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As of Sunday, I’ve completely emotionally checked out as a Bears fan.
I don’t even want to be a Bears fan this season.
As of now, I’m bleak German filmmaker Werner Herzog, at least with regard to my Bears fandom.
The Bears should accept their fate as a terrible football team. Why even play football anymore? Just give up on this season, this profession, this life.
Let’s just stare into the blank and formless abyss that is the Bears’ 2014 season. It doesn’t matter if we get shot with an air rifle; the season is so bad that taking an air pellet is an upgrade.
(Note: Herzog really did get shot with an air rifle during an interview. He didn’t really care, continuing the interview and not caring to find out who took the shot. Check it out on YouTube.)
Or maybe I’m more like the Bears fan version of “True Detective’s” Rust Cohle, played by Matthew McConaughey.
Earth, or at least the part covered by Halas Hall and Soldier Field, is a giant gutter in outer space.
Becoming a Bears fan was a tragic misstep in evolution. The honorable thing for Bears fans to do would be to deny our programming and walk hand-in-hand into extinction.
Shame on me for thinking the Bears could be really good after the offense set franchise records last year and the defense was supposedly upgraded during the offseason with the additions of Jared Allen, Lamarr Houston and Ryan Mundy (more on them later).
I’ve had reason in my history as a fan to be an optimist for certain teams at certain times. For instance, the White Sox rewarded my patience and optimism with a World Series championship in 2005.
I briefly became an optimist for the Bears, too, during the great 2006 season.
Of course, that optimism went right out the window in February 2007, when the Bears fell flat in the Super Bowl against the Colts.
So why did I allow myself to be optimistic about this season?
At the beginning of the season, I really did believe that the defense was upgraded and that the offense would be as good or better than the 27.8 points per game they put up last year.
After three games, I had faith that things were trending in the right direction. Though the Bears had lost to the usually lowly Buffalo Bills, they had picked up a big win at the San Francisco 49ers and won on the road against the New York Jets.
That’s when things began to fall apart. The Green Bay Packers waxed the Bears 38-17 before Chicago lost a game they should have won to the Carolina Panthers.
The optimism returned for a bit during the win against the Atlanta Falcons, but the Bears still should have won by more.
All optimism was erased in the zero-point first half of the loss to the Dolphins.
Then a neutral feeling on the team turned rapidly to active disgust during this weekend’s atrocious performance against the New England Patriots.
It sure was nice to see Matt Forte run the ball so well, but it sure was awful to watch Jay Cutler under-throw a ball that would be picked off before halftime.
And, of course, he had the awful fumble where he was trying to be a hero when he didn’t need to be.
And after all of Brandon Marshall’s fire and passion after the Miami game last week, he came out and didn’t make a catch until the second half.
If you want to yell at teammates in the locker room after a game, maybe people wouldn’t be rolling their eyes and trying to get out of there if you get open every now and then.
I really hoped that the Bears would respond to the Miami loss with at least a solid showing against the Patriots. Alas, a 51-23 loss is not a solid showing.
To make matters worse, the defense hasn’t gotten better.
Allen hasn’t been much of a factor, and Rob Gronkowski barbarized Mundy.
Worst of all, Lamarr Houston tore his ACL celebrating a sack in the fourth quarter of an absolute blowout.
I don’t want to go in too hard on an injured player–obviously, he didn’t want to be injured. But we saw the exact same celbration result in the exact same injur with Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch.
How hard is it to not celebrate by jumping with forward momentum and abruptly putting your foot in the ground, especially when you’re losing huge?
Yeah, I’d say my outlook as a Bears fan is bleak.
But hey, if I’m the Rust Cohle of Bears fans, maybe I get to believe this:
The entire 2014 season for the Bears is a dream we’re having in a locked room, a dream about being a Bears fan. And like many dreams, it’s been a nightmare.
Tim Carroll
Senior Sports Editor
Twitter
@TimCarroll_XAV
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