Best-laid Plans

Oh, this is rich in a karmic sort of way. Over the last two years or so, the White Sox and Bears have looked to maximize leverage against city and state in pursuit of public subsidies for a new stadium, all of which depended on team performance. Did I mention that Reinsdorf’s Sad Sox went 41-121 or that ex-player Dave Stewart was said to be heading a group interested in taking the Sox off of Reinsdorf’s hands and nobody seemed to care? Wet noodles make for weak leverage. Your Chicago Bears are a tub of wet noodles right now. General manager Ryan Poles went out and selected Caleb Williams with the first pick of the draft and surrounded him with receiving talent. Team president and CEO Kevin Warren then went on the offensive on how the Chicago lakefront is crying for new, domed stadium to be subsidized by the likes of me and run by the likes of Warren. Up until fifteen days ago, the plan was working swimmingly. Then came Tyrique Stevenson making possible a Hail-Mary win for the Commanders followed by a loss to the Cardinals followed by yesterday’s stinker of a 19-3 loss to the previously 2-7 Patriots. No touchdowns for straight games; fifteen sacks of Williams over those games, including nine yesterday by a team that had only sixteen coming into game; absolutely no game plan to go with absolutely no offensive line. Oh, and crickets from Poles and Warren. Chicago is facing a deficit in the neighborhood of $1 billion while Illinois is looking at a $3 billion hole. And the owners of two dysfunctional franchises want money to build new facilities. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s karma.