What Is This Place?

From David Haugh's post-third-preseason game article: "for the Bears to ascend to the Super Bowl contenders they consider themselves, their quarterback cannot help the opponent score."

I've only finally just realized something that is actually pretty horrifying: Poor David Haugh is trapped in an alternate reality in which the Bears are not Super Bowl contenders! Who knows what is happening in the world Mr. Haugh has become stuck in? Maybe the Bears didn't even make the playoffs last year, because Rex Grossman didn't throw for a single completion to a Bears receiver! It's really sad, because I assume that on some level Mr. Haugh is a Bears fan, and he unfortunately missed out on the greatness of last season and will miss out on what is shaping up to be a second straight season of the Bears being card-carrying members of the NFL elite. That is the only explanation I can think of that Mr. Haugh would assume one of the only two teams to make the Super Bowl last year is not yet a Super Bowl contender.

It really doesn't say much for the editors of the Tribune, though, that they continue to run articles written by someone who's obviously reporting on a reality other than our own. Unless... Maybe they are actually aware of this fact, and know that only by running Mr. Haugh's articles can they stay in contact with him, and are working as we speak on a plan to rescue Mr. Haugh from this no doubt Raider-dominated universe. Good luck to them, I say! And my best wishes to poor Mr. Haugh. Wherever he may be...

Chris Harris Won't Have to Worry about Steve Smith Anymore

According to chicagosports.com the Bears have just traded Chris Harris to the Panthers for a 2008 draft pick. Harris played extremely well as a rookie in 2005, and I thought he was poised for a breakout season last year. But he pretty much failed to break out. With Brown and Archuleta as the starters and Manning and McGowan the apparent backups, it was hard to see where Harris would fit in this year. Still, I kind of liked the guy, largely because of this Every Play Counts article from Football Outsiders in 2005, and I hate to see him shucked off to that stinkhole Carolina. But Angelo does like his draft picks. He was down one after the Walker trade, and safety is a spot with kind of extra depth at this point, so from that standpoint the trade makes sense.

Now, if only we had readers... I just checked the Bears home page and the front page poll is "which safety will have the most interceptions in 2007?" One option is Chris Harris, who I then voted for because I just couldn't resist. There could be a campaign to get Harris the lead in votes before they switch the question! Oh that would be funny! Reality would probably collapse in on itself, and suddenly we'd find ourselves living in a world in which there never were any Carolina Panthers, and Chris Harris would be a lonely mechanic living in the Arizona desert, filled with some horrible feeling that this just wasn't how it was supposed to be, and he'd pause every ten minutes to wipe his forearm across his sweaty brow and stare off into the sun-baked distance, waiting for something he just couldn't name...