O’Donnell: Fox wants drama from the surging Bears vs. the splintering Giants
WHEN NFL LIFE LOOKS like Easy Street, there's normally unanticipated theatricality at the door.
That's the stage call awaiting Ben Johnson and the Bears Sunday when the New York Giants drop their chaos at Soldier Field (noon, Fox; AM-1000).
For the third consecutive season, Brian Daboll and his listing Gothams are 2-7. They've surrendered 105 points in their last nine quarters. That's charity worthy of The Ford Foundation.
NO REGIONAL MEDIA CAN FLAIL at the downtrodden like New York. The NYC football floggers are having a teed-up autumn. The Giants are a half-game better than perma-shelled Justin Fields and the Jets (1-7).
The press-box headhunters are approaching full howl for the pelts of both Daboll and GM Joe Schoen.
Both were hired in optimum sequence following the 2021 season, Schoen first. The Buffalo-spawned tandem immediately spun hope.
The NYG finished the 2022 season 9-7-1. Daboll was NFL Coach of the Year. QB Daniel Jones — “Danny Dimes” — woke up echoes south of Eli Manning but north of Kerry Collins.
THEN, IN DOWNDRAFT QUICKER THAN Matt Nagy and the Bears, kerplunk. Seasons of 6-11 and 3-14 followed.
Jones was benched last November and asked out. He wound up in the Minnesota quarterbacks room for the remainder of the campaign.
Now the odyssey of “Dimes” mocks the arc of the Daboll-Schoen era. He's resurrected himself via a one-year, $14M deal with the Colts (7-2), only one of the hottest teams in the league.
TOUTED ROOKIE JAXSON DART is the new QB. He's surrounded by a handful of teammates who seem to hang in there and a whole lot more who fail to sustain focus and effort.
The negative traits were in greatest evidence three weeks ago. That's when New York allowed Denver 33 fourth-quarter points and blew an 18-point lead with less than six minutes to play.
FOX SPORTS IS SHOWING inordinate interest in Sunday's contest. The golden “B” team of Joe Davis and Greg Olsen will call. More than 50% of the free TV nation will have access.
Some primary reasons:
· The 5-3 Bears are sparking greater note after last weekend's 47-42 gloss grower at Cincinnati;
· The match features America's No. 1 television market against No 3; and
· Fox's premier duo of Tom Brady and Kevin Burkhardt have the late-gate Rams-Niners, which will not air on Chicago's Fox-32. Instead, the area will get Lions-Commanders, diminished in lure by the absence of injured Washington QB Jayden Daniels (3:25 p.m.).
THE BEARS ARE 4½-point favorites. But if the cosmic wheels continue to favorably turn for Caleb Williams and grinders like they did against the Bengals, two touchdowns seems a modest winning margin.
Still, it remains the NFL — where the only certainty is unanticipated dramatics behind the stage door.
* * *
STORMY BIDWILL DIED THIS WEEK at age 97, and friends will toast his legacy.
He was best known for his long stewardship of thoroughbred racing at Sportsman's Park in Cicero. But his family had deep business roots in Chicago and around the nation.
His father — Charles Bidwill Sr. — was once the most powerful sports figure in Our Town, bar none.
FROM THE 1920S until his untimely death at age 51 in 1947, among other things, “Blue Shirt Charlie”:
· purchased the Chicago Cardinals for $50,000 in 1932;
· lent George Halas money so Papa Bear could keep his football team afloat during The Great Depression; and,
· was the principal operational overseer of Chicago Stadium during its startup years.
IN 1932, BIDWILL SR. ALSO CONVERTED a sketchy dog track near West 33rd Street and South Cicero Avenue into the half-mile Sportsman's Park.
With a cast of associates including William Johnston Sr., Billy Johnston and their network, the Bidwills had a golden annuity until the oval's ill-advised conversion into a combination auto track/horse gulag in 1998.
IN 1972 STORMY BIDWILL AND BROTHER BILL agreed to settle a family feud by dividing key assets.
Bill Bidwill — who died in 2019 — got the football team, now the Arizona Cardinals. His family retains control.
Stormy took Sportsman's Park, the family's Churchill Downs stock and a reported $7.5M. For years he was the largest shareholder in the Louisville corporation.
DURING THE INITIAL DECADE of the sole proprietorship of Dick Duchossois at Arlington Park (1986-96), the other two senior chairs at the local thoroughbred round table were Stormy Bidwill and Hawthorne's Tom Carey. Duchossois was consistently the most aggressive.
Visitation for Mr. Bidwill will be Nov. 19, at Donnellan Funeral Service in Skokie. A mass will be said the following morning at Saints Faith, Hope and Charity Church in Winnetka.
Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Wednesday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.