Moving On to Football

I don’t even want to talk about the Cubs, so don’t ask. I’d rather talk about more pleasant, happy sport stories like the strong early season performances being put on by the Chicago Bears and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

Charlie Weis has coached his Irish to a 4-1 record mainly on the strength of QB Jimmy Clausen’s arm and Clausen’s marked improvement running the offense. The Irish still don’t run a whole lot and their defense isn’t any extraordinary, yet they have found ways to win football games - just not enough wins, or convincingly enough wins, to get the attention of the AP or Coach’s polls. If the Irish want to climb into the Top 25 of ranked teams, then they will need to balance out the runs vs. pass and step up on defense to show the country that they are more than just a team with a lucky streak.

But I don’t mind the Irish’s absence from the Top 25. The games are much more fun to watch this season. My excitement for watching the games is not because they are winning, but because I believe that they actually have a chance to win. The team looks competent. They execute plays correctly. It is nothing like last season where the Irish consistently looked over-matched week in and week out. I didn’t want to watch last season (though usually did). This fall I am looking forward to seeing the Notre Dame game.

The Irish aren’t a BCS level team this season, but they look good enough to finish with a winning record and a bowl invitation. That’s something nice to think about, instead of, say, Alfonso Soriano’s 1-for-14 playoff performance against the Dodgers.

The Chicago Bears are also off to a strong start this season. Some will say that the Bears could be/should be 5-0, but the fact is that they buckled under to two teams late in the game and gave away victories. They don’t deserve to be 5-0. The Bears are 3-2, on top of the NFC North division, and appear to be growing stronger as the weeks progress.

In the grand NFL scheme of things, I don’t think we know the true quality level of the 2008 Chicago Bears. They beat Indianapolis handedly in the season opener, but the Colts are 2-2 and hardly looking like the unstoppable juggernauts of years past. (Though there is still time for Peyton Manning to right the ship). The Philly (2-3) win was impressive, but just like in the games against Carolina (4-1) and Tampa Bay (3-2), the Bears were in the process of giving the game away after they had built up a good lead. The difference with the Philly game was the Bear defense finally stiffened and stopped the skid to preserve the win.

The Bears humiliated the Detroit Lions this past weekend, 34-7. The Bears not only built up a huge lead, but the never even let Detroit get into the game. A refreshing change of pace from what the last three Bears games were like.

The victory was fun to watch, but I’m not sure what it proves. It certainly showed that Detroit has a horrible team that is in desperate need of help. If the Bears want to consider themselves a playoff-caliber team, they should beat a team like Detroit by 27 points on the road. So I figure this victory is a step in the right direction, but by no means proof that the Bears are a look for the playoffs.

Next week’s game should show us just how good this Bears team really is when they go down to Atlanta to take on a Falcons team that is surprising a lot of people with their play and having the same sort of early season success that the Bears are enjoying. Winning that game on the road would set the Bears up nicely as they close out the first half of the season.

I hate the Cubs . . . until next Spring.