A lot of people ask me who I think is going to win the Super Bowl-my answer-no idea. If asked who I’m cheering for, I guess I have to pull for the Giants. Not only am I indebted because they have surprisingly knocked the favored Packers out of the playoffs twice now, I have to admire the way they always seem to play back from the dead.

Any of you have a rooting interest or a prediction?

Enjoy the mini-holiday, even if you don’t care about the game one way or another.

Like the decision or not, Phil Emery is here as the new General Manager of the Chicago Bears.

Not that there is anything not to like immediately. Change always brings hope. Emery says his goal is to win championships. As undoubtedly Jerry Angelo said in 2004, and what Michael McCaskey said in 1993 after firing Mike Ditka and assuming the reigns as the defacto GM.

I watched today’s press conference. He bobbed and weaved a bit in the beginning (Angelo looked as if he was striding atop an unbalanced tramp steamer in his initial conference). I was glad to hear far fewer uncomfortable cliches from Emery than usually came from his awkward predecessor.

For anyone else that watched the conference-am I the only one that detected a bit of Lumburgh in Emery? Was it just his overuse of the “umm-kay”? Time will tell.

And only time will tell as to Emery and the Bears’ success on his watch. I can only like what I see so far and be hopeful. Emery says the Bears will fill the talent gap between his roster and that of the Green Bay Packers.

If not Phil, look out, someone has already registered the domain firephilemery.com.

For an organization that seems to move at a snail’s pace when it comes to making big decisions-that was rather quick. One day after conducting their final interviews, the Bears have named former scout Phil Emery as their new General Manager. Emery replaces the fired Jerry Angelo.

Emery was the reported front-runner for the job all along. His reported positives include drafts for the Bears in which he helped select Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown, Olin Kreutz, Lance Briggs and later-round finds such as Warrick Holdman, Roosevelt Colvin, Jerry Azumah and Alex Brown. He also played a part in successful drafts for Atlanta and Kansas City. He has been reported to be a tireless worker and enjoys hands-on scouting in the field.

At the same time, Emery was a part of Jerry Angelo’s scouting staff that selected Roosevelt Williams, Michael Haynes and Rex Grossman with high draft choices. In fairness, none of us know what exact role he played in these picks.

Only time will tell if Emery is an upgrade from the fired Angelo, or if Emery is a true GM (will he honestly be able to make a coaching change, or is Lovie Smith running the show?

Most of us fans would prefer to see the team President, GM, head coach and scouting staff on the same contractual timetable, and if the Bears continue to go (or remain) in the tank, the house can be cleaned.

Am I the only one that’s wondering if when Emery is introduced, we’re going to hear that Ted Phillips received a raise and extension to match the new GM?

Anyone excited? Not that it matters, the die is cast.

Jeff Pearlman’s book Sweetness: The Enigmatic Life of Walter Payton was released in October 2010 to a flurry of controversy. I appreciated that Pearlman and his publisher Gotham Books sent me a review copy. Due to a backlog of reading material, I didn’t get to starting it until December. It has taken me until now to not only find the time, but to do justice to the book with what I hope is a proper review.

Pearlman has written for Sports Illustrated and is an author of several sports best sellers, including stories on the 1986 New York Mets and the Dallas Cowboys of the 1990′s. (I just finished Boys Will Be Boys as well, and it was a riot.) In 1999 he was sent to interview Walter Payton, just after the Bears legend publicly revealed the illness that would take his life. Read the rest of this entry »

At least that’s one less thing to worry/complain about. Today’s Chicago Tribune reports that current Bears director of player personnel Tim Ruskell has been eliminated from consideration to be the next GM. According to the article, the finalists are Jason Licht from the Patriots (the guy it is reported has absolutely no control under Bill Belichick) and Phil Emery of the Chiefs (the guy that helped draft Rex Grossman).

I know that’s not totally fair-Emery also helped draft Brian Urlacher in his first stint (1998-2004) with the Bears.

Aren’t the Bears the only team that needed to find a new GM that hasn’t yet hired one, which is typical? And per the article, this process could “drag into next week or beyond.”

Congrats to the New York Giants. Sorry to see Jim Harbaugh lose, but you have to hand it to the Giants-never anybody’s pick to make it to the Super Bowl, yet despite massive injuries they continue to shock the league and have success.

Also-Mike Tice isn’t going to Oakland, so at least that’s settled.

I pledged that I would always owe the New York Giants a debt of gratitude after that team shockingly upset the Green Bay Packers in Wisconsin in 2007. My fondness for the Giants continued, even after they embarrassed the Bears in 2010.

Then this year, what do you know, the Giants again pulled off a complete shock by forcing a choke on the Packers at home, again. So it will always be hard for me to root against the GMen, no matter how much of a twerp Eli Manning is thanks to his 2004 draft day antics.

Given this, my loyalties in the NFC Championship game are mixed. I can’t root against Jim Harbaugh. Even if I didn’t already admire him based on his past with the Bears, I’d like him solely for what he’s done with the 49ers in one season.

So in the NFC Championship game, I’m going to sit back and enjoy. Normally I really wouldn’t care one way or another once the Bears and other NFC North teams were out of it, but I have to admit that these playoffs have been really interesting.

I really don’t care what happens in the AFC, but it would be cool for NFL fans to see an all-Harbaugh Super Bowl. They seem like a great family that would deserve that kind of good fortune.

Your thoughts?

Prior to the 2010 season, I was hoping that it would take a couple more years than it did for Jim Harbaugh to break into the NFL head coaching ranks. At the time, I figured Lovie Smith would have a year or two more before he coached himself out of the Bears’ gig, and thought it would be awesome to see Harbaugh return to Chicago.

That dream is now dead, but how good is this guy? Wow. Takes practically the same 49ers team that had disappointed its fans for years and turns it, with its disappointing first overall pick quarterback, into a team that is now one win away from the Super Bowl.

Last weekend’s NFL divisional playoff games proved a couple of things. First, anything can happen when for the first time a 15-1 team went one-and-done at home (Green Bay). Second, just when it looked for certain that the league is now dominated by passing offenses, three of the four remaining teams relied on their defenses to get them where they are.

I was torn in my allegiances between the Saints and 49ers. I find it hard to pull against Harbaugh, but I like the Saints and Sean Payton as well. With every year that goes by I am liking the New York Giants more and more, even if I still despise Eli Manning for his 2004 draft day shenanigans. What the Giants have done twice now as prohibitive underdogs at Lambeau Field is nothing short of remarkable.

I’m a Bears fan that is still struggling to find a way to feel good for the Packers when they have success, I won’t pile on about their stunning defeat at home. It would be pathetic for me to even attempt it given that my team sputtered to the finish and didn’t make the playoffs, and I as a Bears fan have watched my team of 14-2, 11-4, 13-3 and 11-5 go one-and-done at home.

But it most certainly did prove that anything can happen, and even if the Packers come back in 2012 and look unstoppable in the regular season, nothing is a lock if a team has obvious holes in parts of their game.

More on the championship games on Friday. For now, today’s Bears news:

Jimmy Raye is the next candidate up to interview in the floundering search to replace Jerry Angelo as Bears’ GM.

Didn’t see that coming, huh? The Oakland Raiders have requested permission to interview Mike Tice for their open head coaching position. This time the Bears can’t be jerks and deny him permission to seek career advancement.

Just yesterday I was wondering if anything was going on with retaining special teams guru Dave Toub, and it was announced that the coach was re-signed to a new two-year contract.

The 2011 Chicago Bears looked to be a sure bet to secure the top wildcard spot in the playoffs. The day was November 20th, the time early evening. The Bears had just won their fifth straight game as they handily beat the reeling San Diego Chargers. The previous week, the Bears had avenged an earlier loss to the Detroit Lions, delivering a 37-13 mauling and seemingly knocking the Lions out of any possibility of the playoffs.

The Bears were an improbable 7-3 team at the time. They had started the season 1-2, then 2-3, in the same fashion as they had in 2010. Offensive coordinator Mike Martz was virtually ignoring the run game at the beginning of the season, and the results were indicative of such. But following another return to the run behind Matt Forte, then leading the NFL in yards from scrimmage, the Bears were on fire.

Forte wasn’t the only reason. Quarterback Jay Cutler looked to finally be hitting his groove as leader of the Bears offense. After the Chargers game, Cutler was on pace to finish the season with 3,700 passing yards and 20 touchdowns. In Bears annals, that would be a remarkable season.

As postgame interviews were being completed that November 20th, news began to spread that this Bears season would in all likelihood take a fortuitous turn for the worse. On a seemingly innocuous play in the second half, receiver Johnny Knox slipped on a simple slant route, and Cutler’s pass was intercepted. The quarterback instinctively chased after the defender, helping to save a touchdown. On the tackle, replays showed that the quarterback threw his right arm high and towards the defender in the tackle effort, and Cutler’s right hand ended up striking the field with force.

The end result of this seemingly routine play was a break at the base of the thumb on Cutler’s throwing hand. The initial news was that the quarterback would miss a few weeks but would potentially return for the playoffs.

The end news was that the 2011 Chicago Bears would lose five of their final six games, finish with an 8-8 record on the season, and endure one of the most surprising reversals of a season’s fortunes in their history.

Read the rest of this article on the 2011 Chicago Bears Season.

Any of these guys do anything for you?

I didn’t like Dick Jauron as a coach. But at the end of the 2003 season, as much as Jauron was doing nothing for the Bears, at the time I thought “why fire a guy unless you KNOW you have targeted a better replacement.” I didn’t want the Bears to keep Jauron, but as much as I felt that way, I thought it was stupid to fire him for the sake of firing him unless the due diligence was done to identify an upgrade.

What did the Bears do at the time? They fired Jauron then flopped around like a fish out of water trying to find anyone to take the job. As we all know, Jerry Angelo pursued Nick Saban first. Saban said thanks but no thanks when Angelo wouldn’t share personnel control. Then the Bears’ GM embarked on a cross-country tour to talk to college coaches Jeff Tedford and Kirk Ferentz, who both turned down the offers to interview. In my opinion the final candidates in Lovie Smith and Russ Grimm were underwhelming.

Has Lovie Smith as head coach been a complete failure? No. But we would have thought the Bears organization would have learned from that experience to plan for big moves and be ready to decisively act when big decisions are to be made.

Two weeks after firing Angelo, the Bears asked for permission to interview Eric DeCosta and found he wasn’t interested in the job. Two other GM’s have been hired by other teams-including the consensus best candidate available in Reggie McKenzie. And sorry to say so, but it again looks like the organization is now flailing to slap together the only list it can, rather than acting like they know what they’re doing. Because from this fan’s perspective, it doesn’t look like they know what they’re doing.

I hate to say it, but I’m beginning to think the best solution to yet another Bears mess is to elevate Tim Ruskell, hoping that if the organization blows the next two years, the next move will be for the family to blow everything up. But we already see that probably won’t happen.

For the record, I could not stand Hub Arkush for a number of years. When he served as an extension of the Bears’ organization as a part of their gameday crew, he was practically intolerable in my opinion. Constantly condescending to the fans (i.e. “let me explain this a little better for the fans, who don’t understand”), unbending that his opinion was the only one, and quick to lash out at any person that dared question any decision made by Dick Jauron or Dave Wannstedt, because the former coaches were both “wonderful men.”

That being said I guess we can all change in our old age. Now that Arkush doesn’t work as an extension of the organization, he (surprise!) sounds like another frustrated fan. So I have allowed myself to enjoy his analysis even after I swore I’d never be able to.

I rarely have time with my schedule to listen to his reports on WSCR, but today after work I did. And I thought he did an admirable job of acknowledging and outlining the current frustration of Bears fans. This evening, Arkush said:

- How long do Bears fans have to endure the organization running the team by throwing darts at a dartboard?

- According to what he’s been hearing as publisher of Pro Football Weekly, the prospect of the Bears hiring Tim Ruskell is “very real.”

- He was very hard on Ted Phillips, saying he obviously “knows nothing about football” (direct quote) and the fact that he is clearly in charge should scare Bears fans.

- He hears that the Bears are frustrated that the best GM candidates aren’t knocking down the Bears door, rather than the team showing that they are going out to land the best candidate.

It’s all speculation by the media fans, I realize this. But how does this make you feel?