The Bears Are Back in Town

You gotta admit, nobody thought the Bears would be 3-0 and leading the NFC North after the season's first 3 weeks. To be honest, the first 3 games of the season can kind of be looked at as the fans of Chicago 'dating' the idea of their beloved Bears being a relevant team in the NFC. After week 1, the girl they first encountered on opening weekend looked pretty good. She had a cute outfit which made you wonder (Cutler, speed on the edges, Forte), but maybe it was only because she was simply surrounded by her DFG (dog faced gremlin, invented by one Tate Stunkel) roommate that was pushing 3 bills (the Lions) who kept giving you looks after you continuously attempted to box her out of conversations all night. Then, when you met up with the same girl the next weekend after a series of incoherent text messages, she started to grow on you a little bit as she put her 'weapons' to good use (do I really need to draw a correlation to how a female uses her weapons? think about it) and continued to impress you. Still, you were unsure of her overall endowment because you were 4 Hurricanes deep and feeling as if a 5th were to be a good idea. After two successful rendezvouses, you finally asked her to join you on a fancy, chic dinner (Monday Night Football) that would give you a definitive answer about her without the sounds of Muse blaring through the sardined bar speakers and muddling your supposedly lucid conversation. As it turns out, she didn't disappoint and left you feeling proud to be dating someone with such promise...it's still a long season. Let's see if she cheats on us with a loser computer technician next week (Eli Manning).

All meaningless metaphors aside, the Bears came to play Monday night and shocked the football world in joining the Chiefs and the Charlie Batch led Pittsburgh Steelers as the league's only unbeatens. The Bears consistently came up big in key situations. Even if it seemed to be a blindfolded Cutler throwing off of his back foot into double coverage, Greg Olsen and the rest of the Bears receivers continued to make him look like he knew what he was doing. Granted, Jay "Don't worry about my delivery, it's DiGiorno" Cutler was bailed out of two interceptions by a couple of the Packers franchise record-breaking 18 penalties. Monday night's game may not have been the most penalized football game I had ever seen, but it was certainly the game with the most individual flags thrown in the history of the NFL. Perhaps it was the blatant nature of the Packers offenses (literally going helmet first into Cutler's chin on 3rd and long, Tauscher holding on 2 consecutive plays, holding Earl Bennett like he was the high school prom date of the Packers' DB, etc.), but the Soldier Field turf looked like Koopa Troopa beach after Toad just ran threw it with a bundle of bananas in Mario Kart after each penalty.

On the offensive side of the ball, the Packers game plan was relatively easy to figure out. The Pack realized that although it is extremely interesting and presumably backwards when they hand the ball off to their white running back and a bunch of Wisconsinites gleefully respond by yelling "KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUHN", they weren't going to do much on the ground Monday night. In fact, I felt as if Rodgers completed a check-down pass on virtually every play the Packers had from scrimmage. They probably did this to try and limit A-Rodg's time in the pocket so they wouldn't have to deal with Julius Peppers (who still made his presence felt by blocking a FG), but Rodgers honestly had more 7-10 yd. completions last night than Antonio Cromartie has kids (on second thought, we can't prove that). And, although it seemed as if the Packers were moving the ball with relative ease, they only put up 17 points. With that being said, the difference in the game was Devin Hester, who according to Jon Gruden has "4. don't know" speed (the broadcasters in this game were despicable and showed meaningless replays of the Bears RT and Clay Matthews who were irrelevant in the play on 4 straight downs). Last night, when he stood back there doing his sexual innuendo laden dances while waiting for the punt, shades of 2007 ran through every Bears fans head as they prayed he could pull something out, and simultaneously pull the Bears, and the home crowd back into the game...and he did. Hester was impressive and effective last night. However, neither of the aforementioned adjectives can be used to describe his haircut, which remains to be an utter atrocity. Needless to say, Packer punter Tim Masthay will have to post his resume on Monster.com and put his agriculture degree from Kentucky to work, because he sure as hell isn't going to be punting in Green Bay much longer after his series of shortcomings Monday night.

In any event, the Bears played to win last night and I respect Lovie Smith's mentality going in. Even though the 4th and 1 attempt from the goal line failed, his chutzpah (yes, that's a real word) when the game was on the line was refreshing to see. Thousands of trained professionals in the Chicagoland area were relieved with a win Monday night as they could now go to work on Tuesday and not have to listen to some six-toothed, janitorial staff, hillbilly parade around the workplace and brag about the Packers. Chalk another one up for the Land of Lincoln. Bear Down!

As for Pick of the Day, I apologize for the lack of Saturday 6-pack and Sunday Teaser from this past weekend. I was visiting friends in LaCrosse, Wisconsin and was consumed too much by flat keg beer that tasted like lukewarm chicken broth, Affliction t-shirts, and Ke$ha songs to formulate anything productive for the blog. However, tonight the Pulse Man likes Roy Oswalt and the Phils to beat the Nationals tonight on the moneyline at (-126). Anytime you can bet against the Nats on those odds, you take it.

Pick of the Day: Phillies @ Nationals- PHILLIES-moneyline (-126)

Record:(22-13-0)