Who The Heck Is This Guy? (Hint: Just Me)

 I’m a 75 year old white guy. I was going to say “dude,” but implies a certain level of “coolness” that I have never achieved.

I was born and raised in Chicago. I moved to Wisconsin to finish school, met the first woman of my dreams, and stayed there with her for over forty years. Her name was Cathie.

While there, I worked several jobs. A stock boy in a women’s clothing store and a private security guard were menial minimum wage positions. Factory jobs in a packaging company and a battery manufacturer was better paying union work that helped pay bills.

I got my Masters degree and eventually taught high school English for almost 35 years. I loved that job and probably would still be doing that if the Republicans in power had not taken away union rights. So I retired to a decent pension and early Social Security.

I wrote some poetry, had some published. For about three years, I wrote a weekly column for the Racine Journal Times. They have some of them online still. Some are pretty good if I do say so myself.

I played some bad golf. I still followed the Cubs and White Sox, but one of the requirements of loving a Wisconsin woman meant that I had to become a fan of the Packers.

I got to spend three more years with Cathie until she passed in 2013.

When she did I picked up my old guitar and started playing more and writing some songs. I started going to open mics. One year I went to 215 of them.

One night before Thanksgiving I was at a bar listening to a band I know. A friend of mine called a friend and invited her over. She ended up being the second woman of my dreams. Her name is Susan

We started playing music together. We are Wattle & Daub. We have three albums out and make tenths of cents on the streaming services.

We get some gigs in the Chicago area, mostly northern Illinois and SE Wisconsin. We don't stray from home too much or too far anymore. She gives private lessons, I play some golf with long time friends. We root for different baseball teams. We keep busy and are still writing songs, playing them when we can.

We are more active in our local folk club, The Lake County Folk Club. We host the monthly open mic, play in the monthly song circle/jam, and help out with a monthly concert.

We have several new songs we're working the kinks out of, and eventually we'll make tenths of cents with them on the streaming places. Our latest is "Patch of Blue."

I am enjoying life. I’m like this blog site, but am also posting at a new place called Substack. I realize that it’s really nothing more than a blog like this, but it does have a feature where it will notify you if you subscribe. 

I’d appreciate if you’d subscribe. I don’t expect to make money at this. But, I play folk music. There’s no money in that either.

The Only Thing to Know About The 2024 NFL Draft - Remember Chickens

I'm more of a baseball fan. I watch some NFL games and even fewer college games other than when the wife wants to see her alma mater, Illinois. I go to an indoor driving range during the Super Bowl. I know the Chiefs won it all last year, but didn't see a minute of it. 

Being baseball fan, particularly the Chicago Cubs, my sports prognosticating skills are minimal at best and based primarily of dreams and wishful thinking. In short, I was right once, in 2016, and that also involved a lot of handwringing and prayer on a certain November night in Cleveland.

So take what I say with a proverbial grain of salt.

The sports news in my area was all about the Bears and their Number One pick in this year's NFL draft. They picked Caleb Williams from USC.

Williams is a darn good quarterback. By most accounts, he is a good person. He can run and throw and has great stats in both those areas. He wants to win. He says he wants to play for 20 years with the same team. That's probably why the Chicago Bears drafted him with the 1st overall pick in the 2024 NFL draft.

The question of whether he will lead the Bears to the Super Bowl, however, remains to be seen. 

He had a pretty good freshman year at Oklahoma, but then jumped ship to play his final two college years at USC. Neither Oklahoma nor USC were in the national college playoffs with Williams. In 2022 Williams won the Heisman Trophy and led USC to the Pac 12 championship game, but lost to Utah. In 2023 USC was only 5-4 in the conference.

Based on the results of recent picks and acquisitions Bears have made, their fans might rightly suspect the team's judgement or ability in picking quarterbacks  They thought Mitch Trubisky and Justin Fields were the answers, but neither brought them more than two games into the playoffs. 

Maybe Williams is the answer. I honestly don't know, but I wouldn't expect too much immediately. Some previous number one picks in recent NFL drafts have helped their teams to the playoffs quickly, but not in the first year in the league, and not to the Super Bowl, yet, in their careers.

Some stats about QBs drafted Number One

No one really knows how a QB, or any player, will do over his career. The average career of an NFL player is 3.3 years. QBs are a little higher at 4.44 years. Injuries and simply not playing up to expectations are factors for any player's success in the league. And few achieve instant success at quarterback. Since 2000 only Eli Manning and Matthew Stafford, both No. 1 selections, have won the Super Bowl. Manning took four years. Stafford took 13 years and going to a different team to win a SuperBowl. 

It's not an easy road no matter when a player is picked, and there are exceptions. One that comes to mind is Bart Starr of the Green Bay Packers. In 1956, the NFL had 12 teams, 30 draft rounds, and 360 players chosen. Starr wasn't picked until the 17th round, 200th pick overall. He went on to win five titles: three NFL championships and the first two Super Bowls. 

Here are some other players, when they were drafted, and how they've done:

Brady excelled almost immediately as a starter his second year. And, considering he was not a high draft choice, it makes his seven career Super Bowls even more impressive. Mahomes became the starter for the Chiefs in his second year and has won three Super Bowl MVPs. Aaron Rodgers didn't start his first three season. When he took over from Brett Favre, it took him three years to win his first and as yet only Super Bowl. 

The real anomaly here is Brock Purdy who was "Mr. Irrelevant" in the 2022. "Mr. Irrelevant" is the nickname given to the player who is picked dead last in the draft. Because of injuries and other factors he started for San Francisco in his first season and took them to the NFC championship game. In his next season, he took them to the Super Bowl, losing to Mahomes.

Like Starr, Brady and Purdy were not highly regarded out of college. Yet, they succeeded. Many Number One picks don't work out. Even being a first or second round pick is not guaranteed to be successful. Sometimes players just rise to the occasion and exceed expectations. 

I don't know if Williams be a Mahomes or a Brady and bring the Bears to the playoffs and a Super Bowl. I don't doubt that he wants to. But so did Jim Harbaugh, Rex Grossman, Mitch Trubisky, and Justin Fields, all of whom the Bears drafted in the first round. 

There's an old saying about counting chickens before they're hatched, and while Chicago Bears fans have something to be excited about, they would do well to remember not to do any counting yet.