Bears Win (At Least That’s What the Scoreboard Told Me)

A win is a win is a win. But this was a bad win. A win that almost left me more disheartened than last week’s loss. Given the number of opportunities the Chiefs had and muffed, it feels more like they lost this game than we won this game. Granted, our defense and special teams did assist them in muffing those opportunities, but still. Our pass protection is an embarrassment. Grossman was painful. He had two, almost three, interceptions. And they were classic Rex interceptions. You know: the horrible, ungodly, what-was-he-thinking, avert-your-eyes, hide-the-women-and-children variety.

The good is limited, and must of course begin with Devin Hester. Devin, Devin, Devin. Enjoy it while you can. Most teams aren’t dumb enough to kick to you over and over and over again. Special teams as a whole looked revitalized by Hester’s play. Also good: Benson rushed for over 100 yards, at 4.2 yards a pop. Not spectacular, but I’ll take it.

And hey–it could have been worse. We could have given up 51 points to the Cleveland Frickin’ Browns.

Don’t look now but Green Bay is playing pretty well. Granted, we all knew the Giants were going to struggle mightily this year. And the predictions about great things for the Eagles still seem to me to based on a whole lot of assuming the best. But neither team is a complete joke. Favre et al could make this division competitive this year. I still ain’t believing in the Lions. Come talk to me when you beat someone other than the Raiders or Vikings. Too bad they can’t play the Falcons next week. It would be the Gimme Win Trifecta.

So I’m nominating the Green Bay for the early-season Better Than Advertised Award. And the others? As Good As Advertised = Patriots. Worse Than Advertised = Saints. As Bad As Advertised = Falcons.

Or, perhaps the Worst Than Advertised Award should go jointly to Notre Dame and Michigan. I don’t think Notre Dame could find the opposing team’s endzone even if you put them on the one-foot line and gave them a compass and map. And even though Michigan won, they also invited Russell Crowe to give the team a motivational speech, in an apparent last-ditch effort to staunch the bleeding. This should ensure they remain the butt of jokes at least through the next three weeks.

And TheSassyOne may have my head for this, but the most exciting baseball moment of the weekend wasn’t any of the Cubs victories*. It was Jim Thome hitting his 500th homer in walk-off fashion. And if that wasn’t feel-good enough for you, you should have stuck around for the post-game news conference. The fan who caught the ball, Will Stewart, readily agreed to give it back in exchange for season tickets for next year. But at the podium, he pointed out that he resides in “the great state of Texas” (oh barf; we’ll have to give him a pass on this one) and thus has no need for White Sox season tickets. His solution? Donate the tickets to Thome’s charitable foundation. The gesture takes on even more weight when you consider that Thome, who became obviously teary-eyed on hearing of Stewart’s plans, is well known as one of baseball’s good guys. All together now: Awwwwww!

*It does pain me a bit to say this, given that all three wins (excepting Friday’s ninth inning) were encouraging wins, polar opposites of the Bears win. Also, I’d like to announce that I’m now taking reservations for seats on the Geovany Soto Bandwagon. Good seats still available, but going fast.