The Bears must be saved by the power of our words!, or: The Bears are finished

November 19th, 2007 | Posted by PostmanE

You’d think, after a thoroughly boring and mediocre first nine games, that Bears fans and media would come to grips with this team’s fate: boring mediocrity. All the evidence is right there. Blocking, running incisively, throwing, tackling, gap maintenance, route-running, coverage, Adam Archuleta — all of these things have ranged from awful to just below average this year, but never has any single one of them crept above average. (For the record, Archuleta has been roundly awful throughout the season.)

Of course, that doesn’t stop Chicago’s columnists from searching far and wide for the missing piece in the Bears’ repertoire. To Jay Mariotti, it’s Rex Grossman and a defensive scheme he ranks as “obselete” despite the fact that so many successful teams currently employ some variation of it. To Rick Morrissey (for the record, a much better columnist than Mariotti), it’s a sudden epiphany that the Bears defense is no good. Thankfully, one suburban columnist gets it right. The 2007 Bears are finished:

“No doubt,” Bears quarterback Rex Grossman said, “we’re (still) competing for a championship.”

Of what? Of a local park district pee-wee league? Of a canasta contest at the neighborhood nursing home?

“We’re not out of it,” Grossman insisted, “until somebody tells us we’re out of it.”

Wait, then. Allow me a few moments to adjust my grim reaper costume. OK, let’s get to it.

Fellas, you’re out of it. You are partly because you have a 4-6 record but mostly because you’re playing like a 4-6 team.

To reach the postseason the Bears would have to win at least five of their final six games and maybe all of them.

And to play in the NBA I’d have to grow another couple of feet — and maybe a few more arms, too.

In short, there has been nothing noteworthy about this Bears team this year. They sit, like so many other NFL teams, somewhere between OK and bad; they have no chance at a Super Bowl and little chance at the playoffs, but they keep fans interested every week because anything can happen, right?

Wrong. Just wrong. The Bears are bad, and there is little reason to go on caring, save for the long-term health of the franchise. I know columnists will continue to lament, but what’s the point? Investing oneself in this year’s Bears team makes one either blind, silly, or both.

Besides, surely the Bulls are more worthy of our scorn now.