The listed events were chosen by the editors of Chicagoist and brought to you by the 2009 Toyota Corolla. Music Gypsy jazz guitarist Alfonso Ponticelli and his band, Swing Gitan, are one of the go-to acts to fill in at the Green Mill whenever Kurt Elling is out of town for his regular Wednesday engagement. Ponticelli's faithful recreations of old Hot Club of Paris numbers, complemented with original compositions, are fresh and accessible without......

But they've got to take somebody to the big dance, the Bears told Rex Grossman on Saturday. The Bears and their erratic, starting QB agreed to a one-year, $3 million deal. Wow... that's like asking the ugly girl to the prom because all the prettier girls and the ones who put out have dates already. By granting Grossman one more year, are the Bears might be hoping that he can finally shed the ugly hair......

Guess that knee injury Rex Grossman suffered last December wasn't so serious -- he was offered a new one year contract with the Bears, which he agreed to this morning. The Sun-Times calls the contract "imminent", and that it "includes incentives based on play time and performance". Coach Lovie Smith is planning on pitting Grossman and Neckbeard against each other to battle it out for the starting spot: Grossman, who earned $2.035 million last season,......

You know that list of needs the Bears have to fill this off-season? Quarterback, running back, offensive line? Well, we can add wide receiver to the list. The Bears cut veteran wideout Muhsin Muhammad on Monday, along with offensive lineman Fred Miller and defensive tackle Darwin Walker as they try to free up money under the salary cap. By waiving Muhammad, the Bears avoid paying the aging receiver a $500,000 roster bonus in March. He......

There are few words we come across - at least within the local sports pages - that concern us more than "Brian Urlacher" and "neck surgery" in the same sentence. Yet that's what greeted us in bold print in Friday's papers. Following a routine post-season physical, a problem in Urlacher's lower neck that affected the curve of his cervical spine required "minor" surgery to correct. Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey wondered, "[I]s there such a thing......

One Adrian Peterson ran for 78 yards on 20 carries while scoring two touchdowns. The other Adrian Peterson ran for 26 on 9 carries. You can probably guess which AP belongs to the Bears. While the Vikings' budding superstar had nowhere near the game he had against the Bears in Week 5 (224 yards/3 TDs), his output was more than enough for the Vikes to win the game 20-13 — helping put Minnesota in the......

Mike Ditka's red-faced this weekend, and not because of overindulging on his vanity wines. A report in yesterday's USA Today showed that a charity "Da Coach" founded three years ago to help retired Hall of Fame football players whose bodies are ravaged by the violent demands of the NFL has only doled out $57,000 in assistance. Federal and state tax records indicate that $715,000 of the $1.3 million raised by the Mike Ditka Hall of......

There were some — certainly not here — who thought that the Bears' playoff hopes were still alive heading into Thursday night's game against the Washington Redskins. Returning to Chicago after losing 24-16 in D.C., they're not quite mathematically eliminated, but their hopes are undeniably dead. In addition to losing any hopes for making the playoffs, the Bears also lost quarterback Rex Grossman in the second quarter. While we await the official diagnosis, the replays......

The NFL already has fans pretty pissed off because tonight, when the best game in the NFC all season is played, most of us will be stuck watching The Office and Scrubs instead. Why? Because the game will only be carried by the NFL Network, which is available only to those who have satellite or pay an extra fee for the channel. Those of us trying to keep our cable bill in double digits will......

The Bears announced what Chicagoist suspected when we saw Cedric Benson remain on the ground following a 21 -ard run in the second quarter of Sunday's game: the injury will cut his season short. Benson will undergo surgery on his ankle that will shelve the Bears running back until next year. The Bears running game was a major area of concern even before the injury. The Bears are averaging only 85.3 yards/game -- third worst......

The Bears headed out Seattle, a place where they hadn't won since 1976. They returned to Chicago still having not won out there since the Ford Administration, falling 30-23. What went wrong this time? Amazingly, perhaps it was not giving Cedric Benson the ball enough! A week after he gained 73 yards on 28 carries, Benson ran for 63 on just his first two carries on Sunday. Or at least somebody wearing his jersey on......

For just short of 57 minutes, it was not a pretty game. We're glad we endured it, however, to see the Bears finally come alive in the final three minutes and turn a 6-3 snoozefest deficit into a 17-6 victory against the Oakland Raiders. Chicagoist almost gave up in the second quarter, when Brian Griese went down with a shoulder injury, Rex Grossman entered the game... and preceded to fumble his first snap! D'oh! Well,......

The Bears have their bye week this weekend, which means a weekend off for Lovie Smith's players. We imagine Kyle Orton will end up in some embarrassing photos taken in some college-town bar. We suspect that Brian Urlacher will stay home to rest his aching back... unless some starlet want to hang with him in Vegas. And perhaps Lance Briggs will use the free time to finally test drive some new rides. It also means......

Had they won on Sunday, and entered their bye week with a 4-4 record, maybe things could work out and the Bears would still make the playoffs. But those of us who endured the Bears' 16-7 loss to the Detroit Lions know that the post-season is not in the cards this year. Where to even begin with what went wrong? How about the offense? Cedric Benson continues to reinforce the perception that he's a bust......

Sure, we're all anxious and upset about the supposed cuts to the CTA service. However, there is one bus route we wouldn't mind see being cut. "We're a team that gets off the bus running the football,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said Wednesday. ''I have it memorized, and that's what we are, period.'' Has he been watching the same offense we we've been watching this year? The only thing separating this team from a 1-6......

This time, their late comeback attempt worked. For the second week, the Bears drove down the field in the final two minutes to score a critical touchdown. But unlike last week's loss to the Vikings, the Bears put the final points on the board and held on to beat the Philadelphia Eagles 19-16. For the first three quarters, neither team had any success getting the ball into the end zone. Repeated trips into the "red......

If you watched Sunday's Bears-Vikings game, you know — without a doubt — who the two most exciting players in the NFL are. The Bears have one of the guys on their roster, but the Vikings have the other, and he led Minnesota to a 34-31 victory. Devin Hester started the scoring by returning a punt 89 yards for a touchdown — his third return TD of the season. Hester also scored the Bears' final......

Things are not looking very good for the Bears. With Sunday's 37-27 loss to the Detroit Lions, the Bears showed their weaknesses on both sides of the ball. The first game of the Brian Griese era was no more successful than the Bears under Rex Grossman. Supposedly the safe game manager, Griese threw three interceptions — two while the Bears were in the "red zone." The other one was returned 64 yards for a touchdown.......

Thank you! It's about damn time. While Lovie Smith won't make the announcement official until later today, media everywhere are reporting that Brian Griese will take the field with the first team at practice on Wednesday because he is the Bears' new starting quarterback. Rex, you can grab a hat and clipboard right over there next to Kyle Orton. Chicagoist is by no means under the impression that this solves our quarterback problems. In the......

Nobody expected the Bears to go 16-0 this season, or even to start 7-0 like last year. And it's not too shocking that they would lose to a team that went 14-2 last year. But we're still plenty disappointed that the Bears lost to the San Diego Chargers 14-3 on Sunday in their season opener. The Bears' defense looked like it was in midseason form on Sunday, holding the high-scoring Chargers offense in check most......

Bill Clinton was in town today to sign books at Borders on North Michigan. A woman arrested for battery of an off-duty police officer claims that the arresting officer offered the cop filing the complaint a "free shot" while she was cuffed in the squad car. She also claims that the next day she was pulled over as a joke and let go. What is he smoking? Cook County Board President Todd Stroger says......

The Bears wrapped up their preseason schedule on Thursday night by hosting the Cleveland Browns. The Browns beat the Bears 19-9, giving the Bears a 3-1 record for the preseason. With the regular season opening in nine days, the goals for the final tune-up were to evaluate the talent of the guys still trying to make the squad, and to keep the starters healthy. Unfortunately for the Bears, coach Lovie Smith kept at least one......

The Bears played their third preseason game Saturday night, hosting the San Francisco 49ers. With the Bears taking the field at home for the first time since last year's playoffs, all eyes in Soldier Field were squarely on Rex Grossman. Even before the game, camera crews and Chicagoist ourselves focused in on Rex's practice snaps. We wanted to see any signs of progress after Grossman's three fumbles against the Indianapolis Colts last Monday, of which......

In a story earily similar to one involving a Ferrari on a California road last year, police found an abandoned, crashed exotic car on the Edens Expressway around 3:15am Monday morning. The registered owner of the black 2007 Lamborghini? The Bears' Lance Briggs! Seems that after he finally to decided to accept the $7.2 million contract from the Bears, he went out and bought himself a new little toy. But he didn't have it for......

The Bears and Colts met for a pre-season rematch of Super Bowl XLI on Monday night, with the Bears winning 27-24. Of greatest concern for Bears fans is the apparent return of Bad Rex last night. The Bears' quarterback fumbled the ball three times and threw an interception in his limited duty. Yikes! Even when Rex's stat lines look respectable -- 9 of 11 for 59 yards and scored a touchdown, his inconsistency strikes fear......

Sure, pre-season games don't mean very much. Any starter with so much as a hang nail remains on the sidelines and the starters who do play are in the showers before halftime. But it's still better when our team wins than loses. And fourth quarter comebacks are always exciting, whether pre-season or not. Robbie Gould's 47-yard field goal with 2:23 seconds left gave the Bears a 20-19 victory over the Houston Texans. For bears fans,......

For those of us whose baseball teams is hopelessly out of the playoff hunt, today is the day we've been waiting for since June -- the opening of Bears open training camp! Players arrived at Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais yesterday ahead of today's first practice. The Bears enter camp as reigning NFC Champs, and with the expectations of winning the Super Bowl this season. Can they overcome the fate of the past five......

With the Bears opening training camp on Friday, it's time to dust off the blue and orange, refresh our memories of last year's Super Bowl XLI appearance, and then start figuring out what to fret about come Week One. The Tribune points out their five areas of concern, while the Sun-Times gives us their ten things to watch for. 1. At the top of both lists is the quarterback situation. Can Rex Grossman be the......

We love watching him run from sideline to sideline, snuffing out running backs, or intercepting passes with one hand and running the ball back fifty yards. Off the field, however, Brian Urlacher just doesn't seem very bright. The Bears' star middle linebacker finds himself back in court in a battle over custody and visitation rights for his two-year-old son, Kennedy. Kennedy's mother, Tyna Robertson, revealed over thirty text messages Urlacher sent her since January using......

Following his arrest early Friday morning on suspicion of DUI, the Bears waived Tank Johnson on Monday. In the team's release to the media, GM Jerry Angelo said, "We are upset and embarrassed by Tank's actions last week. He compromised the credibility of our organization." So what great crime ultimately lead to Tank's dismissal from the Bears? He was stopped for driving 40 mph in a 25mph zone at 3:30am in Gilbert, Arizona and cited......