Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?
I always like the Chicago Bears…
…and after a few weeks in the darkness of Quitsville, I’m back!
The Stakes
The Bears are 6-7. And this might be the most important game ever played by a 6-7 team.
If the Bears win Sunday, they’ll be 7-7, with Jacksonville on deck. (8-7) That’ll bring the Packers to town, with Tim Boyle likely starting, and a playoff spot likely on the line. If the Bears win Sunday they will be playing meaningful football for 17 weeks at a minimum. That’s how the late Giants owner Wellington Mara defined a successful season. And knew a bit about football.
But winning, especially with another superior offensive effort, would also continue to change the narrative around the head coach. Nobody is firing a head coach who is eight games over (minimum) in his first three years. And if the quarterback pitches another triple-digit quarterback rating? How could the narrative around him not alter slightly as well? Wouldn’t the Bears have to start considering a 2021 prove it deal?
Now if the Bears lose Sunday, their season ends. If they lose Sunday and deliver another lackluster offensive effort against the Vikings, Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky go back under the bright interrogative lamps of media and fans. (Hard to imagine Ted Phillips and Ryan Pace won’t be there regardless of these final games.) A loss flips the fourteen-day hourglass and the sand shuffles through on January 4th. That’s when we’ll find out who among the leadership is coming back in 2021.
It’s all at stake Sunday.
Fun Christmas Song Performances: Volume II
The first one is…bizarre. K.D. Lang on PeeWee’s Christmas Special (1988).
____________
Here are Big Bird and Swedish Chef singing Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. The latter makes me laugh. The former makes me physically uncomfortable.
____________
If I’m making a Christmas album mixtape, I might start with this track.
Bold Prediction/Haiku
It happens this week.
Robert Quinn returns to form,
and sacks Cousins. Twice.
Prediction
If the pass rush shows up in Minnesota like they did against Houston, this game might not be particularly close. But over the last month we’ve seen too many periods where they disappear to think they’ll dominate for another four quarters. (And if Jaylon Johnson can’t go, look out for Justin Jefferson again.)
The Bears will need points. I think Nagy and Mitch will get them. And the conversation around this franchise will be very different Monday morning.
Chicago Bears 30, Minnesota Vikings 28
