The league on notice, time to hit the Big Apple for the Bears

After Week 2 everyone said the Bears made a statement. Well, after Week 3 was put to rest, the statement got its punctuation. Yes, there were 18 penalties on the Packers, but the Bears took advantage and became the NFC's only 3-0 team.
They have areas they need to improve, but the positives do out number the negative which is promising heading forward this season.
Devin Hester shined and got that first return touchdown in two years and it helped Jay Cutler put it together. Yes, I'm not giving my full endorsement of his performance, but he did enough.
As usual, it was the defense that made the big statements ring true. The leader of all of that was the biggest acquisition made in the offseason, Julius Peppers. How amazing was he in the third quarter?
The stats might not show that the Bears did a lot of things right in terms of getting to the quarterback, but three big holding penalties and an intentional grounding speak for that.
Also, Brian Urlacher (So great to have him back) and Lance Briggs just continue to show how great they are together. Yes the Bears are 3-0 by way of a bit of some help, but you have to win those games if you're going to be a successful team and you have to give them credit for that.
This week, the New York Giants are on the docket, as the Bears get to check out the new Meadowlands. For once this season, the Bears are favored in a game and they'd rather be the underdogs. I think they have reveled in being the underdog and want us to not give them a shot so they can prove us wrong.
The Giants have shown they are not disciplined at all the last two weeks, and I'm not so sure that can go away after a week. It could be the key, again, for the Bears to win. I have not been impressed by Eli Manning all season and this could be another chance for the Bears to take a step forward.
Prediction: Bears 24, Giants 14


Before I get into my picks, I got an E-mail from a big Giants fan this week, that I have agreed to not talk about the game with this week so we wouldn't say anything lame to upset each other. Yes, On The Line Sports' own Vaughan Gartrelle wanted to chime in as things led into the game. These are his thoughts on the week:
"This is the week where it sucks to have two of your closest friends be bears fans. I will tell you this much my New York Giants will come out swinging. We have many problems but we are a team that plays extremely well under the owners pressure i.e. 2007. If I was in thee Giants locker room my pregame speech would sound something like this :

We played a damn good week one, instead of taking that momentum into week two for our game against big brother we let the media convince us we had no chance. And then in week three we did exactly what we should have done for week two and took that terrible momentum into a game that we should have won. No look at where it has us behind the eight ball let's just be glad we have many other shots before that's our concern. Now we must go out today and be the reverse of ourselves and be GIANT KILLERS. Let's go win on the big stage.

If this is the speech 20-13 giants if not 31-6 bears."



That was pretty good from V. But it's now time for my NFL Picks. Last week I delivered a great week and went 10-6 to push my record on the year to 28-20 for the season. Here is Week 4 with the winners in bold.
49ers at Falcons
Jets at Bills
Bengals at Browns
Lions at Packers
Broncos at Titans
Seahawks at Rams
Panthers at Saints
Ravens at Steelers
Colts at Jaguars
Cardinals at Chargers
Redskins at Eagles
Bears at Giants
Patriots (17) at Dolphins (14)

It should be a big week and the Nussie Hunter wanted to give you a girl that is a fan of sports to close things out. Is there one hotter than Kelly Brook right now? Yes she's made the blog twice in recent months, but that's because she's at the top of her game. Just check out the photo below. Then head over to Guyism.com to see her in a red dress. ALL HOT!

A year of Wilber's Way: Of course we back MJ!

It's been a year since I went from standard sports nerd who would bicker to anyone who listened to a sports nerd with his own .com. It's hard to believe, but I have a couple special treats and thank-yous for you the fans that have made this space both a success and a blast for me to pen when I've gotten a chance in the past year.


I have to start the day with a discussion on Michael Jordan's comments regarding LeBron James and the trio that has formed in Miami. If you haven't read the comments, be sure to check them out, here.
Now before everybody jumps and asks what does MJ have to do with any of this, let me say he's one of the greats, of course some guy with a microphone on NBC is going to ask.
But I want to look at what he's saying for a minute. Michael is one of the fiercest competitors out there. And as he said he would have never called up Larry or Magic to join forces. And while it wasn't just him that won those six NBA titles, when the game was on the line, everyone, including Scottie, deferred to him to deliver. Then when MJ gave it up to Paxson, B.J. or Steve Kerr, they delivered.
I know you're thinking that Michael didn't speak up when Karl Malone and Gary Payton went to play for the Lakers. But look where they were in their careers. Both were in the twilights of it all and came on as role players to help Kobe. You almost wanted to see them win it.
And what about KG, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce in Boston? KG had suffered for years in Minnesota, getting one real legit run with Sam Cassel and Latrell Spreewell. And Ray made noise in Milwaukee with the Bucks in 2001, but nothing before getting dealt to the Sonics and was looking for something big. It made sense and you felt for all three guys. Especially after the Celtics lost out on the No. 1 pick in the draft months prior to Danny Ainge making the trades to get that team together.
This Heat team is different, LeBron is coming off back-to-back MVP seasons and Dwyane Wade carried the team to an NBA title a couple years back. He just needed help. So he goes and gets Chris Bosh, who has not even played in a playoff game, as an inside presence, and said two-time MVP. It seems to me like LeBron doesn't want to be "the guy" when it matters and will defer to Wade in the crunch time. Now Bosh is no Magic or Bird, but Wade and James are two of the top three players in the NBA right now. Some compare it to the AAU mentality that a lot of the guys have in the league today, and I see it. Most of the top teams have ridiculous names on the same team because they are friends. It's not something we've seen in the NBA, EVER.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see if it's the move that will get the Heat many titles, not just one.

OK, moving on to some fun stuff as part of the year-celebration, I found this picture of Carl Pavano growing his mustache.


Now I'm all about a guy growing his mustache out as part of the team, but Jimmy Traina at SI.com's Hot Clicks does not even mention John Axford, who saved yet another game tonight for the Brewers after taking over for the all-time saves leader, Trevor Hoffman.


Decide for yourself which is better, but I'm going with the Ax!

Alright, now for the REALLY good stuff as part of the year celebration, the Nussie Hunter has not one, but two Nussies for your enjoyment.
The first is Anna Kournikova, who threw out the first pitch at a Cardinals game a couple days ago. I'm the farthest thing from a Cards fan, but she looks great in pig tails and the jersey, if I must say so. You can see more here.


Alright, now the second Nussie of the day has been all over the dude sites the past couple weeks and next month with grace the pages the Playboy. If you don't know her yet in America, you need to. Her name is Kelly Brook and she really hasn't done anything than be a WAG, but she looks damn good in a bikini, as you can see below. And check out a ton more, here!