The Bears play football today

Sorry for being out of it the last few days: finals consumed nearly all of my brain power. I wasn't even following sports, outside a few check ins on Trade Rumors, and I certainly wasn't going to write anything. Semester is over now (and I don't go back til January 26, which just typing feels fantastic) so things should be better around here now. Few things:

Bears

- If there is one game I'd pick the Bears to lose in the final quarter of the season, it's this one tonight. Though the pass D has been a little better as of late (Hey! An actual pass rush! Occasionally!), they're still nothing to write home about. I'd say this is a prime game for Drew Brees to stack up numbers for his MVP push.

(Though, by the way, can a quarterback really win MVP if his team doesn't make the playoffs? Football isn't the same as baseball: I think team performance - particularly for QBs - should play a big role in who's most valuable.)

- Mike Mulligan speaks the truth. From today's Sun-Times:

Like it or not, the Bears' uneven season sits squarely at the doorstep of the once-proud defense, the unit in which the Bears have allocated the most resources -- high draft picks, big contract extensions -- for sparse return. The Bears have devoted more of their salary cap to defense than any team other than Baltimore, but they rank 17th in defense in the 32-team league.

Bulls

How about that NBA trade last night? Kind of a biggie, with former MSU fav J-Rich going to PHX in return for Boris Diaw and Raja Bell. Richardson is always a guy I thought the Bulls could be in on if Gordon ever leaves, and I would have liked to see them make a run at him yeterday, though I'm not sure if the Bulls' package would have been more enticing than the Suns'.

Richardson has always been a fairly underrated player in my eyes. He'd work well with Rose because he's a 3-point assassin, and his overall field goal percentage (at 44 percent four of the last five years) isn't bad. Unlike Gordon he's also not a midget. The only real drawback in his offensive game is how infrequently he gets to the line (under four three throw attempts per game this year). I have no idea how good he is on defense, or if he even gives a shit about it, but I still think he's the type of player that would really help out the Bulls.

Sox

If the plan is to trade Jermaine Dye to get a good young pitcher and then replace JD's production through free agency with a veteran cornerfielder, I think I'm pretty on board. I'm just not sure how I feel about Homer Bailey. Former top prospects are fun because there has been so much written about them, but Bailey's woeful 2008 and supposedly piss poor attitude are red flags, fo sho. Some people just can't handle playing for Ozzie. I think that's got to be a concern. To me, this Dye-Bailey trade seems like something that's going to happen out of nowhere in two months once it's gone from the public consciousness.