The Bears’ second game was awash with “almosts.” They almost covered the spread. They almost established a real offense. They almost stopped the Vikings from ramming it down their throats on a nine-minute fourth quarter drive. They almost kept me from trying to bleed myself to death by slashing my wrists with the serated edge of a Doritos bag.

And this is progress?

Wow, it’s going to be a long year.

Thanks to a Sunday night Bears game and a Cubs debacle that was quick, if not painless, I got to spend a lot of quality time with my NFL Sunday Ticket. Especially for the late games.

– A hint that CBS is trying to tell you that your team sucks could be when the announcers show up for your game and they’re Bill MacAtee and Jerry Glanville.

– Two weeks in a row Brian Baldinger has incorrectly used the word “assimilate” instead of “simulate.” – The preferred use of assimilate is, “to absorb into the system.” So when he says, “It’s hard to assimiliate that kind of speed in practice,” well, he’s just being a dumbass.

In a few weeks he’ll be able to say, “Wow, it must be hard for the Bears to assimilate how hard Kordell will get hit.”

– Donovan McNabb is doing things to my fantasy team that are illegal in most southern states.

– During the weekend we saw lots (and I mean lots) of commercials for the new Survivor: Pearl Islands which looks pretty good. We also saw a lot of plugs for Navy: NCIS on CBS which looks just like CSI and since CSI: Miami proved you can’t spin that off, Mark Harmon would be better off making Summer School, II.

But the one that really troubles me is NBC’s new sitcom, Coupling. Not only is it a spin-off of the very funny British sitcom of the same name, but they’re using the same character names…the same plots…and they set it in Chicago. So basically, we’re going to get a low-rent, cheap, knockoff of a good show and it’s going to besmerch Chicago in the process. And you know how much we hate being besmerched. Rena Sofer is in it, though. So I’m willing to watch it—to see how bad it is (wink, wink)—and Karry said something about making a Jergens run.

The guy who plays Jeff in that show is in an impossible spot. The British version of Jeff is the funniest character on TV since George Costanza. So really, he’s screwed. No matter how well he does it (and judging from the clips I’ve seen–not well), it won’t work.

– Chad Johnson of the Bengals wears horrendously bad shoes. They’re bright orange and they make him look a little like Cookie the Clown. They came in handy though. On a great, diving catch that set up the game tying touchdown, Chad’s orange shoes helped make it easy to see that he got both feet in bounds. Who knew?

– Shane Matthews is a Bengal. Ah, so he’s the calming influence. Or something.

– I’m not saying that Fox announcer Curt Mennefee looks like a frog, but let’s just say that flies are afraid to get within six feet of him.

– There was a touching moment at the Chiefs-Steelers game. At halftime, Kansas City retired Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram’s hairpiece.

– It’s not that new-old Packers’ wide receiver Antonio Freeman has lost a step or two, but it is a bad sign when he has to break the huddle early so he can get to his spot before the ball’s snapped?

– I really thought that Martin Grammatica would have some sort of “two blocked field goals and a blocked extra point” dance. I guess not.

– After watching some of the Arizona-Seattle and Green Bay-Detroit games, it’s nice to see that the Lions are still really, really bad. How did they give up four touchdowns to the Cardinals last week?

– Is Jake Dellhome French for “Steve Walsh”?

– I took a football break and watched a VH1 special on the final months of Warren Zevon’s life. Just a great show. When you can count both David Letterman and Bruce Springsteen among your most loyal friends, you’ve done something right.

– Brian Baldinger described the pathetic offense (and awesome defense) in the Tampa Bay – Carolina game as, “like open canal root surgery.” Huh? And last year we thought Pat Summerall was the clueless one?

– Two Bears games and I have yet to listen to the WBBM radio call. That will come two weeks from tonight when they open Soldier Field against the Packers. So far, I haven’t had any Hub related seizures. Though, I nearly had some Joe Theismann induced ones last night.

– The opening kickoff is returned to the 44 yard line. Glad to see we beefed up those kick coverage teams. Three plays later it’s 7-0 Vikings and I’m seriously considering watching Sex in the City at 8 p.m., even though that show hasn’t been funny since…well…ever.

– The Bears fight back, thanks to a long scamper by…the A-Train! His long run tells us two things. A) He’s a pretty good (though not elite) back who needs some semblance of an offensive line and B) he won’t get another carry for about an hour and a half.

– Kordell Stewart’s best plays are:
A) The quarterback draw for minus-three yards
B) The underthrown “out” pass.

Sigh.

– I think perhaps the Bears defense has a hard time defending the run in the games because they can’t practice against a “real” running game.

– Did Keith Traylor retire and forget?

– Eddie Johnson is punting for the Vikings? Really? Remember Eddie? He played for Lou Henson at Illinois in the early 80s, and of all the players in the history of the NBA he scored the most points of anyone never named to an All-Star team. Now he’s a punter. That’s cool. He’s what Rick Pitino would call “multi-versatile.”

– You never know what play Theismann is talking about. Is it this one? The last one? One from 1987?

– The Bears manage to get a delay of game penalty after the three-minute commerical break for the end of the first quarter. When they do run the play, Kordell throws a seven yard pass to a receiver nine yards down the field…on third and 13! It took three minutes and 41 seconds to think of that?

– Suzy Kolber is just cute as hell. She says that Brian Urlacher told her that the week one loss at San Francisco was “the worst thing” he’s ever been associated with. That’s saying a lot for a guy who played with Cade McNown.

– Aaron Elling is the Vikings’ kicker. He’s the creator of such TV classics as Dynasty, Beverly Hills 90210, and Melrose Place. I’m surprised Tori’s not the holder.

– With 9:57 to go in the second quarter the Bears are out of timeouts.

– Hey look! Former Chicago Enforcer John Avery!

– The Vikings use a really cool fake QB draw-pass for a 17-3 lead. Thankfully, Sex in the City is over and I didn’t have to watch any of it.

– Kordell throws more bounce passes than Magic Johnson.

– Gus Frerotte is the backup quarterback in Minnesota? Really? Oh, I want to see Daunte Culpepper miss a couple games so we can see Mike Tice literally strangle Frerotte to death during a game.

– After the best run by a Bears’ quarterback since Jim Harbaugh ran off to Indianapolis, the Bears cut the lead to 17-10 on a great catch by David Terrell in the endzone. The Bears get the ball back near midfield with :01 left after a missed field goal by Elling. Do they throw a bomb? Of course not.

– In the second half we get consecutive punts downed by the guy who punted them. Just to be clear, this is not a good thing.

– Best exchange of the night.
Joe: “I punted.”
Paul Maguire: “Yeah, once. For a yard.”

– The unblocked quarterback draw is the 2003 version of the wide receiver screen.

– Kordell finds Dez White on a bomb (re-read that again and realize I’m not making this up) the Bears drive stalls (of course), but Paul Edinger kicks a field goal to make it 17-13. There are 12 minutes left. The Bears will only get the ball one more time. Really.

– The Vikings hold the ball for nine minutes and it would have been closer to 11 had the Bears not used two timeouts near the end of the drive. They methodically pound the Bears into submission and when Culpepper finds the great Jim Kleinsasser for a TD it’s over.

– It wasn’t 49-7, but it wasn’t painless.

Who are we going to beat?

Anyone? Anyone?

—

How about some more Rena Sofer?

Speaking of NBC shows. Remember when Alicia Silverstone was hot?

Yeah, whatever happened to that?

—

In Karry’s Dose on Friday he convinced Dave the football prognosticating cat to return to the handicapping business. Dave had a rough week. He was only 2-4 on his picks, though he did pick every single winner. You and your bookie both know it’s not who wins, it’s how much they win by.

Dave will give it one more go this week, and then decide if retirement is back in the works.

He used to be a star. From 1997-1999, Dave picked every NFL game every week (using the spread) and had a career winning percentage of .776. Not bad. Right now? It’s .333 — not good.
—

Saturday was a flashback day for me. I remember two years ago when Notre Dame went to Texas A&M and had the 2:30 p.m. game. The early game ran long and by the time we got to see the game it was already 17-0 A&M. On Saturday, the Irish-Michigan game was on after OSU-NC State. The first game went three overtimes and what was the score by the time ABC got around to the game? Yup, 17-0.

If Carlyle Holiday’s quarterbacking career was Fredo Corleone, it’d be in the fishing boat right now. Wow.

But there’s no way that game was all Carlyle. I don’t think Carlyle was on the defensive line who didn’t tackle anybody or that he was covering the Michigan wide receivers who ran, alone, through the secondary all day. Ty Willingham described it as a “total team loss.” That’s an understatement. Let’s see how ESPN spins this one on “The Season” Tuesday night.

They say you’re never as good as you were in your biggest win and never as bad as in your worst loss.

For chrissakes, let’s hope that’s true.

—
The Cubs took two of three from the hapless Reds this weekend, and a sweep should have been in the cards, given that Carlos Zambrano pitched his ass off yesterday. Nine innings, four hits, one run…against Josh Hall and the Reds. Josh Hall? Who?

The Cubs had four golden scoring chances against Hall and botched them all. So here they sit, with 13 games left (3) versus the Mets, (7) versus the Pirates, (3) against the Reds.

Houston has (3) against the Rockies, (3) against the Giants, (3) against the hapless Cardinals and (4) against Milwaukee.

Basically, the Astros are likely to go 8-5 at the absolute worst. That means the Cubs have to go 10-3 just to tie them.

Gulp.

However, that brings me to something one of our inbred Satanic Fowl buddies said about the Cubs.

On their way to getting swept and kissing the season goodbye in Houston, monoeyebrow hurler Matt Morris said, “It’ll be sad if the Cubs win it. They could sneak in there unscathed. That wouldn’t be fun. We’ve been battling way too long to expend our energy and then have them win.”

Cue our favorite Cardinals photo:

I’m going to ‘splain this to you one more time, Matt.

Everybody in the NL Central plays the same basic schedule. Let’s break it down in terms that even your fans can understand.

Cue the little Cardinals fan’s photo:

Every team in the NL Central plays 162 games. You all play the teams in your division either 16 or 17 times, and since the NL Central has six teams in it, that means you play 83 games against the division and 79 against other teams. Everybody plays every team in the National League, and everybody in the NL Central played teams from the American League East in Interleague Play. Plus, you have to play your “natural rival” from the AL six times. That means the Cubs played the AL Central leading White Sox six times, the Cardinals played the third place Royals six times, the Astros played the last place Rangers six times, and the Reds played the Indians and the Pirates played the…they don’t have one, so they played the Indians three times just for the hell of it.

What does this mean? It means everybody plays pretty much the same schedule. The fact that the Cubs are finishing with 13 games against sub .500 teams is due to the fact that they’ve already played more teams with winning records than either the Cardinals or Astros. If anybody benefitted from the schedule, it’s the Astros who got six games with the pathetic Rangers. They swept the Rangers in Arlington and then dumped two of three in Houston. Don’t blame us.

Maybe the Cardinals tanked the games in Houston so the Astros could win and not the Cubs? If they didn’t tank those, you damn sure better keep an eye on them when they play them this week because I have a feeling the fix is in.

How nice.

—

Carlos pitched very well, but was done in by a lousy offense and an umpire who got nailed in the throat with a pitch. Here’s what made me mad. If Steve Rippley (Believe Him or Not) had such a bad headache, why did he ump the bottom of the eighty, when he called Moises out on strikes on two pitches that were in the Reds’ on deck circle? Don’t be a hero. Jackass.

Dusty thinks Matt Morris is a “moran“, too.

The Cubs aren’t sure if the delay did them in or not. I think it was not pummelling the great Josh Hall.

The Bears were better…but still pretty lousy.

The Vikings couldn’t figure out why the Bears defense was letting them run the ball so easily.

Looks like David Huh is blaming this loss on Urlacher. Nice. Can’t we have Mr. Huh go cover something nobody cares about…like the White Sox playoff push?

Rosey’s pissing and whining again today. Doesn’t he ever get tired of it? I did. That’s why Desipio is so positive nowadays! Or something.

Mariotti puts down the doughnut to say that the Bears aren’t very good.

Unless Michigan is really, really great, the Irish are in for a long year.

Peter Gammons with a long, somewhat pointless look at middle relievers. Kind of fitting, actually.

Peter King’s Monday Morning Quarterback.

Ben and J. Lo have broken up. Maybe. Oh, really, who cares?

ABC ponders what to do with “8 Simple Rules” now that John Ritter is dead. I’ve got two words to save the show, “Larry Dallas.”

EW on the 10 shows they’re dying to see. They have Skin as one of them. Why isn’t this show on HBO or Showtime? Then, it’d be worth watching. Instead, I’ll take Karen Sisco. Literally.

Ben celebrated the breakup at the Hustler casino.

Passengers in the Friendly Skies duct taped a bible thumping loudmouth on a flight to LA.

People may hate ‘The Tanners’ but we sure like two…OK, actually just one of them.

The world’s greatest newspaper says that Scratchy the parrot is going to become a UN translator. Well, sure he is.