The Schloss-Blog is turning to sports this week, mostly (and a little politics) - and is fed up with media assumptions, like the one that says Bears-Packers is a rivalry like no other.
If you ask the players on the two teams, yeah, it's a rivalry, but so are their games with longtime division rivals Minnesota and Detroit.
To longtime Bears fans, the Packers are the team they hate the most, want to beat the most (especially after 10 straight losses to them now and 15 of the last 16). As Aaron Rodgers said, we own you.
The media loves to hype up the "rivalry," but after 10 in a row and 15 of 16, it's not exactly a rivalry any more than games against Minnesota or Detroit.
Yes, it's the longest-standing series in the league, but that's all it is.
Bears fans, stop hating on the Packers and start leaning on the team to clean up its act. They've started with a cleansing of the offensive coaching staff. But will that be enough? Will Justin Fields have enough weapons and appropriate game plans and play-calling to win? They fired the offensive coaches, but not the quarterback.
Yet.
Stay tuned. The best Bears rivalry in 2023 was between Fields and the offensive coaching staff.
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Penalties.
Teams today take so many penalties. Offsides. Pass interference.
Guys line up offsides apparently all the time now. And pass interference, especially defensive, is a constant. Defensive backs take interference penalties rather than give up a big play or a long touchdown.
They are coached to do that. It slows the game down, ridiculously and unnecessarily. It enrages the fans. Especially in the college game, where it is only a 15-yard penalty.
So go ahead speedsters, go long.
And get held. Or tackled. Or just held up.
Sometimes, the refs even throw the flag. A lot of times, they just let it go, to the oftentimes bitter amazement of fans.
Yes, the refs suck sometimes too.
***
Through a series of mental gaffes, Donald Trump has demonstrated that his cognitive ability is not what he says it is.
In fact, it's what he says Joe Biden's is.
He doesn't know what city he's in or who he ran against in 2016 or 2020. And that's just the top of the list.
He's logistically stupid. Your vote for him endorses that and your own gullibility. And stupidity.
***
Secretary of State Antony Blinken spends a lot of time traversing the Middle East, looking for peace and trying to stop the Israel-Hamas War into becoming just, The War of Everybody.
How's that working out?
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Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, Jill Biden.
More Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.
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