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...

David Haugh Longs to One Day Write Stories for a Rural Weekly

How else to explain Haugh's tendency to cling desperately to the softest angle he can find when turning in garbage like tonight's piece about Trumaine McBride.

What makes this piece especially galling is that there actually is a story about McBride that would be really interesting to read. Buried in John Mullin's tiny headlined piece about tonight's practice at Soldier Field is this little nugget:

"Cornerback Dante Wesley, signed by the Bears in 2006 from the Carolina Panthers, is headed elsewhere. He was made expendable by the rapid development of rookie Trumaine McBride. "Dante is not in our plans anymore," Smith said. "We're seeing what options there are out there for him."

Now, the last I'd read, it sounded like Wesley was having an extremely good camp. Whereas I can't remember hearing much about McBride before. The fact that Smith has apparently decided to trade Wesley really speaks to how well McBride must have been doing in camp so far. So if you also happen to be running an article about McBride, why not make it about how surprisingly well he's performed?

Mr. Haugh? "Because McBride is a stutterer!!! OMFGWTF!!! Who knew they even allow stutterers in the NFL?!! And, like, he has overcome his stuttering!!! To play in the NFL!!! While he stutters!!! Hoo-Doggy!!! This'll get me that Pulitzer for sure!!!"

It seems to me that, as compelling as McBride's stuttering may be, the way to do this article would be to make it about how McBride has been playing extremely well in camp. I mean, he was a seventh round pick that you wouldn't have been surprised to never hear about again, and he's playing so well that he's managed to already replace the guy in front of him—an entrenched backup who had been singled out multiple times over the last two years for performing exceedingly well in training camp. You throw in a few quotes from McBride about everything he's learned from the coaches, along with a few quotes from coaches about how surprisingly good he's looked, how he has picked up everything really fast. Then, to add a bit of the human angle to the story, throw in the interesting tidbit that McBride stutters, which, oh btw, is something he has in common with Adrian Peterson.

Instead, Haugh makes the stuttering the focus of the article. Every single quote in the article is about how McBride has had to overcome his stuttering. I counted only four sentences that mention McBride's football skills without also mentioning stuttering.

And how's this for unintentional irony: "As sensitive as Smith is to what McBride has overcome with his language, he doesn't want anybody to overlook how uncommon the statement he has made this early in his first NFL camp is either." Yeah. Congratulations, Haugh. You just did overlook that.

God I miss KC Johnson.

Anderson vs. Brown: The Prestige

Sometimes I kind of like the stuff David Haugh writes for the Tribune, but a lot of his stuff is just too focused on analyzing the personalities of Bears players. And sometimes his articles leave me wondering if he even watches the games.

His analysis of five position battles to watch in Bears training camp mentions two spots on the line. In discussing the promotion of Anderson to starting right end over Brown, he says, "Anderson did have 12 sacks in limited time as a rookie, and likely will improve against the run. But how will he fare playing every down and being a pass-rusher offenses double-team or chip with a running back?" I've heard a few places that Bears coaches treat the line as more of a rotation than being necessarily about who starts and who's a backup, so this statement coming from Haugh seems really strange to me.

In later discussion of Dvoracek versus Adams, Haugh seems to express skepticism about Smith calling the line a "rotation." I have no idea where I'd find any statistics about the percentage of snaps each d-lineman saw, but from what I remember from the games last season, Anderson did see significant time on the field while he was technically a backup. I mean, it was amazing that he got 12 sacks, but it's not like he was getting a sack every other play he was on the field or anything. I expect that the same will hold for this season, and that Anderson's promotion to "starter" will really mean that Anderson and Brown will come closer to splitting time evenly at the position, with it being more likely that Anderson will play slightly more than Brown.

So, sure, it will be interesting to watch the battle between Anderson and Brown for the starting position, but any close observer of the Bears should know that it's not going be too significant of a thing w/r/t playing time for either player. It's mainly a matter of pride and, eventually, of contracts. So why doesn't Haugh just characterize it as that, instead of trying to drum it up into being about who gets to play and who has to watch all season from the sidelines?

Plus, his article would be way more interesting and informative if it had contained interviews or even quotes from the position coaches who'll be assessing these position battles during training camp. If I were a sportswriter I would be doing whatever I could to get to ask those guys a few questions, especially at this point in the season. Why is there exactly none of that in any coverage of the Bears that I've ever been able to find. Is it that papers think readers will be bored when they see an assistant-level coach quoted or something? Why is sports reporting so consistently shallow and uncurious?