Rex, Rex … what are we going to do with you?

CHICAGO, IL -- The economy? We can fix that. The war in Iraq? Yeah, we’ll figure that out. Rex Grossman’s inability to hit receivers? Not even Barack Obama is up to tackling that challenge. But how did this happen? How does a man go from being a first round draft pick and a Super Bowl quarterback [read more...]

What would Mike do?

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- The message was clear. Put aside the "it's about me" attitude, 49ers tight end Vernon Davis, because interim head coach Mike Singletary will not tolerate it. The 10-time Pro Bowler and former Chicago Bear linebacker sent Davis and his inflated ego to the showers early due to his nonchalant attitude after receiving a penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. The [read more...]

The Great Quarterback Quagmire

If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? What came first, the chicken or the egg? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? What does Lovie Smith's choice of Kyle Orton to start the first game of pre-season – with Rex to start [read more...]

Finding Spare Change

Is there anyone else at Halas Hall that needs be paid? Rumor is that the janitor will be holding out for a new deal that includes a $2 million dollar signing bonus and free window cleaner. With the signing of Devin Hester to a deal that pays him wide receiver money before proving he can be a wide receiver, Jerry Angelo [read more...]

The Real Problem

Remember the 1997 film "Wag the Dog", starring Dustin Hoffman as a Washington, DC public relations executive and Robert De Niro as a Hollywood director? The plot involves a President who needs to cover up a sex scandal to be re-elected, so he calls on Hoffman and De Niro to create a fake war to divert the media focus. Soon [read more...]

Summer of Lovie

Discontent is a winter-time problem. At least it was in Shakespeare's time when he penned (or quilled, rather) "Richard III." Though, it should be noted that Shakespeare never had to drive the Edens on a Friday afternoon in February through a rush-hour blizzard, so what the hell did he know about discontent? Bears fans can attest that the pangs of contentment [read more...]

Favre’s Possible Return a Blessing - For the Bears

Four months ago, Brett Favre claimed he was done with football. Done with two-a-day practices, done with the Lambeau Leap, done with throwing bullet screen passes and beautiful deep balls. After 15 years, one Super Bowl title and countless NFL records, Favre left the Green Bay Packers for a whole lot of nothing on his land in Mississippi. Now that has [read more...]

Devin Hester

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Devin Hester

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Cedric Benson - Guilty, NFL Style

The Chicago Bears waived Cedric Benson after a second alleged intoxication beef in sunny, sultry, Austin, Texas. The first was for "Boating While Black (with a bevy of white women)" on the party waters of Lake Travis. For BWB Benson was dragged ashore face down through the lake and beaten. His mug shot shows clearly his battered eye and swollen [read more...]

Soriano using recycled plastic bags to catch fly balls

OK, Lima Bean posse, this is where I openly rant about anything and everything affecting our general mental health diet. We'll call it Organic Sports Therapy... Grocery bagger guy: I don't need a bag for a banana dude! And I won't feed your bagging addiction. Stop being such bagwhores. Baggers everywhere, grocery and retail: Please stop bagging my [read more...]

The Top 10 Non-Corporation-Affiliated NFL Stadiums

Amazing how the most ordinary of events can spark ideas. Just the other day, I was speaking to a good friend on the phone who had what I am sure has become an all too familiar experience for many men. No, not that. He told me he was attending a trivia night at an area church and looking to make [read more...]

Tough Being a Fan

It's pretty depressing to be a Chicago sports fan right now. You've got the White Sox incapable of scoring, the Cubs incapable of beating one of the worst teams in the National League, the Bears' starting running back involved in a huge Texas-sized mess, and the Bulls not wanting to shell out the big bucks for a quality coach. What kind [read more...]

The Cedric Benson Case: Not So Cut, Not So Dried

So, what exactly is Cedric Benson guilty of? Being intoxicated on a boat on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas? Let's see, there were, from the photo accompanying this article there were at least six young black men and six young white women, plus Jackie Benson, Cedric's mother. Now, if Cedric was intoxicated on this boat on this perilous lake where [read more...]

Grading the Draft

The list of rules and rituals I don't like in pro sports is very brief. In baseball, I don't like that there's a foul poll and a foul line when we all know that if a ball lands on either of those barriers, the ball is fair. I find it annoying that NBA refs tend to call a block or [read more...]

Chris Williams

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2008 NFL Expert Picks, Predictions and Fantasy Football Notes - NFC North

One of the things I have enjoyed the most - as I have been going division to division offering up my early bird analysis - is reading your comments and hearing your assessment of the teams and divisions. You are educating me and helping me stay sharp. Just wanted to thank you for that. For today's post I am going to [read more...]

Welcome to the Jungle

Welcome to "The Jerome Cusson Experience." Over the next few weeks and months, this blog is my forum to talk about the things in sports I'm interested in. I'm not going to spend all my time talking about New York and Boston because no one cares about that overrated city series. I'm not going to bitch about every athlete who [read more...]

Paranoid in Chicago

"It's not paranoia if everyone is really out to get you." - Woody Allen Someone at the league office owes the Bears a fruit basket. Something nice, with a couple of those "Cutie" tangerines that are so much better than the bruised naval oranges you often receive. Heck, even a leftover Hillshire [read more...]

March Madness

March always leaves a gap in the Chicago sports calendar. More so this year as we were expecting to be talking about a long Bulls playoff run. Instead, we are donating alarm clocks to Chris Duhon. So, with six weeks before the NFL draft, the Cubs and Sox two time zones away, I'm giving you appointment-viewing television this weekend. Here [read more...]

The Black Quarterback: Running from the Devil - part 3

This is 2007. This season we have witnessed the fall of the classic, from the pocket black quarterback, Leftwich, in favor of his "more mobile" backup, David Garrard. Leftwich was said by his head coach Jack Del Rio, to have "regressed" as a quarterback. It is interesting - and no accident - that Leftwich, viewed as heroic throughout his college [read more...]

Four 2007 Fantasy Football Draft Busts

You always hear about the sleepers but you rarely, if ever, hear anyone predicting busts. I figured I would take a shot at pondering the demise of a few A list players. So who are the busts this year? Good question. Only you can answer that for sure but here is a list of players that won’t be on my team [read more...]

our Fantasy Football Offseason Refresher: NFC North

Outside of the Chicago Bears D, Mike Furrey and the occasional Brett Favre explosion, the NFC North hasn’t exactly been a hotbed for fantasy football success, but this year, things are looking up. Before sharing my notes with you I want to explain a few things. I have added a position category for the offensive line (OL). I rarely see anyone [read more...]

And Down the Stretch They Come

With three-quarters of the 2006 NFL season already in the books, 17 of 32 teams are realistically alive for 12 playoff berths. The division winners are pretty much set in the AFC, yet three of the four divisions are still unsettled over in the NFC. The Colts have clearly established themselves as the team to beat as they march toward [read more...]

Here, There & Everywhere

Best of the Worst, So What? The Chicago Bears are 5-3, should be 6-3 after their battle with the league's best JV team, San Francisco, this weekend, and at this point are the clear favorites to win the NFC North. So what, you say. There are 20 teams that could win this division. To which I ask, since when is it so objectionable [read more...]

Terrell Owens Fails “Opportunity Test”

Nobody knows better than Terrell Owens that a maxim exists in the NFL that says great receivers do not create great quarterbacks. There simply isn't the evidence to supply the grounds for such a theory. Even when you take the greatest receivers in the history of the NFL, starting of course with Jerry Rice, the evidence always points to the fact [read more...]

Owens Flunks NFL Public Relations 101

It'll always be easy to find Terrell Owens. His is a path littered with massive smoke signals from all the burnt bridges. And it's actually getting close to the phrase one ESPN executive used to describe Keith Olbermann's exit from the network back in the late '90's. "He didn't just burn bridges, he napalmed them." Yesterday, Detroit Lions quarterback Jeff Garcia responded to [read more...]

NFL Conservatives Really Quite Liberal

Conservative has become the new liberal. In football at least. Jeff Davis is a Chicago institution as a long time sports anchor. He's also recently released his first book with Papa Bear, The Life and Legacy of George Halas. (See a full review and interview in the February print CSR) He is an admitted old timer, one who can appreciate the [read more...]

Only in Chicago

Thursday, February 26, 2004 It is a strange thing to be a sports fan in Chicago. Fans here are among the most rabid, most loyal creatures in the universe, but with this comes a strange type of depression, bordering on schizophrenia. Chicagoans love to win; they wish nothing more than for their teams to win championships, but the ownership of the major [read more...]

Still Missing ‘Sweetness’

If I were a running back in the NFL, there are a few places I would love to play. The offensive line in Denver seems to turn every sixth-round draft pick into a 1,500-yard rusher. A bunch of backs have made a name for themselves as runners and receivers in that San Francisco west coast offense. The legendary smash-mouth style [read more...]

Two Decades Later

Think back to 1985 for a second. Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in what turned out to be the sunset of the Soviet Union. In Chicago, Mayor Harold Washington was mired in Council Wars and families with the last names of Huxtable, Ewing and Carrington dominated prime-time television.But the biggest story locally was a football team that boosted the city's [read more...]

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