These should be exciting times for us Bear fans. The newly released schedule is littered with high profile Bears games. From getting an extra pre-season game with the long overdue induction of Richard Dent, to showing our fans abroad what American football is all about, to dumping coal in our hated rival’s stocking  on a lone Christmas night game; our focus should be on what plane tickets or days off from work we will need to support our team.

Then there’s next week’s draft. What players will be picked by our brass to help improve a division winning team? With only a few missing pieces, the draft and free agency should put us near the competitive top.
With all of this going on, grouped with how bad Jay Cutler wants to come out and destroy every team in his path, our thoughts are not on the game itself. But rather the buSINess side of things. Like we don't have our own financial problems now a day.

I understand the need to get the CBA resolved, I am not that naïve. But why drag it out? As of today, the NFL and NFLPA will not meet again until May 16. Really? May 16? Is this to work out some strategy that should have been devised weeks, if not, months ago? Maybe I am a little naïve, but shouldn’t the two parties be in a room every day and night until this thing is resolved?

The common saying is that this lockout is Millionaires vs. Billionaires. However, not every player is Tom Brady or DeMarcus Ware, where they don’t need to worry about where their next check is coming from. This is evident in the current player divide. It may be bad for the players, but should be good for us fans.

If the players are starting to disconnect, they might have to give in to the greedy owners.
 
At this point, I don’t care who "wins", because we are all losing. The mid tier players are losing their lively hood, the high profile players are losing their millions, the owners are losing billions and the NFL as a whole is losing face.

Us fans? Who cares about us? Who cares what we lose? In a crazy mixed up world, football is a release. We will be fine without it, but it’s much nicer with it. The fun of the off season has already been taken away. The fun of the regular season is soon to follow.

If this drags on too much longer, even if we do start the season on time, the first few weeks will be watered down. No team will be prepared to start the season. Injuries will be occurring at an alarming rate. No one will take this season seriously.

I don’t want an asterisk next to our Super Bowl trophy.

At least the city of Chicago has the Bulls to fall back on for the time being. However, the NBA is setting up to mirror the NFL. I really hope I don’t have to write an article entitled, ‘No More BULLsh**’ come November.