A Packers-Bears matchup for the first Sunday of December, and the anticipation level suggested a Mid-Suburban League JV scrimmage.
Team records—4-8 vs. 3-9—were a factor, as was the uncertainty over each team's quarterback scenario. At best, we'd have a 39-year-old increasingly shot fighter vs. a colt-like 23-year-old who is still trying to prove the Bears have it right at the position that has forever vexed them.
At worst, Jordan Love vs. Nathan Peterman. In cold, lakefront bluster.
Man, if Bears-Packers can't save us, Chicago's sports landscape is as forlorn as it has been in recent memory.
The Blackhawks have lost eight in a row as this is written. Not to put too fine a point on it, but they stink.
The game presentation remains creative and fun, the anthem is still a thing, the new "voices" are trying their best and Jonathan Toews is out there plugging away with trademark "Captain Serious" purpose.
But Patrick Kane evokes Magic Johnson in a pickup game at the Y with actuaries and accountants. It's only a matter of time before a no-look pass caroms off somebody's nose.
When Rocky Wirtz took over for his late father and oversaw the previous restoration, a championship nucleus was in its formative stages. Rocky hired John McDonough to reacquaint the city with it, and to fill seats. What followed was pretty special.
And just awful how it ended.
The road back is long and uncertain, with an unproven 44-year-old Danny Wirtz assuming the McDonough role, in charge of it all. Patience, remember, is a virtue.
The Bulls are sub-.500 and lack any sort of consistency. Injuries can't be discounted, but the fact that they matter so much speaks to an obvious lack of depth on the roster.
Better basketball minds than mine had no issue with the Bulls lavishing a $215 million "max" contract on Zach LaVine, knee trouble notwithstanding. I look at LaVine and I see Jimmy Butler: tough, skilled and industrious, but not quite at the premier level that determines the pecking order in the star-driven NBA.
To put it another way, if Jimmy Butler or Zach LaVine is your best player, you're not a championship-caliber team. And with Lonzo Ball stranded at the corner of Mark Prior Lane and Michael Kopech Way, you have to squint pretty hard to see title contention in the Bulls' future.
Well, baseball will be along in a few months. Feel better? Not sure?
Can't fault the White Sox for Jose Abreu's departure. Admired as he is, three years and $58 million seems excessive.
A 50% decline in power (30 homers to 15) usually isn't reversed after a slugger turns 35 (at least). Forty-two of the previous season's 117 RBIs went missing, as well.
Abreu is still a dangerous hitter. But he's not much more than adequate in the field, and he can't run, and he came to symbolize the glaring disparity in athletic aggressiveness which the Cleveland Guardians exploited in a September series sweep that defined the AL Central race.
Is Andrew Vaughn an upgrade at first base? Gavin Sheets? It's up to new manager Pedro Grifol to figure it out. But if Abreu's departure and pitcher Mike Clevinger's arrival are the extent of the White Sox's off-season moves, last season's 81 wins might be hard to top.
Then there's the Cubs, whose 17-8 finish got them to 74 wins and prompted talk that their current renovation might be further along than we'd previously believed. Playing in, perhaps, the worst division ever assembled is a mitigating factor, although only 10 of those 25 games were against NL Central opponents. Just six were against teams with winning records.
The scorched-earth rebuild that produced a World Series title in 2016 was hitter-driven: Anthony Rizzo and Javy Báez were here, Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber were on their way. The Cubs had the resources to land Jake Arrieta, Dexter Fowler and Kyle Hendricks in trades, and the resolve to add Jon Lester as a free agent.
The current effort seems more pitcher-dependent, which is always a gamble given the chronic fragility of young men's arms.
And even as the Cubs were going 17-8, the lack of star power stood out. Whom would you point to and say, "He's going to be here when they're good": Nico Hoerner? Probably. Christopher "Smiley" Morel? Maybe. Nick Madrigal? If he could ever stay healthy.
A pretty bleak picture all the way around. We must look to the Sky for deliverance.
Crain’s contributor Dan McGrath is president of Leo High School in Chicago and a former Chicago Tribune sports editor.
People most often make the Steph Curry comparison, but it may be more apt to think even bigger: Tiger Woods.
The former Ohio State and Butler coach knows what he's in for as he tries to turn around a languishing program.
Before the White Sox owner gets a shiny new ballpark, maybe he should flip his priorities.
