisper bland, unsweetened nothings. And they tell their players to follow suit.

That’s how a sideline reporter can make up a lifeless quote about the need to reduce mistakes without anyone blinking. I hear Bears coach Matt Eberflus say that sort of thing in my sleep.

There’s no high horse here. It’s not just sideline reporters; it’s all of us. News conferences have become exercises in coaches and players saying as little as possible, with public-relations staffs working hard to make sure the sessions are as short as possible. But at least there’s a chance for reporters to press coaches and athletes when they give non-answers.

Sideline reporters nod their heads when coaches tell them at halftime that ‘‘we need to pay more attention to detail.’’ Then the reporters say, ‘‘And now back to Joe and Troy in the booth.’’

The humane thing (for us) would be for these interviews to go away. The only purpose they serve is to prove that, thanks to paying billions of dollars, the networks have access that most reporters don’t. A sideline reporter gets to tell the audience that a coach or player ‘‘told me,’’ as though the act of communicating — and not the information — were the whole ballgame.

Breaking news: It isn’t.

Telander: There’s no gray area about the importance of truth in journalism