A season of pain

Ends in bliss at Lambeau Field.

Caleb gives me hope.

The Chicago Bears

are the only team for me.

Our time is coming.

Biography of Author

Philip Kaisary is the 2023–25 Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor in Cultural Mediations and an Associate Professor in the Department of Law & Legal Studies, the Department of English Language & Literature, and the Institute for Comparative Studies in Literature, Art & Culture. Philip is a legal, literary, and cultural comparativist and his work brings questions of resistance and struggle to bear on legal and cultural forms, theorizes and critically appraises alternative modes of being in the world, and addresses the intersections of law, politics, and culture. He is the author of The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints (University of Virginia Press, 2014) and his next book, From Havana to Hollywood: Slave Resistance in the Cinematic Imaginary, is forthcoming with SUNY Press. During his tenure as Ruth and Mark Phillips Professor, Philip will be leading a law and literature teaching and research project that, evoking the work of Benita Parry on postcolonial theory, is titled, “Directions and Dead Ends in the ‘Law and Literature’ Movement.” This project has as its goal the development of a materialist and worldly approach to ‘Law and Literature.’

Bears will venture to Green Bay, where

Losing has become a way of life. 

One team is about stability,

With their personnel department and coaching staff sorted.

One team is about instability, going through their

Usual postseason first-and-hire song and dance.

This game will look familiar.

Green Bay Packers 30, Chicago Bears 10

Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week? 

I don’t know when I started using this phrase to open my game previews, but I don’t really remember not doing so. Each week I repeat it and each week I follow it with the simple, “I always like the Chicago Bears.”

And as we begin the 20th season of DaBearsBlog (2005-2025), it remains true. Social media seems to be the staging ground for something of an existential crisis when it comes to Bears fans and their fandom. The subtext of almost every tweet is “I don’t want to be a fan anymore.” I don’t get it. Fandom comes with no guarantees. You root for a team because you like the team, or because they play in your community, or because they represent your nation, or because they’re a half black guy upending the whitest sport on the planet. Then you watch them play and hope they win. That’s the extent of the transaction. But if you’re willing to either (a) stop watching the sport entirely or (b) switch teams, then you were never an actual fan to begin with.

If you don’t want to prioritize watching a bad team’s games, I get that. I made that decision myself this season a few times, skipping Bears v. Patriots to give a lecture and hang after with the audience, and giving in to exhaustion at halftime of Bears v. Seahawks, wherein I missed the worst 30 minutes of NFL football all season. You don’t have to suffer through every minute of team’s season to have your fandom ticket validated. But being a fan doesn’t actually cost you anything if you keep that fandom in emotional perspective. Get angry when they lose. Complain when they make bad organizational decisions. But it is still a game, played for your amusement. Enjoy it.

The Bears are going to lose Sunday. You should accept that fact today, right now, reading this. The Packers are good and gearing up for a playoff run and still have pivotal seeding to play for. The Bears are bad. If watching the Bears lose brings you immense agita, might I recommend a visit to the cinema this weekend? Or just hang with the kids? Or go to your local watering hole and argue about politics? Blow this game off and focus your attention on the coaching search come Monday morning.

This is not a game preview because this game carries no meaning for the Chicago Bears organization. It is a game they are playing because schedules dictate they play a 17th game. If they had an opportunity to knock their division rival from the tournament, then you could really put some weight behind this finale. But does altering Green Bay’s seeding get you pumped up? Not me. As the calendar is turning, the Packers are relevant, and the Bears are not. Rinse. Repeat.

For auld lang syne, my dear
For auld lang syne
We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet
For the sake of auld lang syne

“We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet.”

That is a lovely sentiment to share with Bears fans as we enter a new year.

The Bears will have a new leader on the sideline to pair with their young quarterback.

We can only hope that pairing will finally be the right one for this tortured organization and fan base.

We can only hope to drink that cup of kindness.

From all of us at DBB (which is basically just me), to all of you, I wish you happy returns in 2025, both in your lives and from your favorite football team. You’ve certainly earned it from the latter.

Sincerely,

The Help.

Another season,

utterly forgettable.

Where be our sunshine?

A gothic church. A confessional. A priest sits back to the wall. A man kneels in prayer. A wall divides them.

Priest: What sins have you to confess, my son?

Man: I believed, father.

Priest: Believing is not a sin.

Man: It should be.

Priest: What did you believe?

Man: I believed 2024 would be different, father. I believed this year would look different than other years.

Priest: Did it not?

Man: It did not.

Priest: Do you regret your belief?

Man: How can I?

Priest: Then why do you confess it as sin?

Man: What else can I do? What is the purpose of this all if we don’t succumb to the belief that year ahead will be different, will be better, than the year just experienced?

Read More …

Takeaways from Thomas Brown’s fourth loss in as many games as Bears head coach:

1.) They’ve failed Caleb Williams in so many ways this season.

Ryan Poles doesn’t deserve to be the GM anymore. He needs to be fired.

— Matt Eurich (@MattEurich) December 27, 2024