Top Ten Overachieving Chicago Teams

By Danny Sheridan
Lately, we’ve seen more than our fair share of Chicago teams that have underachieved, including the '06 Sox, '07 Bears, '07-'08 Bulls, and '08 Cubs. Here are ten that exceeded expectations. If you think I missed one, let me know in the comment section. Also, the cutoff for this list was 1990.10. 2007 Illinois football
With a combined record over the previous four seasons of 8-38, five wins would have made people in Champaign happy during Ron Zook’s third year. After all, just two years earlier, when Illinois hosted Penn State, the scoreboard read Penn State 56, Illinois 3; at halftime. So how did things turn around so quickly? Four big reasons: the brilliance of Rashard Mendenhall, Zook’s recruiting, other Big Ten teams overlooking them and a “bend but don’t break” defense led by linebacker J. Leman. The win over top ranked Ohio State late in the year was most memorable, but earlier back to back victories over Penn State and Wisconsin set the tone for the entire season. Take away the blowout loss to USC in the Rose Bowl, and Illinois’ other three losses were by a combined 17 points.

9. 2008 White Sox
Back in April of this year, if you knew Nick Swisher would hit .219, Paul Konerko would be completely useless for the first five months, and that Javier Vazquez would lose 16 games, you had to figure this had all the makings of another 70 win season. Of course, you probably didn’t see Carlos Quentin turning into the AL’s best hitter, Gavin Floyd and Jon Danks combining for 29 wins and a 3.58 ERA, or Alexei Ramirez developing into a future star. It certainly helped that Detroit and Cleveland were arguably baseball’s two biggest disappointments, and that Minnesota had only three guys on their roster (Mauer, Morneau, Nathan) who were any good. Still, a Sox team that relied way too much on home runs and had to overcome some key injuries deserves a lot of credit for just getting to the playoffs.

8. 2005 Bears
In the Sports Illustrated issue previewing the 2005 NFL season, Paul Zimmerman had the Bears ranked 32^nd out of 32 teams. So when the Bears started 1-3, no one was too surprised. Maybe it was Mike Brown’s famous “we suck” line that turned things around. Maybe it was how weak the NFC North was then. More likely was that the defense just decided to dominate the last 12 games, holding opponents to under double digit points in seven of those contests. The defense needed to be almost perfect to offset what statistically was the worst offense in football. Kyle Orton had games of 67, 68, 93, and 117 passing yards, and the Bears won all four of those games. However, even after winning 11 games, no one was too surprised when Carolina (well Steve Smith) exposed the Bears in the playoffs as a pretender.

7. 2000 White Sox
Mike Sirotka, James Baldwin, Jim Parque, and Herbert Perry all became household names, for at least one season anyway. Other than Frank Thomas, who should have won the AL MVP, this was a very inexperienced Sox team that had no business winning a league best 95 games. The top four starters, which included Cal Eldred, combined for 52 wins that season. Those same four ended up winning a combined 21 games for the rest of their careers, with Sirotka never pitching again and Parque making only seven more starts.

6. 1995 Northwestern Football
Here’s a pretty intriguing stat: The 95 Northwestern team had exactly one player, receiver D’wayne Bates, who went on to have any kind of career in the NFL. By comparison, in the 1996 NFL draft, Ohio State had three guys picked in the first round, while Michigan and Penn State each had two. During the mid-90s, the Big Ten was arguably the nation’s toughest conference, yet Northwestern, a program which hadn’t had a winning season from 1972 through 1994, went undefeated in conference and got to the Rose Bowl. Although they came up short to USC and Keyshawn Johnson in Pasadena, guys like Darnell Autry, Pat Fitzgerald, and Gary Barnett helped put Northwestern on the map and produce one of college football’s most unlikely stories.

5. 2004-2005 Bulls
After starting 0-9, it looked like yet another lost season for a franchise that had won 17, 15, 30, and 23 games respectively the previous four years. Ben Gordon, Luol Deng, and Andres Nocioni were all rookies, and the Bulls appeared at least two years away from being any kind of contender. Then, we saw a rarity in the NBA: a team without a go-to scorer relies on its defense, hustle, and effort to go from a laughingstock to the third best record in the East. Here’s how you know that team greatly overachieved. The very next year the same nucleus returned, yet they had to go on a late season surge just to win 41 games. Oh yeah, one more thing: in the playoffs against the Wizards in 05, the Bulls starting frontline consisted of Othella Harrington and Antonio Davis. Enough said.

4. 2005 White Sox
An everyday lineup that includes Scott Podsednik, Juan Uribe, Carl Everett, and Tadahito Iguchi should not win 99 games and go 11-1 in the playoffs en route to a World Series. Sorry, but this Sox team was not that good. Cliff Politte and Neal Cotts were one-year wonders out of the bullpen, Jose Contreras turned into the best pitcher in baseball for the last month, and Jon Garland pitched like an ace all season instead of the number three pitcher he has been the rest of his career. Baseball playoffs are all about momentum, good pitching and catching some breaks, which the Sox had all of.

3. 1998 Cubs
Do these names ring a bell? Scott Servais, Jose Hernandez, Manny Alexander, and Henry Rodriguez. All were regulars on a Cubs team that somehow won 90 games and captured a wild-card spot. Besides Sammy’s 66 homers, that season had so many other memorable moments, like Kerry Wood’s 20 strikeout game, Brant Brown’s dropped fly ball, and Gary Gaetti’s go-ahead homer against the Giants in the one-game playoff. In all honesty though, this may have been one of the worst baseball teams in recent memory to make the playoffs. Mickey Morandini, Lance Johnson, Steve Trachsel, and Rod Beck all played way above their heads the entire season.

2. 1994 Bulls
When Michael announced his retirement right before training camp, it was logical to assume the team would take a big step back. But if not for Hue Hollins’ ridiculous foul call on Scottie Pippen at the end of game five in the second round against the Knicks, the Bulls win that series and likely go back to the NBA Finals. Despite having a weak supporting cast, Pippen absolutely carried the Bulls to 55 wins, and in the process asserted himself as one of the game’s top five players. With B.J. Armstrong and rookie Toni Kukoc as the team’s second scoring options, the Bulls won with great defense, balance (nine guys averaged at least eight points), and the coaching of Phil Jackson.

1. 2001 Bears
Looking at the depth chart and statistics, there’s no way anyone can explain how that Bears team won 13 games. Okay, so the defense was really good, especially the linebackers and defensive tackles, but still, Jim Miller was the quarterback, Anthony Thomas the running back, David Terrell and Dez White were the number two and three receivers, and Walt Harris the top cornerback. I mean, the way they won some games was totally improbable: overcoming a 15 point deficit with five minutes left against the 49ers to win in overtime, recovering an onside kick and throwing a hail mary the very next week to force overtime and eventually beat the Browns, or having Martin Gramatica miss a 30- yard field goal that would have given Tampa Bay a win. With the same team back in 2002, the Bears went 4-12.