I don’t hate the Bears. Far from it. I don’t root against them or want them to lose. I’m genuinely happy for them. But Bears fans are making it very, very difficult to wrap arms around what’s happening as they ignore what’s really going on.
It’s been building all season long — right now “apex” might be the biggest understatement in Chicago sports history. It’s like the whole city has turned into a Kanye “Can’t Tell Me Nothing” verse. No one is trying to hear any sense of reality when it comes to the Bears. They’re acting like current members of a certain administration concerning a certain insurrection: What we’re seeing is not what we’re seeing.
Sorry if that analogy Dave Chappelles you.
“This was as joyous as anything I have ever attended in Chicago that didn’t include a guy wearing No. 23 in white” is how ESPN’s Michael Wilbon put last week’s victory over the Packers. Never knowing he felt that way about Devin Hester. A win — what, really? — 11 seasons in the making. An overreaction 16 weeks into its making. The total rejection of exactly “how they got here.”
The joy has created a universal, blind euphoria that has infected, it seems, everyone. Troy Aikman simply mentioned the word “luck” and the entire city got sensitive as Drake. I thought we were better than that. Seems — at least when it comes to the Bears — I was wrong.
No disrespect to this very paper, but “good fortune” is not a part of a “winning formula,” as stated in the headline and deck of this week’s First-and-10. Still, good fortune has become this team’s badge of honor, this city’s dependence. As if they have C.F. Frost clout when they really don’t.
It’s to the point where you (almost) want to root against the Bears just to force surrealism to set in, to force fans to collectively consider the factors that should break this hangover of happiness and spell of self-deception:
† The Ravens playing the Bears without Lamar Jackson.
† The Bengals playing without Joe Burrow and Trey Hendrickson.
† The Giants without Malik Nabers or Cam Skattebo and with backup rookie QB Jaxson Dart starting just his seventh game.
† The Steelers without Aaron Rodgers.
† A blocked field goal with 38 seconds left in a one-point win over the Raiders.
† An unforced fumble by Commanders quarterback Jayden Daniels on third-and-one while the Bears were down by two with 3:10 left, leading to a second straight 25-24 win. (Go figure.)
† Losing to a Giants team that was 2-8 (and 0-6 on the road) before Caleb Williams’ TD run with 1:47 left in the game.
† Missed tackles by two Vikings safeties on tight end Colston Loveland with the Bears down by one with 25 seconds to go, leading to a walk-off win on a 38-yard field goal.
† A shanked 26-yard punt with three minutes left in the fourth quarter of that Giants game.
† Everything that unfurled last week against the Packers — no Micah Parsons, no Jordan Love after the second quarter, a muffed onside-kick recovery while down 16-9 with under two minutes to go, an unforced (again!) fumbled snap by Packers backup QB Malik Willis on fourth-and-one in overtime.
Can’t lie: This whole thing has both deserved and delusional praise.
Cardiac Bears. Miracles on the Midway. Miraculous. Team of Destiny. Whatever. I’m not saying the question should be, “Why are you all playing so bad to get yourselves into these ‘hero necessary/football Gods needed’ situations?” But I am kinda saying the question needs to be asked . . . before every other question!
They’ve won, even when they don’t show up for 50-58 minutes of games. Yet we celebrate. Yet we act like the coming from behind, playing below standards, getting every single break that can exist in a football game is something that is actually sustainable. The Bears are the Jacksonville of the NFC . . . except with six come-from-behind wins that all have come with extreme caveats.
Yes, the Bears have signed up for 60 or 60-plus minutes every week, but every game has a circumstance that is an unanswered challenge of why they were in — or put themselves in — the situation they were in in the first place. We can’t sit here and act like these circumstances don’t exist.
This isn’t revulsion. This is wanting the Bears — and, more directly, the fans — to deal with reality as the playoffs loom. There’s no excuse for the absentmindedness in thinking these inconceivable best-of-the-best-case scenarios the Bears have been afforded and their underachieving performances in 90% of these wins is “Bears magic” that is going to carry over in any and all games involving them from Jan. 10 to Feb. 8.
Delusion is never a good option. Why have “we” chosen it?
Look, a brotha ain’t trying to rain on this parade, but I also am not the one who is blindly feeling this reign, knowing this team — while winning — is doing so in a way that makes people mistake mirage for mastery. I know better. Anyone reading this knows better. But why does it feel like I’m the only one addressing the banana that everyone knows is in the bandwagon’s tailpipe?