Jay Cutler is on the Clock

I've been very quiet lately. Work’s been busy. I've been spending time outside. I just haven’t been spending as much time sitting on the computer. Anyway, I thought I’d do another Chicago Bears post to get me started again.

If you've read my posts on the Bears before, you probably know that I’m a fan of Jay Cutler. I’m not his #1 fan or anything, but I have a lot of respect for him. I chose the picture above to illustrate a point. Jay Cutler is the best QB the Bears have seen in a long time, but there has been entirely too much of what you see above happening. Some of it is Jay’s fault for holding onto the ball too long and trying to make a play out of nothing. Most of it is the organization’s fault for having been too much in the “getting off the bus running” mindset for far too long.

The days of the QB who is simply a game manager who can simply hand the ball off to the running back are long gone (well…except maybe for Minnesota). Cutler has been in Chicago since 2009 and this is the first year that the Bears have truly decided to surround him with the supporting cast that a successful quarterback needs to have. Getting Brandon Marshall last year was a great move, but with the injuries that plagued the rest of the receivers last year. Defense against the Bears was simple. Over-cover Marshall, then squish Cutler when he had nowhere to throw the ball. Now he has the makings of a good offensive line to protect him, and a play caller who knows something about calling plays. From what I saw, Mike Tice was able to put together a reasonable o-line for what he had to work with, but a good play caller he was not. Now we’ve got a guy who is supposed to be a real whiz kid when it comes to play calling and from what I’ve seen from OTAs, the plan is to nip the sack count in the bud.

Now to get back to the title of the post and my long and meandering point. Assuming the line performs like it’s supposed to and Mark Trestman has a reasonable game plan in his head, Jay Cutler is out of excuses. As I’ve said before, I’m firmly in the camp who believes that those excuses up to this point have been legitimate. I imagine it’s hard to look like a great QB when you’re getting knocked on your ass every other play. However, if he doesn’t have a stellar year this year, Jay Cutler will have no one to point the finger at but the guy in the mirror.

That said, I think the combination of the surrounding cast and the last year of Jay’s contract will add up to one heck of an offense this year. With Alshon Jeffery coming in with a little more experience under his belt, a tight end who can actually catch a ball, and someone who understands that “run Matt Forte up the middle” doesn’t actually work, I’m excited to see what the Bears offense can do this year.

BEAR DOWN!

Music Monday: Special Star Trek Edition

A year ago I started a weekly feature to share some of the music I enjoy. It fizzled out by the end of the summer, but I thought it was time to bring it back, if only for a single post. A "One Night Afternoon Only" special event.

What's the occasion?

If you're a regular reader, you already know I recently had a birthday. And while I didn't get my laptop back from Staples like I was hoping (it's been WELL over a month now... c'mon, guys, get it together!), I did get some actual presents, including two CDs from Pat (yes, I still listen to CDs, now get off my lawn) -- the soundtracks for Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

I know I've already mentioned that the music is one of my favorite things about the Star Trek reboot, so you can imagine how excited I was to get these. And I figured what better occasion to bring back Music Monday.

Happy Blogiversary to Amy!

Today is the second blogiversary of one of my favorite bloggers, Amy at Lucy's Football. Her past week of posts have been an epic countdown to this moment, filled with the "Best of Lucy's Football" (according to the masses anyway; there are many wonderful posts that didn't make the Top 7) and other bloggery goodness.

For me, it's been just over a year since I first stumbled across her blog, and probably just under a year since I started reading it regularly. And Amy is one of those people who I love having in my life (if only virtually) because she is so passionate about what she loves. Sometimes it's books, a lot of times it's people, but the one that really jumps out at me is her love of the theater.

Now, I am not a theater-lover. I'm not a theater-hater, and I like to think I have a greater appreciation of the arts in general than a lot of people do, but theater just isn't one I've ever been really passionate about. But the way she feels about theater is the way that I feel about music, and the fact that it's such a huge part of her life... well, it makes me nostalgic and more than a little sad, because I haven't made the effort these past seven years (oh God, has it really been that long since I graduated college?) to keep music in my life. Last summer I decided I was going to join the Dubuque Chorale so I could sing again, and then my social anxiety got in the way and I chickened out. I keep wanting to go to the Dubuque Symphony, but they only have a few concerts a year and I'm always either out of town that weekend or forget until it's too late.

But Amy makes me remember what having that passion in my life feels like, and her theater stories go a long way in keeping that dream alive in me rather than just letting it die.

So, Amy -- even though this got a little more self-centered than I'd intended -- here's to two years of blogging, and hopefully many more. The internet wouldn't be the same without you!

It's My Birthday!

Full Stop

I feel so scattered right now. Between the internet being out for most of Wednesday night, spending four hours at the car dealership yesterday waiting on a repair, and Memorial Day weekend sneaking up on me . . .

I had plans! I just never actually DID anything about them . . .

All of which to say is, this is as much of a blog post as you get today (instead of the Star Trek post I had planned), and I was totally going to write something and have it ready to go for Monday (another specific topic which I'll probably push to Wednesday), and my "bring back the words" campaign comes to a grinding halt.

Maybe for June I'll aim for two posts a week.

Brian Urlacher Redux

A couple months ago, Pat wrote a bit about the Brian Urlacher situation, how he and the Bears couldn't agree (some might argue, didn't really try to agree) on terms to bring him back. His future's been up in the air since then, but this morning he announced that he would retire.

I'm sure this isn't the way he wanted to end his career, despite ending his statement by saying that he has no regrets. I think there's a difference between having regrets and dwelling on regrets. There's nothing wrong with saying that you wished things could have happened differently.

I suppose only he knows how he truly feels, but I certainly wish it would have happened differently. Still, though, I'm (somewhat selfishly) glad he's not going to play for another team. I say "somewhat selfishly" because it feels wrong to say that I wanted his career to be over. But he's one guy I expected to see retire a Bear, and while you can argue the timeline and the semantics of that statement, at least now I can always think of him as a Bear.

(Not that I wouldn't have anyway, but it would have been a lot harder if he'd worn a different uniform for a couple years.)

There are already a ton of stories floating around with various takes on the news: recapping his stats, discussing his Hall of Fame future, comparing his career to that of other great Chicago linebackers . . . and so on and so forth. I'm not going to start collecting links or I'll never stop, but at the very least, here's a short article on ChicagoBears.com, including a highlight reel, and a collection of responses from Twitter. Twitter is, of course, where I first saw the news, and watched reactions roll in. There are a couple tweets worth pointing out on their own though. The first is a look back to thirteen years ago:

LM: Check out 2000 post-draft issue of Bear Report with Brian Urlacher on cover: "Born to be a Bear." twitpic.com/csfvjo

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) May 22, 2013

And the second, well . . . if you don't get it, don't worry about it. But if you do . . . enjoy a laugh.

You were who we thought you were.Congrats.RT @burlacher54: It was an honor to play my entire career for the @chicagobears.

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) May 22, 2013

Another Season Down

So, all of my TV shows (well, most of them) had their finales last week. Here are my thoughts:

(This will get spoilery. If you haven't seen the finales of Castle, How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory, or The Office yet, and are planning to, you should probably just leave now.)

Three Quick Points

Between Wednesday's post and now today's, I've been totally slacking on this "bring back the words" thing. In my defense, Bout of Books has been taking up most of my blogging energy. Next week I'll start writing posts of more than a hundred or so words. But in the meantime . . .

1) Star Trek Into Darkness!!! We're planning on seeing it possibly tomorrow but more likely Sunday morning. (Yes, morning. We don't like crowds.)

2) Drunk Harry Potter tonight!!! (Also known as the reason we're probably not seeing Star Trek tomorrow morning.)

3) All the finales!!! I only watch a handful of shows, and this week most of them ended for the season (or altogether, in the case of The Office). I'll be sharing my thoughts on all of these next week.

Mental Health Blog Day

I just learned that today is Mental Health Blog Day. I could get into my own stuff here, but it's nothing I prepared for or planned on, so I just don't think I have it in me right now. Instead, I'll share a couple links that fit the theme.

Brain Knows Better - This is one of my favorite new blogs. Today's post is a little outside the norm for this author, but I think it's an important one, and I'm so glad that he shared his story.

Hyperbole and a Half - This is a blog I didn't discover until after the author had been gone from blogging for a while. (I instantly fell in love with her post about the 'alot,' a magical creature that keeps her grammar rage in check.) She recently returned to blogging with an amazing post chronicling her issues with depression. I think everyone should read it, because even if you can't relate to any of it, I guarantee that you know someone who does.

I know there are WAY more amazing posts out there, in fact there might be some written specifically for today, sitting unread in my feed reader right now (I am SO behind on reading my blogs, I feel terrible), but these are the two I have to share today.

A Look at oneQube

Phew, okay . . . I think I'm recovered.

I'm participating in Bout of Books this week. It's a read-a-thon, and you can read all about it at my other blog.

But, since I have to write something for today here as well, I figured I'd use the opportunity to sort out my chat experience. See, the first Bout of Books Twitter chat was this afternoon, and it was . . . overwhelming, to say the least. I saved a transcript on oneQube (I'll get to that in a second), and while unfortunately it can't tell me how many participants we had, it does say that in the 65 minutes captured, there are a total of 1,969 tweets. That's roughly 30 a minute. Even given the fact that tweets can't be more than 140-characters and therefore are relatively short, that is a LOT of information coming at you.

So, how did I survive?

Well first of all, I was using oneQube's SmartStream to manage the chat. I know TweetChat is usually preferred (I've used it in the past myself), and is technically still up and running, but it's been glitchy lately, and is soon going to be going away entirely, so I wanted to take this new chat manager out for a spin.