If you lived in Chicago, you might grow tired of the Chicago Bears; at least for one-third of the season. From September to January you would possibly get sick of the teams. If you live in Chicago, you are certainly sick of the 1985 Chicago Bears. There is no need to ever publicize them again, but…media outlets still do it.
Local talk radio is pretty much all Chicago Bears all time; rendering it unlistenable. However, the over-coverage does bring with it some benefits. If you need to run errands/go to the gym/pick up something at the store, then during the Bears game is the perfect time to do so. The roads are empty.
However, it could be changing.
If the Bears keep playing like they did today, it most definitely will change. Make no mistake though, the team will finish 7-9 or 6-10 or somewhere thereabouts. That’s today’s NFL- the level of parity is absurd.
No single NFL regular season game means all that much, though everyone overreacts to each contest as if it’s the most important thing on the planet.
Look no further than the Chicago Bears opponent today, the New England Patriots. Remember three weeks ago when we incessantly heard how they were finished? Tom Brady was over the hill? Bill Belichick past his prime? The championship window closed? Then they went and laid 43 on a really good Cincinnati Bengals team.
In other words, today’s NFL coverage is mostly noise and no signal. The Bears looked horrendous today, but they are mediocre, and will finish the season as such.
“Bears fans keep asking me what’s wrong with their team. I tell them, everything is wrong with the team.” – Rodney Harrison
It’s very easy to criticize quarterback Jay Cutler given that he’s the NFL’s highest paid player and isn’t even among the ten best players at his position, let alone in the entire league. However, this defense is so horrendous that it’s really not his fault. Even Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers combined couldn’t win with the pathetic effort on the other side of the ball.
“Now Marc Trestman – he’s at the crossroads as far as leadership. Now is he going to turn this team around because they don’t have great personnel, they don’t have great defense and they don’t have great special teams, which they always had before. So for me, I like to spread the blame around to the rest of the team. This is not a talented roster. The front office hasn’t done a great job of puttin’ a whole bunch of players out there and this is the result of it.”
-Cris Carter on ESPN Sunday NFL Countdown
The team gave up the most points in a single half in the history of the franchise. The Chicago Bears surrendered 21 points in 45 seconds. It’s not just bad, it’s so bad that it’s amusing. It’s not tragedy, it’s comedy now.
NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport on what happened in the Chicago Bears locker room following last week’s loss to the Miami Dolphins:
“According to two sources in the locker room, here is what happened postgame: Brandon Marshall went off on his team, unhappy of course with the losing and the performance. One player rolled his eyes at Brandon Marshall and said, ‘Here we go.’ Lamarr Houston, formerly of the Oakland Raiders, he stepped in, he had Marshall’s back yelling at this teammate saying, ‘If you can leave here and be OK with this, if you can be OK with the performance then what are we doing here?’ As Houston said, he lost a lot with the Oakland Raiders – he did not come to Chicago to lose. He is not OK with the way they played.”
You can guess which Chicago Bears player that could be. No one really knows for sure, but this quote from another NFL Network personality seems to venture a guess:
– “He may not be the only problem but I believe he’s the biggest problem with this team. When he plays well, this team wins. When he doesn’t play well, this team loses because they’re based on offense…The problem with Jay Cutler for me is the lack of consistency. He has only put together one game all year long where he’s been consistent first half to second.” – Kurt Warner on Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2