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In general, it can be difficult for a team to maintain winning year after year. To do that they have to be a team that is either willing to spend money and they spend that money on the right players or there a team that knows how to draft and develop players phenomenally. Now there are a few teams in professional sports that do both of these things, and they stay in playoff contention from year to year.

Now you’d think that since I live close to a major metropolitan city Chicago that I would have at least one team that would be able to compete year after year, but sadly we don’t, and I’m not sure why that is.

Since football is considered the top sport in America, I guess will start looking at the Chicago Bears. The Bears are coming off of a season where they went 3-14 which was the worst record in the National Football League. Now that record does get the Bears the #1 overall pick in the upcoming draft, but now most teams use them to select a franchise quarterback and it appears as though the Bears have their quarterback of the future in Justin Fields, so the Bears won’t be taking a quarterback with that pick. Of course, the Bears could trade that #1 pick and it seems that they’ll do that, but you have to wonder what type of return they’ll get for it since teams know that they wouldn’t use that pick on a quarterback. This will be an ongoing story until the Bears make some kind of move with that pick.

The Bears haven’t had a winning record since 2018 and they haven’t won a playoff game since 2010. Of course, Bears fans will quickly remind you of the 1985 team that went 15-1 and is considered one of the best teams in the NFL all-time. The Bears have made 12 playoff appearances since that 1985 season and did get back to the Super Bowl in 2006 losing to the Indianapolis Colts.

These last few seasons the Bears don’t seem to be anywhere near a team that could win the Super Bowl. They did make the playoffs in 2020, but they were an 8-8 team and probably had no business in the playoffs.

The Bears have admitted that they are in a rebuild and they have brought in a new front office to do that rebuild. The question is how long will that rebuild take? and will it lead to another championship?

Now, we do have two teams in Chicago that are in the process of wrapping up their regular seasons. Unfortunately for those two teams it doesn’t look like either will find their way into the playoffs.

The Chicago Bulls are currently 29-35 and in 11th place in the Eastern conference. Even with the National Basketball Association’s new play-in format the Bulls wouldn’t make the playoffs with where they are in the standings right now. The Bulls are only a 1 1/2 out of the 10th and final Eastern conference playoff spot, but really what good would it do them to even get into the playoffs.

If you go back to just last season the Bulls were actually in 1st place in the Eastern conference for a period of time and there were some people in the media who thought that they might be able to compete for the NBA title. Well last season the Bulls tumbled to 6th place and were easily knocked out of the 1st round of the playoffs by the Milwaukee Bucks.

There was some hope for this Bulls team coming into this season, but they’ve easily been one of the most disappointing team in the NBA this season. In a league where the majority of the teams make the playoffs there’s a very good chance that the Bulls won’t end up in that majority, how sad is that for a major market team.

The other Chicago sports team currently wrapping up their regular season is the Chicago Blackhawks and let’s face it their season can’t end soon enough.

The Blackhawks are another Chicago sports team that is going through a rebuild and that reflects in their record. The Blackhawks are 21-36-5 and have accumulated just 47 points this season which is the worst in the Western conference and currently the second worst point total in all of the National Hockey League.

It appears as though the Blackhawks have capped off the tearing down part of their rebuild this week when they traded their last remaining superstar Patrick Kane to the New York Rangers. It’s quite possible that we would’ve also seen the Blackhawks trade their last remaining link to their Stanley Cup winning teams if Jonathan Toews hadn’t had to go on the Injured Reserve with an illness.

I guess you could question how long this Blackhawks rebuild has been going on? Or if they’re doing it the right way? The Blackhawks have made the playoffs just once in the past five seasons and the NHL is another one of those leagues were the majority of the teams make the playoffs. The Blackhawks made the playoffs during the NHL’s Covid-19 season, so that’s a difficult season to judge. The Blackhawks did win there qualifying round match up that season, but they haven’t won an actual playoff series since the 2014-15 season when they went on to win their third Stanley Cup in six seasons.

With the team appearing to be completely stripped down you have to wonder if and or when the Blackhawks will be able to build the team back up to the point where they’ll just make the playoffs. Who knows if the team will ever return to the point where they’re looked at as a Stanley Cup contender.

Well, now we’ve gotten to the two teams that people will be optimistic about because they’re currently in spring training and everyone will get excited for the start of baseball season, but what are we really going to get from the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox.

The Cubs are one of the odder teams in all of Major League Baseball. The Cubs are one of the better drawing teams in all of MLB attendance wise, even when they lose, so you’d think that they’d be in the market to sign the big-time free agents when they hit the market, but they never seem to be. It’s almost as if the Cubs are a team that plays in the big market of Chicago, but they’re run like a small market team. You can add the Cubs to the list of Chicago sports teams that are currently going through a rebuild.

Cubs’ fans will immediately tell you that they just won a World Series, but that was now seven seasons agio and they’ve been nowhere near competing for another one since. The Cubs have made three playoff appearances since that World Series win, but they’ve only won one playoff series.

While there were some big names on the free agent market the Cubs some of the Cubs free agent signings were Trey Mancini, Eric Hosmer and Jameson Taillon. The Cubs did go out and make one big signing in shortstop Dansby Swanson, but he was at the bottom of the free agent shortstop market, so the Cubs basically settled for the leftover big name free agent.

What Cubs fans should find very frustrating is that they play in a very weak National League Central and could or should compete every year, but for some reason choose not to.

I guess the only team in Chicago that has any chance of being competitive are the Chicago White Sox, but after coming off of a disappointing 2022 season, will they?

The White Sox made the playoffs in 2020 and 2021 which led to a lot of people thinking that they could possibly win the American League pennant and go to the World Series. Sadly, the White Sox finished with a record of 81-81 and while they did somehow end up in 2nd place in the American League Central, they were never a serious playoff or World Series contender.

The White Sox didn’t make any major free agent signings. They did allow veteran and team leader Jose Abreu to leave as a free agent while adding outfielder Andrew Benintendi.

The White Sox bullpen also took a big hit when closer Liam Hendricks was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma and is currently undergoing treatment. It’s unclear if Hendricks will pitch for the White Sox this season. The one thing that the White Sox have is they acquired Kendall Graveman before the trade deadline last season, and he has closing experience.

It appears as though the White Sox are hoping that their young players continue to mature and improve, but those young players have had issues staying healthy.

The White Sox have an advantage of playing in a weak division and might be the one Chicago team that has a winning season, but that’s what everyone thought last season and it didn’t turn out that way.

Well, that’s what the sports teams look like in my area. What do they look like where you live? Do they spend money? Or are they good at developing players? I’ll be interested to know what you think about the teams in your city.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.