San Francisco to Gwinn by way of Green Bay

 First rain of the season slowed our departure from EssEff, but United made it up in the air.

The plan was to drive with Dad to Shag Lake and get there in time for the Bears game.

I love it when a plan comes together. We spent the much of trip listening to the Green Bay Packers lose on the radio.  If  there is anything better for a Bear fan that a day when Bears win and Green Bay loses, I guess it must be this...

Driving the full length of Wisconsin during the Packer's loss, listening to the homer announcers make excuses for Aaron Rodger's terrible throws for interceptions and try to explain the truly horrible coaching by McCarthy, all followed by hours of anguished Packer fans calling into the post-game autopsy. 

It was very entertaining. Quickest six hour drive ever.

Shag Lake Sunday

The Weekend Crew

 It's a short trip for Wendy, Brian and Jim, as they will be driving back tonight.  Two events of note today.

First,  were almost out of firewood, but after a Saturday call to the Barnett's we had two cords delivered on Sunday.

With Mrs. Barnett showing the newbies how to stack wood...

... we were soon set for the fall/winter season.

More important. This was the opening day of the Chicago Bear season.  Miraculously, the Bears and Packers were carried by the local cable outlet, so the Den was reconfigured into a Media Room/ Man Cave.

A pirated Red Zone feed and direct line to Papa's Caribbean bookie supplemented the game day experience [Note to Comcast and NFL: We didn't really stream a pirate Red Zone broadcast. That would be wrong. In any case it was Jimmy that did it.]
.

Bears win. Packers lose.  Pretty much a perfect day. We toast to the Bears in first place and the Packers in last.

Followed by the traditional post game victory dance:

This was directed at our neighbors across the bay, who have the bad taste to display kayaks in Packer colors on their boat house.  But as for the Packer's themselves, I think this guy summed it up pretty well after Packer team captain Jarrett Bush made the ridiculous post game claim that they beat themselves:

"This isn't the first time that a player has used the "We beat ourselves" line. Following the playoff loss to the Giants, Clay Matthews had reportedly made a similar comment. According to Matthews: "The fact is, (the Giants) didn't beat us; we beat ourselves." The Packers need a reality check: the 19-game winning streak is long gone. The Packers have lost three of their past five games. They've been dominated in their last two games at Lambeau Field. Unbeatable teams don't get bullied by the Kansas City Chiefs with a backup quarterback. What baffles me is that these comments are coming from defensive players. In 2011, the defense surrendered more passing yardage than any team in NFL history. During the first half of their Christmas night game against the Chicago Bears, they made Kahlil Bell look like Matt Forte. Josh McCown even had a strong start to that game."

Heh. The simple fact is that SF quarterback Alex Smith is really not that good. The Packer's defense is really that bad. The Packers are on a two game losing streak and with Cutler under center for Thursday's game against  the Bears, an 0-2 start is staring them in the face.  I am taking Bears straight up on Thursday and beginning to wonder whether the Pack will win any games this year at all.

Bears, Eagles, Desperation, Magical Thinking and The Super Bowl Shuffle

Chalk this up to an act of desperation. Da Bears have a big game against a resurgent Michael Vick and the Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia tonight. Despite putting their 4-3 record up against a losing 3-4 record for the Eagles, the Bears are big underdogs. No one expects them to win. This game will probably tell us whether the Bears are going to contend this year.

If I was to indulge in some wishful thinking - my hope is that the Bears go on from a win tonight to beat Minnesota and Detroit in the rematch, spoil Green Bay's perfect season in Green Bay on Christmas Day, make the playoffs as a wildcard, and in a rematch of last years NFC Championship, knock off the Packers in Green Bay in a blizzard to go to the Superbowl.

Yes this involves some some serious magical thinking, so I am invoking the magic of the 1985 Bears Superbowl Shuffle to help out.

Found this in the archives...

In 1986 I was working at enterprise software supplier McCormack & Dodge. One week before Superbowl XX, the annual M&D sales kickoff meeting was held at the company Headquarters in Natick, Massachusetts. The VP of Sales was based in Chicago and there was a lot of excitement and rivalry building for the Chicago Bears / New England Patriots match-up. It was a fun meeting but the most fun was the the sales team rendition of the Superbowl Shuffle. Greatest.Cover.Ever.

Despite the potential for personal embarrassment, I am willing to take the risk in the hope some of that old magic will rub off. Hey - it worked for the '85 Bears, which most knowledgeable football fans acknowledge to be the greatest team in NFL history. Maybe, just maybe, the magic will work again.

It could happen.

UPDATE:
Look at that. It worked! Bears win 30-24. I'm back on the bandwagon. All it takes is a little 1985 Magic. I guess I am going to have to keep this up front and center for the rest of the season. Not that I am superstitious, its just that, you know, it worked.

Into the heart of darkness

Passing through the cultural center of this wasteland - an I-94 gas station. It just gives me the creeps. And smells bad.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

The Game

Our Seats

Shit. Had fun at the game, but ... this was an eminently winnable game lost by the Bears coaching staff. When I say "the Bears coaching staff" , I mean "Lovie Smith'. Still, we need to face facts. It appears that the Green Bay Packers can indeed beat the Bears by a single score, just as long as:

• The Bears play their 2nd and 3rd string quarterback.
• Have a 2nd string quarterback who would not be on the roster of any team in the NFL not coached by Lovie Smith.
  
• Bear quarterbacks score twice as many touchdowns for Green Bay as the Packer quarterback.
• Refs make three critical wrong calls all against the Bears
• The Bear head coach sabotages his own team's final tying drive in the last seconds with a brain dead time-out that nullifies a critical first down, in order to devise a play with the slowest end in football running an end-around that fails to get the first down.

My favorite post-mortem quote is from Haugh's column in the Trib:

"When they pull the account of this historic game out of the time capsule, this won't be the game Cutler quit on the Bears. It will be the game the 2010 Bears finally ran out of luck and Smith coached his way into the offseason. Why was Collins ahead of "emergency quarterback" Caleb Hanie on the depth chart anyway? Collins shouldn't have been on the roster, let alone in a game to decide the Super Bowl... If Smith signs a contract extension soon, as expected, it will be because the front office chose to ignore his coaching effort against the Packers. Why did Smith punt instead of let Robbie Gould try a 49-yard field-goal attempt down 14-0 in the second quarter? Why run Bennett around left end — a wide receiver who isn't Devin Hester — on third-and-3 with 1:15 left on the potential game-tying drive? Why not use the final timeout to call a smarter play on fourth down?"

Exactly. I wanted Lovie out before the season started and after this disaster they give him a 3 year extension. Cripes. I hope they at least put a clause in the contract that forbids him from making any challenges or calling any time-outs and plays in the last two minutes of either a game or half. If he just delegates those task to someone else we may have a chance. In any case - some scenes from a disappointing but fun day at the game...

Bear fans with dorks

It'll never work

premature celebration

more dorks

More premature celebration

Shuffling out

Congrats to the Packers, who will certainly represent the NFC North well in that exhibition game accompanying the Black Eyed Peas concert scheduled for two weeks hence. They are a fine team. But as for Packer fans, well...

Not that there is anything wrong with that.

We're in

Got tickets. End Zone section 357 - nosebleed, but under budget. Battery dying so live blogging may be limited. Will update with more pics later.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Bear Soul Food

Before making the final climb to our seats, we set up base camp and built up our strength with basic provisioning. Italian Beef, Polish Sausage, and Beer.

At Soldier Field

Working on ticket procurement

I thought the green and yellow shitters were a particularly nice touch

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Shuttling to Mecca

- Sent from my Palm Pre

Heading into the city of big shoulders

Heavy traffic with lots of Bear signs, The city will completely shut down for the game. Except, of course for the bars...

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

At Midway

... as in "Monsters of..." Everyone in the airport isin Bears regalia.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

A tale of two airports SFO to MDW

Sure - the Niners sucked this seaosn  (again), had a losing season (again), and fired their head coach (again), but stilll... You'd think there be some acknowledgement in the SFO newstand that the biggest NFL game of the last 70 years was only a day away. The only indication was from the national press - USA Today has a front page story on the game, and Sports Illustrated features Jay Cutler on the cover.  My reading material for the flight. Landing at Midway, a different story.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

A fan's gotta do what a fan's gotta do.

2002 - Last game at the old Soldier Field

Tomorrow I will be flying to Chicago. I just don't see how I have any other choice.

Lets face it. The Real Superbowl™, will take place Sunday 2:00 CST at Soldier Field. The Bears v. Packers - Is there anything else to say? Well - yeah. They each held serve at home court in their two meetings this season, with only one score separating the winner and loser in each game. This is the longest rivalry in the NFL. Yet the last and only time these two teams met in the post season was in Soldier Field the week after Pearl Harbor. Bears won 33-14. Did I mention this game is in Soldier Field? I expect recent and ancient (1941) history to repeat. Bears 28-17.

2007 - NFC Championship Game

I do understand that there is another game called the "superbowl" scheduled a couple of weeks down the road. I'm sure they are going to have a lot of entertaining commercials and I understand that Black Eyed Peas will be playing at half-time to drum up some interest and viewership. But as far as the game itself,I expect it to be only moderately more interesting the than the intervening Pro-Bowl. The NFC North dominated this year. They'll do it again.

With Brady and Payton out of the mix, whoever the AFC puts up will get rolled by the winner of The Real Superbowl™ this Sunday.

Flying on Saturday, hope to scalp a reasonable ticket on Sunday. Regardless, I'll be doing a little live blogging along the way. There is nothing quite like the City of Chicago in championship heat.

Go Bears!