The Weekend of April 26-28 2007

I am reflecting on this past weekend in Chicago Sports and it was pretty interesting to see what happened with three of the four teams that I love the most.

Starting with the Bulls, I am pleasantly surprised that they have swept the defending World Champion Miami Heat out of the playoffs. That is a pretty good accomplishment for a team that I was not sure would do well in the playoffs. I was thinking that it would be another one and done playoff season for the Bulls and they have proved me wrong. Unfortunately everyone has to wait until the entire first round is complete before starting the second round. The Bulls second round opponents are the hated Detroit Pistons. Unfortunately the Pistons have earned Home Court Advantage throughout the playoffs which means that the Bulls have an uphill battle to win this series. I am able to envision that the Bulls will be able to steal one of the games in Detroit which will allow them to possibly win the series. I will not count my chickens before they hatch, as the games need to be played and Detroit is not the best in the Eastern Conference for nothing. I will go out on a limb though and say that Da' Bulls win in Six.

The let's talk about the struggling Chicago Cubs. After the horrendous home stand the Cubs headed to St. Louis to continue this intense rivalry. It was pretty nice to see that on Friday the Cubs won a squeaker, beating St. Louis 5-3 with Carlos Zambrano winning for only the second time this year. One thing that I did find funny is that during the Fox Pregame, either Joe Girardi or Kevin Kennedy mentioned that Big Z started out last year 0-2 and will be fine. That is all good and fine however, Z is the one who went out on a limb and stated emphatically that he was going to win the Cy Young Award as the best pitcher in the National League and the Cubs were going to win the World Series. At this point, it does not appear that Big Z will even come close to winning the Cy Young and the way the team is playing who knows if they will be any better than the 66-99 that they were last year. I still hold out hope that this team will be at least .500 however, I am not sure that they are personally committed to playing fundamentally sound baseball thereby not winning enough to warrant the honor of wearing the uniform that they all put on.

Then of course I have to mention the Bears and the 2007 NFL Draft. I do like the pick of Greg Olsen a Tight End out of Miami. I hear that Greg's short comings revolve around his blocking ability however, I think Greg will turn into the type of player that we have wanted to shine since Da' Coach played the position. Time will tell what truthfully will happen for young Mr. Olsen. Then Jerry Angelo went with Central Michigan's Dan Bazuin, a defensive end from a smaller Michigan university, followed that up with Chicago native and Northern Illinois prospect Garrett Wolfe. What do you say about Garrett except that he definitely shows that he has heart however, at 5'7" I am not sure that Garrett will excel in the NFL. The other third round pick was Michael Okwo, a small sized linebacker out of Stanford. I really do not see how this will help the Bears, as Michael does not appear to have the size nor strength to pull of playing LB in the NFL. The fourth round provided Josh Beekman out of Boston College. Beekman is an interesting case as at one point, Josh was considered one of the type linemen available in the draft. Falling down to the fourth round and 130th overall makes me wonder how well Josh will do to learn and step in to replace one of the aging offensive line eventually. The we get Kevin Payne out of Louisiana Monroe. Will the Bears get lucky with another defensive back out of this small school. The Bears are hoping that Kevin will be similar to Chris Harris. Then there is Corey Graham, a DB from Hampshire. Will Corey be able to make the jump from I-AA to the NFL as well. Only time will tell if that is a possibility. Starting the seventh round there is Trumaine McBride out of Ole Miss. Not sure about this pick either and it appears that we are now starting to go crazy with defensive backs at this point. The final pick that the Bears made was Aaron Brant out of Iowa State. Hopefully Aaron will become a better player in the NFL then Iowa State was as a team last year.

I still wish that Da' Bears would have used their 2nd round pick when it was still at number 37 in order to pick up Michigan State Quarterback Drew Stanton. Mark my words, especially if Drew survives in Detroit and moves on in four years, that Drew is going to be one helluva NFL quarterback and will win at least one Super Bowl. Beyond that we will have to see what kind of shrew talent evaluation Jerry Angelo did this year in about 2010 when this class should turn into something special hopefully.