CS&T/AllsportsAmerica Monday Sports News Update, 07/02/2018. (Pre-Training Camp News).

Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica
"America's Finest Sports Fan Travel Club, May We Plan An Event Or Sports Travel For You?"

We offer: Select opportunities, For your convenience, At "Very Rare but Super Fair" pricing

Because it's all about you!!!!!

 

Note: This is a taste of what we will bring back to you when the Bears Training Camp starts, July 19, 2018. Be sure and read our prospective and our 2018 Chicago Bears prognosis and outlook. Remember this quote, Why Not Us? Chicago Bears new attitude..... 

"Sports Quote of the Day"

"When I hear somebody sigh, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask, Compared to what?'" ~ Sydney J. Harris, News Journalist

Mitch Trubisky promises Bears will be a good team in 2018.

By Brian Perez

Chicago Bears QB Mitch Trubisky was a guest speaker at the second annual Journal Star Best of Central Illinois Preps awards gala Monday night in Peoria, providing high school athletes with insight into what made him a successful athlete throughout his journey to becoming the No. 2 overall pick of the 2017 NFL Draft.

"The way I was raised played a huge role into it," he said. "There were times when I was questioning is this meant to be, is this what I'm meant to do, why aren't I getting the opportunities I feel like I should be getting.

"There's a switch for me that went off. I was like, I could have a bad attitude about this and just deal with it or I could find a way to get better and continue to get my teammates better. There was hours where I was doing multiple workouts a day, taking no off days in order to improve my craft because I felt like I had to work that much harder in order to get my next opportunity."

Trubisky didn't earn a starting job until his senior season at North Carolina where he proved his hard work was worth it. He was the first quarterback drafted in 2017 but started his career as the backup to Mike Glennon.

"You could either be negative about it and just take the situation that's given to you or just work that much harder and be a positive influence and try to turn things your way. For me, it was just saying I'm not going to just deal with this. I'm going to be the best I can possibly be in whatever role I'm given, but also to find the ways to get better and make a difference and get to where I want to go in the future."

What the future holds for the Bears is a great unknown right now, but there's a lot of optimism surrounding this team. It's always that way when a new coach comes into town, but Matt Nagy is bringing a youthful energy and offensive pedigree that hasn't hasn't created this much confidence in a long time.

Trubisky stopped short of making a prediction for 2018 when asked.

"One of the things I learned early on was don't make predictions and don't give guarantees besides the fact that I can promise you we're going to give it our best effort on the field," he said. 

Trubisky added that the Bears will be fun to watch this fall.

"I'm very excited about this year and optimistic about what we can do, but I'm not allowed to make any guarantees where we will be. But I can promise you if you come to Bears games, you're going to have a lot of fun and we're going to have a good team this year."

Full Betting outlook for the Chicago Bears.

By Lester A. Wiltfong, Jr.

The four letter network recently took a look at some NFL odds for each team and with gambling now a “thing,” we wanted to share the latest.

ESPN pulled these odds from the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook as of June 25, and the weekly game spreads came from CG Technology.

Here’s what they have for the Chicago Bears.

O/U wins: 6.5

Super Bowl: 80-1

Conference: 40-1

Division: 12-1

The Bears haven’t won more than six games in a season since going 8-8 in 2013, but over 6.5 wins in 2018 is a minus-140 favorite. Can new head coach Matt Nagy do what John Fox couldn’t and win when favored? Fans in Chicago hope so, as the team lost outright in seven of its eight games as a favorite during the Fox era.

In case you were wondering, yes, all those odds are the worst among the other NFC North teams. The Minnesota Vikings are the odds on favorite to win the North, and they have the best odds in the division to win the Super Bowl (10-1).

That over/under for win total for Chicago is really intriguing. As much as I can see them flirting with a playoff birth, I could see them being a much improved and competitive team that ends up 6-10.

This division is going to be a tough one to come out of.

Let’s check the recent weekly spreads.

Week 1
Chicago Bears at Green Bay Packers (-8.5, 48)

Week 2
Seattle Seahawks at Chicago Bears (PK)

Week 3
Chicago Bears at Arizona Cardinals (-1)

Week 4
Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Chicago Bears (-2.5)

Week 6
Chicago Bears at Miami Dolphins (-1.5)

Week 7
New England Patriots (-5) at Chicago Bears

Week 8
New York Jets at Chicago Bears (-4.5)

Week 9
Chicago Bears at Buffalo Bills (-1.5)

Week 10
Detroit Lions at Chicago Bears (-1)

Week 11
Minnesota Vikings (-3) at Chicago Bears

Week 12
Chicago Bears at Detroit Lions (-5)

Week 13
Chicago Bears at New York Giants (-3.5)

Week 14
Los Angeles Rams (-2.5) at Chicago Bears

Week 15
Green Bay Packers (-3) at Chicago Bears

Week 16
Chicago Bears at San Francisco 49ers (-6)

Week 17 is excluded due to high variance caused by potential playoff seeding, QBs sitting out the final week or playing partial games, etc.

The Bears are only favored in three of the games above, so if you’re like me and you think they’ll win more that three games, what other games do you have them winning?

 Bears Shutout (Again) in NFL Network Player's Poll Naming Top 100 Players in 2018.

By John Mullin

No NFL season is without its snubs – Pro Bowl omissions, (insert job)-of-the-year head-scratchers, endless "rankings" of units and individuals based on some sort of logic or arcane analyses that challenge credulity.

 

But the Bears have received a group snub for the second straight year, something that, even discounting personality factors, can be considered a cause for concern, and escalating concern at that.

 

No Bear is among the Top 100 NFL players as voted on by those NFL players, in the results of the annual poll by NFL Network/NFL.com. The final 10-1 selections air Monday night on NFL Network, but any suspense involves only whether Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers is the players' choice for the No. 1 player in their game, or how the Bears can possibly match up with the L.A. Rams this season and beyond with three in the top 38 and all young (Aaron Donald, Todd Gurley, Jared Goff).

 

This year's blanking follows a shutout in last year's poll, which represented returns from more than 900 players. This year the number was more than 1,100, making the rankings more than simply the opinion of an individual or even small group.

 

Making them more disquieting from a Bears perspective is the fact that this marks a de facto third consecutive year that the Bears approach a season without a player whose peers rate him among the top 5 percent in the game. Because the 2016 survey (coming out of the 2015 season) listed running back Matt Forte (No. 90) as the lone Bear, and he was on his way to the New York Jets by the time his number was called.

 

Rankings based on opinions can skew strangely. Akiem Hicks' absence from the top 100 is more puzzling than his finishing out of the Pro Bowl money. Same with Eddie Goldman, maybe even Leonard Floyd, to name a few.

 

But they aren't there yet. And whether the Bears are bottom-third in pass protection, Nick Kwiatkoski is top-five inside linebacker, or who has a high rating in Madden '19 can all be classed as cred-lite.

 

Not so easily dismissed when the evaluation is the aggregate take of nearly two-thirds of the league.

 

More to the concerning side, some correlation may be drawn between that index of star power and team performance, either cause or effect, or both. The last time the Bears had more than Forte representing them in the Top 100 was 2014, meaning coming off the 2013 season. That Top-100 included Brandon Marshall, Alshon Jeffery, Tim Jennings and Forte – from the last Bears team (8-8) to win more than six games in a season.

 

Enough fingers were pointed at Marc Trestman and then John Fox for what happened on the field. But the New York Giants (2) and Houston Texans (4) had fewer wins than the Bears last season but still were represented on the players' honor roll.

 

"I need to point the finger at myself as well," GM Ryan Pace said in the wake of firing Fox. "Our record is a reflection on me as well. But I feel good about where we're at right now. I feel much better about where we're at right now than at this time last year and that starts with the quarterback position. We have a 23-year-old quarterback that we feel very good about that we need to build around. We need to build upon that core and fortunately we have the resources to do that."

 

One of Pace's mandates has been to bring Bears talent to a level competitive with at least the NFC North. The more than 1,100 players canvassed don't think it's happening: The Bears are one of only four teams (plus Indianapolis, Tampa Bay and the Jets) not represented in the top 100, while Detroit (2), Green Bay (7) and Minnesota (5) have multiple selections. Even the 0-16 Cleveland Browns boast a pair – wide receiver Jarvis Landry, running back Carlos Hyde) by virtue of their offseason moves.

 

Getting down to Bears cases

 

The Bears may be convinced that Mitch Trubisky is a franchise quarterback, but his 12 starts apparently didn't show enough for his peers to vote him into elite status. Deshaun Watson (No. 50, six starts) and Jimmy Garoppolo (No. 90, five starts) fared better in the balloting.

 

Trubisky goes into 2018 as the fourth-best quarterback in a four-quarterback NFC North. Player voting pretty much confirms that, leaving him off a list that includes Kirk Cousins in Minnesota (No. 94), Matthew Stafford in Detroit (No. 31) and Rodgers (top 10). And Trubisky knows he's got some catching up to do.

"I just feel like I know what to expect more on a day-to-day basis," he said during minicamp. "What I need to do, how I can make my teammates' job easier - and just continue to set goals. Weekly goals, short-term goals, continue to meet those goals, keep raising the bar and get better each and every single day."

 

Jeffery and Marshall are Bears no longer, but Allen Robinson is, which Pace has wagered heavily will be a very good thing. Robinson's peers in the past have agreed: Robinson was pegged at No. 31 in 2016, coming in off his 80-1,400-14 season of 2015. He came back to produce 73-883-6 in 2016 but finished off the list, perhaps not entirely surprising after his Jaguars went 3-13 in 2016. The Bears are gambling that Robinson will return to his elite form from last year's torn ACL; the rest of the NFL has effectively said "prove it."

 

Jordan Howard's fit in the offense of Matt Nagy/Mark Helfrich has been and will be debated until he proves himself conclusively as a receiver. And Howard and Tarik Cohen may be popular among rankers of backfields.

 

But not yet with their peers. Neither made the players' list, while New Orleans placed Alvin Kamara No. 20 and Mark Ingram 43rd among the top six running backs, which include Kansas City's Kareem Hunt.

 

Floyd, Goldman and Hicks? Too many Pro Bowl selections ahead of them, at least at this point.

 

Bears are stacked against the odds for the 2018 season.

 

By Matt Eurich

 

The Chicago Bears, at least on paper, look like a much better team than they were a year ago. In head coach John Fox's final season with the organization in 2017 the Bears won just five games with the Bears. He was then shown the door after the season and replaced by former Kansas City Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy. The team has made it a point to upgrade the roster and the coaching staff in order to make a run toward the playoffs for the first time since 2010.

Making the playoffs in Year 1 under Nagy will be a tough task and ESPN does not feel too good about the team's chances of putting up significantly more wins this season as opposed to last year. Rob Nelson of ESPN.com gave his betting outlook for the upcoming season and placed the over/under on total wins for the Bears at 6.5. The team's odds to win the Super Bowl are at 80-1, to win the conference they sit at 40-1 and are 12-1 to win the division. All of those numbers are last in their own division with the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions all projected with better results than them. 

"The Bears haven't won more than six games in a season since going 8-8 in 2013, but over 6.5 wins in 2018 is a minus-140 favorite," Nelson wrote. "Can new head coach Matt Nagy do what John Fox couldn't and win when favored? Fans in Chicago hope so, as the team lost outright in seven of its eight games as a favorite during the Fox era."

The only time during the Fox era in which the team won a game it was favored was on Christmas Eve in 2017 when the Bears knocked off the Cleveland Browns at Soldier Field. The Bears lost to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 13 last year when they were favored, as well as their game against the Green Bay Packers late in the year. That contest marked the first time since 2008 the Bears were favored against Green Bay. In a game in 2016 when they were favored by 2.5 points over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers coming off a bye the team lost by 26 points to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Needless to say, the team needs to improve in games in which they enter as a favorite. Betting lines are not gospel in the NFL but it does go to show where a team stands as they head into a given week.
 
The Bears have a new offense in place under Nagy with new weapons for Trubisky in the passing game with tight end Trey Burton and wideouts Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Anthony Miller, Bennie Fowler and Javon Wims. Add in a potent running attack with Jordan Howard and a jack-of-all-trades back in Tarik Cohen and Chicago has a chance to surprise many this year with its strong play on offense. The defense finished last year 10th overall and has the majority of its pieces returning in 2018.

Given that the Bears have not won more than six games since 2013 when they went 8-8 it is reasonable to understand why the odds are currently stacked against them heading into the year. It will be up to the team to prove they are better than a six-win team.

On this Date in Sports History: Today is Monday, July 2, 2018.

Memoriesofhistory.com

1903 - Ed Delahanty (Washington) died from a fall from a railroad bridge at Niagra Falls.

1941 - Joe DiMaggio got a hit in his 45th consecutive game.

1994 - Colombian soccer player Andres Escobar was shot to death in Medellin. 10 days earlier he had accidentally scored a goal against his own team in World Cup competition.

1995 - Hideo Nomo became the first Japanese player to be selected for a major league baseball All-Star Game.

1996 - Alex Rodriguez became the third youngest player to be selected to the American League All Star team. Dwight Gooden and Ken Griffey Jr. were the two younger than Rodriguez.

2002 - A record 62 home runs were hit in 16 major league baseball games.

************************************************************

Please let us hear your opinion on the above articles and pass them on to any other diehard fans that you think might be interested. But most of all, remember, Chicago Sports & Travel, Inc./AllsportsAmerica wants you.