Bearing Down on History

The Bears clinched Bret Favre's irrelevance yesterday. While the game was nervewracking (what is final outcome if the Packers don't miss two sub-40 yard field goals?), there was virtually no chance that these Bears would pull and "2004 Cubs" on us.

The only question that remain is: "Can the Bears get to/win the Superbowl?"

I think the answer is pretty simple: Yes, so long as they don't tackle the way they did yesterday and the way they did against Pittsburgh. I think having a healthy Mike Brown, the best football player on the team, will help tremendously with that issue.

Let's see Rex Grossman get another 20 passes in next week. He's doing just fine, but could only benefit from some extra work. I've seen people complaining about his 11-23 166 yesterday. Well, many will tell you the key QB stat is yards per attempt. And that 7.0 YPA is the minimum acceptable level for success in the NFL. Well, Rexie posted a 7.22 yesterday. Good enough in my book.

And if you happen on the Pollyanna site, you'll see they not only falsely accuse this page of being bearish on the Bears from the get-go (a false accusation), they also make some incorrect statements about Bear history.

Years ago, in another job, I had the pleasure of calling on the A.E. Staley Company of Decatur, Illinois. As part of my call prep, I read portions of the now out-of-print book, "The Kernel and the Bean : the 75-year story of the Staley Company." I've posted a text copy of chapter 3 here.

Fascinating read. What you'll be surprised to learn is that the McCaskey family sits on a near-billion dollar investment that they inherited from their grandfather, George Halas. And Halas was PAID to take the team off of Col. Staley's hands.

Note: Yes, I'm probably in violation of copywrite law here. If contacted, I'll delete the file. All you nitpickers happy now?