Chi-Guy
Perspective served on a poppy seed bun with mustard, relish, tomato, onion, hot peppers, celery salt and a pickle
It’s About Time For The Weekend
May 17th
I don’t know about you but it feels like it’s been a long week in these parts. Between my office not having windows and my missing out on this gorgeous weather we’ve been having, or late nights up with the bay and early mornings to let the dog out, I feel like I’m running on fumes. I’m ready for the weekend to arrive so I can sleep in all the way until 7am, fire up the grill, drink a few suds, and enjoy some time outdoors. Weekends are great aren’t they? My biggest decision in the next forty-eight hours comes down to whether I should cover myself in oil or breakout out my Amish attire so that I can protest NATO to the fullest of my capabilities. Enjoy your weekend everyone…
- I found this link to be interest. How about young Mr. Stalin? I’m not saying, I’m just sayin’…
http://www.cracked.com/blog/14-photographs-that-shatter-your-image-famous-people/
- Remember when going to Harvard was such a prestigious event. Well, in the last ten years they’ve let in the Winklevoss Twins and these guys. How the mighty have fallen…
- Your Feel Good Story of The Week: As World War II was brewing in Europe, one man, Sir Nicholas Winton, worked in secret to sneak 669 children out of German-occupied Czechoslovakia to safety in England. Years later, his wife was going through the attic and discovered the documents detailing her husbands heroism and sent them to the BBC. They then organized this event to honor one of the greatest, humblest, and most inspirational men who’s ever been born. Sir Nicholas Winton. (This video aired in 1988)
- The latter half of 2012 is going to be a banner year for movies. With the final Batman, Daniel Day-Lewis as Abe Lincoln, & a new Tarrentino flick about a slave revolt just to name a few, let’s just say I’m rather excited for the cinema yet to come. And it all starts with this…
- This is everything I hope my daughter and I are going to be able to share some day…
- …and these are the self-defense tactics that I will be teaching her between games…
- This video pisses me off for some reason. Assuming this really is his voice this kid is incredibly talented but there’s just something about his face that make you want to hit him right? I swear if I saw him on the street my first reaction would be to see whether I can get his underwear over his head. There’s just something about his face and there’s nothing he can do about it unfortunately…
- The second Non Sequitur post I’d ever put together addressed my on going inner dilemma as to who would win in a fight between a grizzly bear and a silver back gorilla. After a long flight back from Miami last week where my seatmates and I invested a solid three hours watching animal fights on YouTube, I think we may have found our answer…
So there you have it. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Thank You Mom
May 13th
Watch this…
and then watch this…
It’s funny how the things we are grateful for change over the years but the person we all turn to in order to give thanks remains the same. I spent the better part of Sunday surrounded by mothers; some of whom have held the title for as little as five weeks and others who are well into their fifth decade carrying the mantel. The constant in every scenario were the smiles on the faces of those around them.
To all of the mothers in the world, and specifically those directly involved in my life, please allow me to thank you for from the bottom of my heart. Many of us are lucky enough to go to school and learn from professors, we have mentors at work, and fathers to serve as guides through life’s travails, but it’s our mothers who teach us the important thing; things like compassion, love, nurturing, and fairness. Many people will play a role in making you the person you are, but it’s that which your mother provides that allows you to bring the the best out of the teachings of others and make the best you possible.
I hope that you were able to hug your mom yesterday, kiss her, and tell her how much she means to you. If you didn’t have the opportunity yesterday then do it today or as soon as you can get your hands on her. If you did have the chance… do it again. You won’t regret it and she won’t mind one bit. That’s what moms are for.
The 2012-12 Blackhawks Season Recap: A Trail of Tears
May 10th
As one of our beloved Chicago teams sees their season crumble to the ground this evening, I feel as though I have finally reached closure on our last sporting heartbreak. Before we get too far along in taking a look at the season that was for the Chicago Blackhawks there are two important items that I’d suggest that you peruse as each says more than anything I can put into words:
http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/blackhawks/post/_/id/4671078/does-hawks-dysfunction-start-at-the-top
and…
http://deadspin.com/5909246/reconstructing-patrick-kanes-drunken-weekend-in-madison
First of all – awesome right? Each in their own right; I feel this is the best work Jesse Rogers has put together during his Hawks beat reporter tenure, and I’ve spent five Saturday’s of my life at the Mifflin St. Block Party in Madison and I’ve been in those same pictures that Patrick Kane finds himself in all over the internet today.
The reason I bring each of these items to light is to make my point; this Hawks team was good, potentially better than good, they could have been great. Why would good or even great teams be at home for just shy of twenty days already with the second round of the NHL playoff coming to a close? I think the answer is simple and it’s the root cause for more collapses, missed opportunities, and failures to meet one’s potential than any other reason in life… arrogance.
It was only two short years ago that the Blackhawks were on top of the hockey world. They were a young team that had just won the Stanley Cup for the first time since my father was in short-pants. The team was stacked with talent to the extent that six member of their twenty-three man squad played for their respective countries in the Olympics in Vancouver four months prior (and you could make a case Patrick Sharp could have made seven). They had arguably the two best young forwards 21 and under in the league (one having won a Calder Trophy and the other a Conn Smythe), a Norris Trophy winner on the blue line, and talent to spare sprinkled throughout the rest of the lineup. Heck, they called upon a rookie Finnish goalie mid-season to carry them to the promise land and they still won the last game of the year.
Coach Quenneville had been brought in the year prior to steer the ship and had produced a Western Conference Finalist in his first try and a Stanley Cup Champion in his second. Stan Bowman took over the General Manager reigns from Dale Tallon and proved that there really is something in the water at the Bowman household that gives them some sort of magnetic pull to Lord Stanley’s grail. Even team President John McDonaugh and new owner Rocky Wirtz had just come into their positions in the previous two years, meaning pretty much everyone involved had essentially made their first investment in Google’s IPO and have wondered why everyone else talks about how difficult playing the market is ever since.
Success is a good thing, no two ways about it, but it also has a tendency to make you soft, particularly in sports. They say the only thing harder than winning a championship is to defend one. The Hawks can tell you firsthand about that.
In 2010-11 there’s no two ways about, the team had to cut salary and move a number of the role players that were key components the season before. Rather than getting back players to fill those same roles via trade, Stan Bowman went after more speed and more talent under the assumption that a hockey team is more about who can collect the most talent rather than putting together a well-rounded, cohesive unit. Players like Viktor Stalburg have speed to burn, but in his two years in Chicago he has proved that he can’t kill a penalty like Andrew Ladd could, nor can he win a crucial faceoff as John Madden did during the Cup run in 2010. Hockey is about having guys who fill roles and for the past two years the team has had as much pure skill up and down the lineup as anyone but if you don’t win board battles, kill penalties, and win the faceoffs in your defensive zone, more often than not you’re going to be on the short side of the scoresheet, particularly when the game matter the most.
When you look at the teams that are still standing today you will find a common theme of their being bigger, more physical, and more dedicated in the defensive zone than the Hawks have been since the days of Byfuglien and Sopel. I would argue that since the Flyers showed the world that the way to combat a skill team like the Hawks in the 2010 Cup Finals is to literally try to knock them off the tracks, teams are moving back to the more tried and true size, grit, and defense model in order to find success. Last year’s Bruins were not as talented as the Hawks were the year before, and regardless of who is still standing after the Coyotes, Kings, Devils, and Rangers/Capitals sort things out in the next three weeks, that team will be less talented skill-wise than the Bruins were last year, however they all have size and a willingness to get “dirtier” than the Hawks have in some time.
And for the record I don’t want to hear about how you need a great goalie to win the Cup either. Dallas picked Marty Freaking Turco and Tampa Bay chose Dwayne Roloson over Mike Smith in the past three years. Braden Holtby wasn’t even in the league two months ago and now he’s starting a game 7 in Madison Square Garden. You need a hot goalie to win in the playoffs, not a great one. There is a difference (however ideally they’re one and the same).
So where did things go wrong this year? I think the blame can be spread pretty evenly across all levels of the organization. The front office never added a true second line center (thinking Kane could fill the role is arrogance incarnate) nor a defenseman with size (Oduya proved to be Nick Leddy with a tan). See my trade deadline reaction column for my suggestions at the time, but how much of a difference would a Jeff Carter, Antoine Vermette, or Hal Gill made this spring? The world will never know…
Quenneville never did anything to address special teams units that have been atrocious for two straight years now. I don’t pretend to know all the inter-workings of practice but it seems to me our powerplay and penalty kill were fine under Mike Haviland in 2010 and got worse when Mike Kitchen arrived in 2011. Why Haviland is the one without a job at the moment is beyond me, but between fighting Barry Smith’s intervention for the final quarter of the season and firing a successful coach for a friend screams arrogance as well.
As for the players I never saw the level of dedication out of the team that I see night in and night out on the NHL Network from those that are still playing. I understand all the reasons why Patrick Kane is only 23 years old and wants to have a good time up in Madison, Wisconsin. Again, I literally was that kid, but I also can’t help but notice that he’s not over in Finland playing for Team USA or doing anything more than having as much fun as a multi-millionaire 23 year old should have. He has every right to do whatever he likes with his free time but my concern is that it’s going to take him five more years of playoff disappointment to realize that winning Cups doesn’t just happen every few years. I don’t have that kind of time. Just look at Shane Doan, a guy who by all accounts works his ass off and does all the little things and still has yet to be rewarded. You hear his story and then you listen to Duncan Keith admit that he had trouble getting up for the 2010-11 season? Come on…
As fun of a ride as it was in 2010 I fear that everything came a little too easily for everyone involved and we’re paying the price for it now. All hope is not lost as I am a firm believer that the Hawks were the superior team in the Phoenix series and they ran into the definition of the hot playoff goalie. Did you see the first two period of Game 6? The shots were 28-8 in favor of the Hawks. They were a whirling dirvish of four lines on constant attack… and then they lost 4-0. Players like Andrew Shaw are surfacing within the system who can take those Andrew Ladd penalty kill shifts this time next year, and all 6’6″ of Jimmy Hayes can win those battles for the pucks in the corner (assuming his second testicle drops this summer).
More so than anything the organization as a whole needs to break out the smelling salts and take a look around at the teams that are still playing hockey at this time of year. Management needs to bring in size, coaching needs to provide the leadership, and the players need to supply the heart. If they plan on lifting more banners, it will require dropping more egos.
Forbidden Feces
May 8th
Let me begin by apologizing for my delay in posting, but please believe me when I say that anyone who hit up Miami this past weekend for a bachelor party was in no position to really get anything productive, let alone creative, done these past two days. Rather than dwell on the debauchery that ensued during my visit, I’d like to turn my attention to one of the conversations that was held during one of the few lucid moments of the trip. What conversation could linger like a ray of sunshine through the fog of my memory you ask? It’s one that we can all relate to and inevitably have an opinion on. You probably have a set of rules that you live by that perhaps you’ve never verbalized to another living soul. Of course I’m talking about pooping at the office.
It’s widely accepted that the ultimate sign of success and power in the business world is to have a private bathroom adjoining your office. Don Draper or Roger Sterling would have had they only thought of it I’m sure. In fact Bert Cooper may one tucked away somewhere in his Japanese dojo – maybe he is the real power over at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price after all. Regardless, the rest of us that are forced to toil in the salt mines and defecate with the masses must come upon our own set of rules as to where and when our bowels may be relieved.
The general consensus is that there is no one correct set of rules to live by. Some people have bosses that enjoy a good stink cloud as well as your college roommate did. Others have co-workers that send office-wide memos at the first sign of a streak in the bowl. Despite all the factors in play, I submit to you the following guidelines that are generally accepted across the spectrum of those interviewed:
- It is definitely ok, and frankly a suggested tip, to keep a mental rolodex of the footwear of your fellow office members and use that in your bathroom etiquette. If you see the well shined dress shoes of a corporate exec appear under the metal stall divider, by all means it’s time to flex your intestinal muscles and bring your current production to a halt until you hear the water run and the door swing shut behind them.
- Similarly, it is also common practice to take a quick survey of the feet of those already seated when you enter the lavatory. The worn loafers of your cubicle buddy opens the proverbial comedy floodgates, whereas the lower half of upper management implies you should stay on your best behavior and do your best to keep that little stinker from becoming a squeaker.
- You are not alone if you have ever entered the lavatory with an intent to sit and been forced to pull an audible when you see someone who signs your paycheck at the urinal. In order to avoid what could truly become an awkward situation (especially if eye contact is made) you need to come up with a reason for your entering the room that was not your original seated intent. The easy play is to take a right turn and head directly to the sink for an impromptu hand wash. Just know that everyone is aware that there is no viable reason why someone would go into the bathroom solely for the purpose of washing their hands mid-day. Those are all bashful people who need to poop. The more advanced amongst us can turn off the secondary valve and step right up to the next open urinal as if that was the only reason we arrived in the first place. Whether you actually use it or not is up to you and your control of your internal plumbing, but the key is to sell it like you’re relieving all the pressure in the pipes as originally desired. If you’ve found yourself in this predicament before, just know that you’re not alone.
- Leaving your office for your own friendly confines is generally accepted as a best practice if you can afford the time. Whether it’s heading a few floors down to a seldom used secluded lavatory, or physically leaving the building for greener pastures, all options are acceptable as long as you can get away with it. You should do your best to keep you major bowel movements confined to your residence as a rule of thumb, however if you’ve got to play on the road then you might as well do your best to find a place of comfort to call home.
- For those concerned with leaving a trail of evidence might I suggest to you the concept of “The Nest”. I am in the camp that giving the seat in public places a solid scrubbing before being seated is a best practice, however I also feel that sitting on a patchwork toilet paper seat liner is a bit of overkill. I would suggest taking a stretch of teepee and wiping the seat clear of any drips, flecks, or curled hairs and then disposing of the paper in the front of the bowl to serve as a cushion or nest to catch that which you next deposit. When done properly this approach allows you to take care of business while leaving the scene scott-free of any evidence of your activities.
- Just to be clear, it is never appropriate to remove any amount of clothing (short of a coat or jacket) while in a bathroom stall. Be comfortable for sure, but there’s no need to celebrate it in there.
- If your office has people who sit directly outside of the bathroom door just know that they keep a mental clock on everyone. They know more about you than you could ever imagine whether they’re conscious of it or not. If said person is a particularly attractive member of the opposite sex, I would strongly suggest you follow the suggestions of the “friendlier confines” bullet three items above.
- Always wash your hands before leaving whether you’re a believer in the practice or not. Your co-workers are constantly judging you and are always looking for a kink in your armour.
Those are the general guidelines as outlined by a collection of inebriated invalids while soaking in the South Beach sun this weekend. Again, there is no one right way to handle any situation, but given your particular circumstances use the items outlined above as a frame of reference from which to build. I wish you well in your quest. Between this column and that which addressed the sit vs. stand debate over the winter, if nothing else I hope you find Chi-Guy.com to be your go to destination for all of your bathroom bylaws. God speed.
For the record, this goes above and beyond the call of doodie
Underwhelming as Promised
May 3rd
I told you in this space earlier this week that it was going to be a weird week for me, and it has done everything necessary to live up to the hype. So here I am at the end of my only 24 hour stretch at home as I traverse the country and I’m flat out exhausted. The well is dry kids so please accept the following videos as entertainment on your Friday and then come back Monday morning for more of the goods that you’ve come to know and love.
- If you want to see me throw up, strap me into this thing and get the pixie dust ready:
- For those looking to defend their virginity to the hilt, may I present to you Fire Swords:
- With full disclosure I will be seeing this movie on its opening weekend, however it does break two of my movie rules in life. Rule #1: be wary of any comic book/movie that tries to mesh a bunch of different characters into the same book/film. The first Batman franchise jumped the shark when they introduced multiple villians and Robin, and then the Spiderman series followed suit. This appears to be pushing that limit. Rule #2: Anne Hathaway has a way of taking good things and making them worse. I’m just saying…
- I watched an entire hour long show on this killer whale vs. great white shark battle last Sunday and don’t regret a minute of it. It was awesome…
- The website has seen a big uptick in readership this week. Since I’m sure it has nothing to do with my actually writing less, I’m willing to chalk up the popularity to the video I posted of the grandparents wedding advice on Wednesday. Everyone loves old people – it’s a fact. Thus, I hope to capitalize on our affinity for the elderly and submit to you three grandmas watching Kim Kardashian’s Sex Tape for the first time:
- It’s that time of year again. The weather is warming, the birdies are flying, and the ground is soft enough to plant your pole(s). Of course I’m referring to badmitton season! I think this is going to be the official game of the summer of 2012 at the Chi-Guy household. How could you watch the following and not want to slap your own shuttlecock around a well manicured patch of grass? This summer I’m challenging all comers. You heard me. Bring it on…
Happy Friday everyone!
Grandparents Rule
May 2nd
This video makes me wish both of my Grandmas weren’t able to make it to my wedding three years ago just so they could have sent me a video of their marital advice. Pure awesome…
The JetSet Lifestyle
May 1st
Greetings all,
It’s kind of a crazy week for me as I’m coming to you from gray and cool Southern California this morning. I swear there is something about me that brings the worst out in the weather in these parts. For all the sunny California stories that you hear about it seems as though I’m El Nino incarnate for this part of the world because I bring the rain. Three years ago I came out here for three days and San Diego received six of their nine total inches of rain FOR THE YEAR during my visit. I flew into Orange County Monday morning and have yet to see the sun on this trip either. Woe is me.
To make a long story short, I’m rocking SoCal for the first part of this week followed by turning right back around to spend the weekend in Miami for a bachelor party. Life is rough. With that said however I envision the posts to be few and far between amidst all of this continuous movement. Please pardon any drop in content that you may experience in the next few days but just know that I’ll do my best to get some stuff up whenever I get a minute and I’ve got you in my thoughts in those windows of moments between tropical drinks.
I honor of this jetsetter lifestyle I’ve adopted (however briefly) I thought I’d pass along this video of a gentleman that can handle any English accent around the world. This is a little trick that I like to think I can pull off as well (usually after a couple of cocktails and particulary on New Year’s Eve for some reason). This guy’s good no doubt, but I think I can top him, I just never take the time to sit in front of a camera. A bit conceited if you ask me… but whatever. If you’re into self promotion like this I understand… not my thing really, but I hope you enjoy all the same.
A Glance At Our Chicago Sporting Culture
Apr 26th
I’ve been in St. Louis the past few days and while there I enjoyed some fantastic bar-b-que. I only mention this as it gives me an excuse to mention the fact that I attended the St. Louis Rib Fest last spring which for some inexplicable reason is still in the top 10 Google searches that lead people to this website. Either a lot of people want to know about this festival (that I personally found a wee bit lacking) – or – the St. Louis Rib Fest has no idea how to e-market themselves (they don’t even have a website for it apparently). Regardless, once more for good measure: St. Louis Rib Fest.
I actually made the drive down to the Arched City and thus was assaulted with more St. Louis sports talk radio than I ever thought I would have to endure. More so than having to listen to a bunch of jamokes chatter about a handful of teams that I could really care less about, it pains me to say it but I actually found myself feeling… jealous?! For being a city that only hosts three of the four major sports you’ve got to admit, St. Louis is in the midst of a nice little run right now. The Blues are the top remaining seed in the Western Conference and have two (TWO!) goalies that both would start over anything the Hawks could suit up right now; the Cardinals are the reigning World Series Champions who lost the best player in the game and haven’t missed a beat – you know if that happened to any of our teams we’d tank for the next five years while we recovered; and the Rams are at the top of the NFL Draft and collecting additional picks like they’re going out of style. Basically Eff those guys right? They should just go back into their muddy holes on the bank of the river and wait for these hillbillies to pull them out with their forearms. Also for the record if you ever get a chance to listen to a St. Louis Cardinals radio broadcast I’d encourage you to do so. They had a guy call the first two innings that sounded exactly like Billy Bob Thornton in Sling Blade. Based on this website I think it had to be Mike Shannon because once the top of the third arrived John Rooney took over the reigns and a much more polished product was produced. I hope they do this every game.
With that said, I wanted to catch up quickly with the state of things here in Chicago’s sporting culture.
Chicago Blackhawks – I’m just not emotionally equipped to talk about it right now. The wound is too fresh. It’s too soon… it’s too soon…
The White Sox – I honestly must say that I’m very happy for Phil Humber and his perfect game. He seems like a genuinely good guy that had one of those few and far between days in life where everything just fell into place. I don’t mean for that to come off like I’m saying he got lucky or anything condescending like that either. His stuff that day was absolutely filthy and he deserves every accolade that he has received. He definitely was the most impressive starter that Sox had last year and I was surprised that he was essentially forgotten about this offseason and almost overlooked this spring to the point that he was the fifth starter coming into the season. I get the sense that he won’t be referred to as a fifth starter any more from this day forth.
The Cubs – Let’s all take a deep breath and remind ourselves that we knew what we were getting into this season ok? There was never a point that you should have talked yourself into thinking the Cubs will be good this year since Theo took over. We knew this was coming. I’ll take it as a win if the team uses the next 130+ games to develop an identity as a scrappy team that plays the game the right way, takes an extra base, doesn’t beat itself, and in essence becomes the team that no one else wants to play. I foresee a number of one run games in their future and a victory will be measured in their ability to start coming out on the positive side of those scores more often than not by August or September. I’ll also take this opportunity to say that Breet Jackson and Mike Rizzo need to stay in Iowa until June at the earliest and I think with Raphael Dolis and James Russell there may be some usable pieces being developed for a legitimate bullpen in the next few years. These baby steps are the successes that I’m counting this year.
The Bulls – More to come on them in the coming days as the playoffs get under way. I’ve got a two word primer for you however: Sleeping Giant. Well, as much of one as the #1 overall seed in the league could be.
Da Bears – I’m writing this after the Bears have already invested the 19th pick in the Draft on Shea McClellin, a undersized defensive end from Boise State meaning he’s built an impressive résumé playing against inferior Western Athletic Conference competition. I was all for drafting the best available defensive end but this is not the guy I would have picked. Quite frankly he’s probably not in the top five of guys at this position that I would have taken. Primarily because I don’t even think he’s a defensive end to begin with. It was pretty much consensus that while a fast riser on draft boards of late, Shea’s place in the NFL was one of an outside linebacker in a 3-4 system. Guess what system the Bears don’t run?
Well he’s our undersized defensive end now and Phil Emery has made his first impression (as far as the draft is concerned) with the fan base. The primary reason that Phil Emery was hired as the Bears new GM due to his reported prowess in the draft room. Jerry Angelo was significantly… cough… lacking in this department. Emery comes from the Patriots school of football operations where he worked with the best in the business and proceeded move on to work under Thomas Dimitroff in Atlanta and then Scott Pioli in Kansas City. The interesting thing is that I truly believe Shea McClellin would have been an excellent draft pick for the Patriots, Falcons, or Chiefs. He’s that kind of versatile player that you can move around and have fill any number of positions on the field. It’s just that those are not the kind of players that particularly fit the Bears – as we’ve known them under Lovie Smith’s regime. With this pick we may be witness to a change bigger than any of us may have expected under.
Emery took this job with the understanding that he has complete creative control of the team with the one caveat being that he cannot fire Lovie Smith before the 2012-13 season. When given this rule set, an individual can make one of two choices – he could have either, A) read it as Lovie has the real power here and I better get on the same page with him ASAP, or B) I’m going to do it my way and Lovie has a year to get on board with me or next off season I’ll start looking for a head coach who will.
A more passive man would opt for option A whereas a badass would take option B by the balls and run with it. We may have our very own Clint Eastwood here ladies and gentlemen.
I say this but do not mean to imply that drafting Shea McClellin was a slap in the Cover-2′s (and in turn Lovie’s) face. What I do think however is that Emery is taking a stand and saying that versatile players like Shea McClellin are the trend that successful teams are following right now and we’re going to do what successful teams do starting… yesterday. It’s kind of how baseball teams have adopted sabermetrics over the past fifteen years. You either accept evolution and change or you die on the vine while others pass you by. I guarantee that while Chicago fans groaned when Roger Goodell made his announcement at the podium, the only rooms full of more audible disgust were in Green Bay, Baltimore, New England, and Pittsburgh. This is a good thing in theory. All of those teams are successful and remain at the cutting edge of the league, and all of them were rumored to be big McClellin fans who were set to pick after the Bears. I imagine for the rest of the league it was like Theo Epstein’s comments about watching the Cubs draft unfold in baseball last summer from his seat in Boston, where he said, “Hey, they get it, they’re finally getting it.”
I can’t sit here and say that I know Shea McClellin is going to be a success. I can’t even say that I wanted him or that I was in favor of the pick. My frame of reference is one of reacting to whether he will fit into a defined role in the Bears 4-3, Cover-2 base defense and I don’t honestly believe that he will. But maybe, just maybe, my perception of who this team is and how they operate is going to start to change, because they are going to start to change, and it all may begin with this pick on a Thursday night in April. Now that could be a change I could believe in.
Draft Day
Apr 26th
For all you NFL draft-nicks out there who get your intravenous fix of football each April, today is your big day. It’s the NFL equivalent of Rex Manning Day. I’ll touch on this in further detail in my Friday post but I want to plant my flag in the ground now and say that I think the Bears need to go with a defensive end with the 19th overall pick in the draft and I think Illinois’ Whitney Mercilus is the pick. I like him more than Quinton Coples from North Carolina (who has issues about trying hard and taking plays off – not what I’m looking for in a 1st round pick), Chandler Jones from Syracuse (be wary of the guy who shoots up draft boards in the last few days before a draft – 11th hour momentum does not overrule the fact that no one paid attention to him the previous 8 months), and I think the rest of the top DE’s are better in a 3-4 defense.
I then suggest the Bears turn around in the 2nd round and draft from that 2nd tier of wide receivers. If the Bears walk away with Mercilus and say Kendall Wright (if he falls), Alshon Jeffery (South Carolina), Stephen Hill (GT), or Rueben Randle (LSU) with their first two picks then they’re off and running under the new regime.
Otherwise, I’m in general consensus with the majority of the pre-draft fodder you will find in your local paper or favorite football website so there’s no point in regurgitating that here for you. Anyways, happy drafting tonight everybody, and may the Packers reach for each and every selection!
