SB Nation Chicago: All Posts by Don Hamel

For Dave Duerson, A Moment Of Clarity Reveals A Tragic Truth

2011-05-02T21:28:49Z

In 2007, Dave Duerson didn't know what was happening to him. Either that, or he couldn't accept it. A former Viking, Brent Boyd had just testified before a Senate subcommittee that he believed that the depressiion and cognitive difficulties he suffered were caused by his football career. Duerson, a member of the NFLPA's player benefits board, expressed some doubt: "In regards to the issue of Alzheimer's my father's 84, and as I had mentioned earlier, Senator, spent 30 years at General Motors," Duerson testified. "He also has — he also has Alzheimer's and brain damage but never played a professional sport. So the challenge, you know, in terms of where the damage comes from, is a fair question."

Maybe he was just in denial. By all reports, it was around that time that Duerson began having problems. Headaches, blurred vision. It wasn't too bad at first, especially not for an old warrior who'd battled through pain lots of times in his 11 year NFL career. But it progressed; worse than the blurred vision was the forgetfulness, the inability to spell simple words, getting lost en route to familiar places.

These are hard things to accept, especially when you're a man who considers himself a warrior. The nature of professional sports requires you to cultivate a certain belief in your own invulnerability. You train your mind to block out pain and discomfort, to consider them challenges rather than symptoms. And you continue to push.

But in the end, Dave Duerson had already accepted the reality that was confirmed today: he suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a disease caused by head trauma, and one that's surfacing as being widespread among athletes of contact sports.

On February 17, Dave Duerson shot himself in the chest. It's clear now that he chose this method of suicide (suicidal tendencies are also a symptom of chronic traumatic encephalopathy) to preserve his brain for study. Having been so closely involved in discussions about the disease in his role with the NFLPA, he must have recognized the symptoms as they began affecting his cognitive skills more profoundly. At least it seems he did, at the very end.

But was the suicide a decision that Duerson carefully considered? Or was it the disease's insidious nature, commanding the impulse it is known to create? It's difficult to know for sure. Friends and loved ones describe a man with a lot of plans for his future. He was looking into business opportunities, exploring coaching positions, even considering the political arena.

Those actions could conceivably describe either a man who expected to live on, or a warrior who was unwilling to succumb to the adversity his brain was producing.

What cannot be misinterpreted is that in his final act, Dave Duerson understood that he had been wrong about the proliferation of chronic traumatic encephalopathy among NFL veterans, and he took steps to make that right.

It's now in the hands of the NFL, as well as the NHL, boxing and other contact-heavy professional sports, to decide what to do with the information we now have. It's no longer an option to deny the data that points to the epidemic nature of this disease. Obviously, the games will go on. There's far too much money involved to even imagine these findings will mean the end of these sports.

Young men will continue to use their athletic ability as a means to lift their families from poverty. Wealthy men will continue to pay them, as long as it enriches them both. And we will continue to watch. There's a savage beauty to this competition, one that speaks to us on a very primal level. It's not something we've produced as a society, as much as it is something we seem to require as human beings.

But, like Duerson himself, one thing we can no longer do is ignore the tremendous risk that accompanies their actions, during and after their brief careers as athletes.

2011 NFL Draft: The Calls The Chicago Bears DID Make Look Good

2011-05-01T14:37:50Z

Now that the draft is over, Roger Goodell and the NFL ownership can get back to the business of trying to keep their business shut down. Coaches and management have embraced the draftees, and now both parties can retreat to their side of the line drawn in the sand.

While Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo continues to be treated with less respect than Rodney Dangerfield, he managed to put together a pretty solid draft. The mini-controversy over the Baltimore Ravens and the fourth round pick is little more than the sort of ramped up drama that comes from reporters who are preternaturally bored, stuck for an entire weekend in an overdressed butcher shop watching shoppers select cuts of meat. It's natural to gin up a little conflict, if only to keep yourself interested, as the slow parade of NFL hopefuls amble to the stage, wearing new ball-caps.

The truth is, nobody lost anything in the deal-that-didn't-happen except for Jerry Angelo himself, whose credibility was already irreparably damaged in the eyes of many Bears fans long before this incident. And the missed phone call that ignited this round of contempt does suggest an inept breakdown at a critical moment. But really, if we're all being honest with ourselves, Angelo and Co. could have drafted the next Otto Graham and Dick Butkus, and those same people would have found some reason to criticize him.

Sure, some of that criticism is founded, but a lot of it is just the incessant nattering of the serially unhappy segment of Beardom. They're the same folks who met the successes of the 2010 Chicago Bears with cries of, "Just wait until next year. They'll lose ten games!", followed by the litany of personnel both on and off the field whose contracts they'd cancel, if it were up to them. Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith always seem to top that list.

The idea that Angelo should have given his fourth round pick to the Ravens is ludicrous. Baltimore lost nothing in the snafu. They still drafted the player they were after, as did the Bears. Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti made some noise, and that's only to be expected; he wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't try to get something out of it. In a business that relies as heavily on the media as professional football does, it's just standard operating procedure to throw as much manure as you've got at the wall, and hope some of it sticks.

And he was heaving it with both hands, when he made this statement to the Baltimore Sun, "I'm disappointed in the Bears and the McCaskeys. It is in my opinion a deviation from their great legacy."

Well, shucks, it's awfully sweet of him to be thinking of the Bears legacy at such a difficult time for himself and his franchise. I can only imagine how differently he would have handled the situation if the roles had been reversed. No doubt he would have surrendered the pick out respect for the code of honor for which NFL ownership is so very famous.

At any rate, I'm sure it wasn't just his concern for the integrity of the game, or the insurmountable loss his team endured, that made him cry 'foul', until the league agreed to look into the matter. I'd be fascinated to hear him explain exactly for what the Baltimore Ravens deserve recompense.

Jerry Angelo didn't wait around to find out. His response was, for me, one of the highlights of the 2011 NFL Draft: he traded the fourth round pick away in the next round, even as the league was supposedly 'looking into it'. That move served to solidify the defensive line, with the strongest man in the draft, and it also was a tidy editorial comment on Bisciotti's campaign for the fourth round pick.

You can never really know what you have when you draft, not for months or years after the fact. From the immediate perspective, the Bears had a pretty solid draft. And for each player they selected, they have a former NFL head coach, to tutor him and bring him into the league. This is where having Mike Tice, Rod Marinelli and Mike Martz really pays off.

Poll

The 2011 draft is in the books. How did the Bears fare overall?

Great. All the pieces of the puzzle are together. We're Super Bowl bound!

10 votes

Pretty Good. We'll have one or two solid starters in the group.

78 votes

Why bother to draft players, for a season you're trying not to play?

4 votes

Meh. It's always a crap shoot. I'll wait and see how they perform.

3 votes

Fire Jerry Angelo, and send all our picks to the Baltimore Ravens.

8 votes

103 votes | Poll has closed

NFL Lockout Reinstated, Owners Granted Stay

2011-04-29T23:04:21Z

Via various tweets and other information that is breaking as of 6 p.m. CDT on Friday, it appears that two of the three judges on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals have granted a temporary stay of Judge Susan Nelson's lifting of the NFL owners' lockout of the players.

Clear as mud. Nevertheless, this appears to mean that the lockout is back on, and that the court will rule further later on the entire issue. Here are a couple of tweets from Maury Brown, who reports on sports business, that explain a bit better:

2 of 3 judges of the 8th Circuit on the panel hearing the appeal on the lockout have ruled in favor of the temp stay. Lockout back on. #NFLless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Favorite Retweet ReplyMaury Brown
BizballMaury

Remember, this is a temporary stay on the lockout. Matters could change on extended stay ruling #NFLLockoutless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhone Favorite Retweet ReplyMaury Brown
BizballMaury

Obviously, more information will come out later and we here at SB Nation Chicago will keep you posted. Meanwhile, the NFL draft continues this evening; check this SB Nation Chicago StoryStream for complete updates.

NFL Draft 2011: Roger Goodell Pleads, Cam Newton Collects, Jerry Angelo Whiffs

2011-04-29T15:02:09Z

Roger the dodger: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has had a tough week. The NFL ownership was confounded at every turn in the courtroom, ordered not once but twice, to open training facilities and get back to business. All of the league's coy, 'Aw shucks, we just don't know how comply with this decision' foot-dragging was met unsympathetically by Judge Susan Richard Nelson. Of course the NFL is appealing the ruling, but their actions and their words this week leave little doubt as to who to blame if there's no football in 2011.

And last night, on the big stage, football fans let Goodell know how they felt. He went ahead and orchestrated a gala event, that was bound to be fraught with awkward moments, such as him introducing and hugging draftees who were part of the class-action suit against him. The very idea of making such a public spectacle out of a draft where new players and owners became adversaries immediately after the ballcap-and-handshake picture is ludicrous and indicative of ownerships potentially fatal hubris.

Fans booed Goodell and chanted,"We want football" and they weren't mollified when the commissioner offered a weak, "I hear you" in response. The boos continued quietly, every time Roger addressed the microphone. Goodelltried to garner sympathy by referring to tornado victims in Alabama, and by brining out members of the armed forces for various announcements.

Call me cynical, but I was reminded of founding father Samuel Jackson's famous line, "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." We ALL love America, Mr. Goodell. If you want to show how much you do, bring back football.

Rookie salary Cam:One thing I think most fans agree with, is that rookie salaries are way out of whack. We all have our favorite example of a rookie bust who collected millions (Ryan Leaf). It would have been smart for the league to address the issue before being forced to resume operations. That they didn't is good news for quarterback Cam Newton, the Carolina Panthers number one draft pick. He stands to become a very rich young man, very soon.

And that's going to be a very interesting story to follow. There's a lot of 'experts' who don't think Newton is worth the money.They question his ability and his work ethic. Some have gone so far as to say, he'll take the money, and coast. It seems like a harsh assessment, but who knows? It seems to me to be a very illogical practice, to guarantee millions of dollars to a young man. For some, it may be the beginning of a great career, but for many it must seem like the conclusion of having to struggle to compete.

Welcome to Chicago:Without ever having played a down for the Bears, first round draft pick Gabe Carimi can depend on feeling a lot of love from Chicago fans, at least for now. Carimi an offensive tackle from the University of Wisconsin,wasn't expected to still be on the board at number 29. In fact the Bears started to trade their fourth round pick to the Baltimore Ravens to move up three spots to grab him early.

However, Jerry Angelo made some sort of procedural blunder, and the trade never went through. Although both teams ended up with the player they wanted, the Ravens are crying foul and saying they should still get Chicago's fourth round pick. The league is said to be 'looking into the situation'.

Jerry Angelo has taken tremendous amounts of heat for past draft missteps. If he loses the fourth round pick on an error, even if he had already planned to trade it away, the screaming for his head will double in intensity.

The second and third round of the draft take place tonight, beginning at 5:00 Central. Stay with SB Nation Chicago for news and updates.

SB Nation Submits Its Final Mock Draft, As The NFL Draft Begins

2011-04-29T00:08:54Z

The SB Nation final Draft Picks have been posted here. Check their picks against yours, as the NFL draft finally begins in earnest.

Top Five: Best NFL Draft Years For The Chicago Bears

2011-04-27T21:29:38Z

The NFL Draft has become an extravaganza of epic proportions -- a media circus so overstuffed with pomp and hyperbole that it makes Barnum and Bailey look like Hall and Oates. The league creates montages and grainy video highlights of rookie hopefuls, rents out Radio City Music Hall, trots them out in front of screaming audiences, and then wonders why they feel entitled to seven-figure contracts before they've ever even stood on an NFL sideline.

They've successfully promoted and monetized the whole process to the point where millions of young men have embraced the draft as a game unto itself. Creating mock drafts and scenarios, researching and strategizing, poring over them like Federation starship captains, like Dungeons and Dragons players, or like any number of other fantasy games that boys engage in, rather than going outside and talking to girls.

I kid, I kid. If I'm somewhat bewildered by some people's preoccupation with the draft, maybe it's just a symptom of being an old Chicago Bears fan. The Bears have disinvited themselves from the hoopla of the NFL Draft lately, having selected only twice in the first round of the draft since 2006. The last two years, the Bears were absent from the first two rounds altogether, having traded those picks away.

This year though, they have all their picks -- so far, at least. It's hard (at least for we non-draft junkies) to guess what Jerry Angelo will do, or what impact his picks will have in the immediate future, if there even is an immediate future. It's a lot less challenging to look at past drafts, and assess their importance to history, and as anyone who know me will rell you, I never back down a lesser challenge. So here are my nominations for the top five draft years in Chicago Bears history, in chronological order:

1939

The fourth draft in NFL history went 22 rounds, but the Bears first round pick changed the face of football, possibly more than any one player since. Quarterback Sid Luckman, he of the 'T-Formation, that thrilled the nation.' Luckman took the Bears to four championships in his 12 seasons, including the legendary 73-0 win over the Washington Redskins.

1965

In 1965 the Bears had three first-round picks and with the first two they picked a Hall of Fame player for each side of the ball. First they selected linebacker Dick Butkus, and then running back Gale Sayers.Butkus was an eight time Pro Bowler, and had 27 career fumble recoveries. Sports Illustrated called him 'The Most Feared Man in Football'. Sayers set records in both rushing and returning, he scored 22 touchdowns his rookie year, and was the Pro-Bowl's Most Valuable Player in three of the four years he was selected to participate.

1975

After Gale Sayers retired in 1972, the Bears fortunes suffered. They were in need of a good running back, and with the fourth pick in the first round of trhe 1975 draft, they settled on a guy by the name of Walter Payton. Payton turned into a nine time Pro-Bowler, and at one time owned nearly every rushing record to be had in the NFL. Perhaps the greatest player in the game's history. That draft also produced Bob Avellini, a quarterback who played with the team for nine years, and Doug Plank an incredibly hard hitting safety who Buddy Ryan admired so much he named his famous '46' defense after his jersey number.

1983

The Bears drafted some heavy hitters in the first half of the 80's, but 1983 was a banner year. This year was the 'year of the quarterback' in football lore, it being the year that John Elway, Dan Marino, and Jim Kelly joined the NFL. But get a load of the Bears picks for that year, Jimbo Covert, Willie Gault, Mike Richardson, Dave Duerson, Tom Thayer, Richard Dent, and Mark Bortz. Has any team ever picked that many impact players in one draft? The pieces were officially in place for the 1985 Super Bowl team.

2000

Brian Urlacher and Mike Brown. These two players became the backbone of the stingy defense that took the Bears to the Super Bowl in 2007. Urlacher is a gifted, physical linebacker in the Chicago tradition. Mike Brown is the only man in NFL history to return two interceptions for touchdowns in overtime, in back to back games.

If there's a Bears draft fans would rather forget, there's the one from 1970. In 1969, the Bears finished 1-13 in 1969. The only team they beat was the Steelers, who also finished 1-13. In that era, the tiebreaker for draft picks was a coin flip.

The Bears lost the flip and traded their pick to the Packers. In return, they got Lee Roy Caffey, Elijah Pitts and Bob Hyland. Caffey played one year for the Bears. Pitts was traded before he ever played for them. Hyland played one year for the Bears.

Meanwhile, the Steelers used their No. 1 pick on some unknown kid quarterback from the non-big-time college at Louisiana Tech named Terry Bradshaw.

We hope the Bears will come out of this year's draft with better memories than those of 1970.

J'Marcus Webb And Anthony Adams Named 2010 Brian Piccolo Award Winners

2011-04-26T18:15:05Z

The Chicago Bears and the Brian Piccolo Cancer Reserach Fund have named rookie tackle J'Marcus Webb and defensive tackle Anthony Adams the 2010 winners of the Brian Piccolo Award. The award, given annually to a rookie since 1970 and expanded in 1992 to include a veteran as well, is voted on by Bears players to honor fellow players who best exemplify the, "courage, loyalty, teamwork, dedication and sense of humor of the late Brian Piccolo."

About the award:

Brian Piccolo joined the Bears in 1965, following a senior season at Wake Forest during which he led the nation in scoring (111 points) and rushing (1,044 yards). Piccolo was not selected in the NFL draft, but he signed with the Bears as a free agent and made the club. He was in his fourth season when a chest x-ray revealed a malignancy. Several months later on June 16, 1970, he died at age 26 from embryonal cell carcinoma. At the time Piccolo died, the disease was 100% fatal, but today the cure rate is over 70%. He left behind his wife Joy, three daughters, and legions of friends.

Proceeds from the Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund benefit breast cancer research at Rush Medical Center and the Clearbrook Center for the developmentally disabled in Arlington Heights.

Forget William And Kate, Jay Cutler Is Engaged To Kristin Cavallari

2011-04-26T13:08:58Z

In a story that provides welcome relief from the constant coverage of the upcoming royal wedding, the Chicago Tribune and People magazine is reporting today that Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and former reality show star Kristin Cavallari, are engaged to be married. According to the article, Cutler proposed to Cavallari this weekend in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

So far, no word on where the wedding would be held, although Chicago is where Cutler makes his living, and where Callavari's mother's family resides. I'd like to take this opportunity to suggest that the couple marries at Halas Hall. It can be Chicago's very own royal wedding, with Jay Cutler in full uniform and his bride in a tasteful navy and orange gown.

Jay Cutler is well known for his aversion to the media, so we remain hopeful that there will be no 'Khloe And Lamar' type reality show in the offing.

via letsdancegarters.com