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Dissed in Chi-Town
Cold, Hard Football Facts for September 9, 2007
By Jonathan Comey
Cold, Hard Football Facts battlefield commander
Although we are not fond of opinion, we believe that everyone has a right to one.
This is, after all, America, a nation of opinions -- sometimes cacophonous, but never silent. This extends to football, where every Tom, Dick and Prisco offers his or her two cents on the issues of the day.
Here at the Cold, Hard Football Facts, we don't concern ourself with the opinion of humble folk, but when it comes to the "pundits" we take a tougher stance.
And in perusing some lists of "expert" predictions for the 2007 season, we can't help but notice one name that's conspicuously inconspicuous: the Chicago Bears.
We chose the Bears to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl because, well, that's what the facts were telling us.
- Chicago was three games better than the rest of the conference in 2006.
- The Bears play in a division that's more or less conceded to them already.
- They are fully healthy on defense (they weren't for the second half of last year)
- Rex Grossman, bad as he was in 2006, led the team to the Super Bowl and it's reasonable to assume he can only get better from the experience (and the QB play could hardly get worse than it was a year ago).
However, because the Bears aren't a titillating pick, they are being ignored.
None of SI.com's five experts even picks the Bears to reach the NFC title game. Cowboys, Seahawks, Saints, Eagles -- all better than the Bears.
All 19 of the ESPN.com experts pick the Bears to win the NFC Central, but only three of them think the Bears will win the NFC.
That's 24 experts, three return trips to the Super Bowl for the Bears. Pretty rough, for a team that should be a year older and wiser than the one that totally dominated the NFC last year.
Cold, Hard Football Facts:
- The Bears were 13-1 vs. the NFC (the loss a Week 17 mail-in) in 2006, outscoring their conference opponents by an average score of 29-18.
- The Bears were only the third team since expansion to 16 games in 1978 to finish the season three games ahead of their nearest conference foe (1978 Steelers, 1984 49ers)
It'd be one thing if the Bears had suffered major personnel losses.
They didn't.
They get DT Tommie Harris and S Mike Brown back from injury, add Devin Hester and rookie TE Greg Olsen to the offense, S Adam Archuleta to the defense -- if anything, the Bears have gotten better on paper.
But who cares, when it's so damn fun to pick the Saints! Who dey? Who dey? Who dey say dey gonna pick dem Saints. We so how well that worked out for them Thursday night, in a 41-10 shellacking to the same Colts team that beat the Bears by 12 in the last meaningful football game before Saints-Colts.
Anyway, even though we seem to be the only ones recognizing that there's still a darn good football team in Chicago, everyone's entitled to an opinion.
Especially a dumb one, because those are more fun.
Keep 'em coming!
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