Dorfman: The Practice Of A Strange Camp
By Daniel I. Dorfman-
(CBS) Hmmm, let's see. The Bears have had one practice screwed up due to the ridiculous turf situation at Soldier Field. They lost another one last night because the lighting went bad at Olivet Nazarene University. (The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia was a great country song, The Night the Lights Went out in Bourbonnais just doesn't have quite the same ring to it.) Oh, and bad weather caused Monday's practice to be halted early.
So the Bears are having bad luck with practices this year.
I couldn't help but wonder if this has been revenge of the gods against a team that made people watch Steve Stenstrom, Henry Burris and Jonathan Quinn play quarterback, but that would seem to be a long time for even immortals to seek retribution.
With the strange events that have been taking place I decided to put in a call to the neighborhood psychic to ask her what else is going to happen with Bears practices? Actually, I first asked her for next week's winning lottery numbers, but she couldn't supply those. But she did have a vision as to what else is going to happen in Bourbonnais. She had some troubling news as according to her, there are going to be a lot of other weird things that are going to pop up between now and the Sept. 11 opener against Atlanta:
- Tomorrow's practice will be cut short because the sprinkler system will go on in the middle of the session. The groundskeeper will be asked, "How did that happen?" He will respond, "We are doing our best to get Soldier Field ready. The press will say, "But this isn't Solider Field." The groundskeeper will respond, "Would you guys stop nitpicking!"
- On Sunday, the players will return to camp after playing Buffalo on Saturday night and decide they don't want to awake the fans in attendance. What happened to the crowd assembled? They all watched Saturday night's pre-season opener and like every pre-season opener, they can't emerge from the sleep due to the intense boredom of the "game".
- Next Tuesday's practice will be called off as the stock market will crash again and the players will be too busy on their phones calling their brokers. The fans gathered at Olivet Nazarene won't mind because they are doing the same. Actually with the way things are going, the $9 billion annual revenue of the NFL this year will be reduced to $87.
- The August 18th session will be canceled altogether because the previous night Adam Dunn will go for 4-for-4 against Cleveland with three homers including a game winning launch. The most powerful White Sox fan of all, someone who sits in the Oval Office, will declare August 18th a national holiday and a cessation of all activities will take place throughout the land.
- Back in Lake Forest on August 24th, the Bears will give up on their projected offensive line and decide to go with open auditions. It's not exactly something you see every day, but what have they got to lose?
In all seriousness, NFL training camps tend to be overcovered. With the actual bizarre string of events, the 2011 Bears training camp has at least had its unique moments. The question is, will the same be said about Year 2 of the Mike Martz offense?
Daniel I. Dorfman is a local freelance writer who has written and reported for the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and the Boston Globe among many other nationally prominent broadcast, online and print media organizations. He is also a researcher for 670 The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @DanDorfman To read more of Daniel's blogs click here.
