Week Ten: Patriots at Bears Open Thread
Chicago Bears 16, New England Patriots 13
I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
I used to write an awful lot about football around here, but that was at a time when there were fewer people saturating the market (with mostly boring material). Now I write about Sidney Lumet, and one-act game reactions. Why? Because no one else does that. And if this isn’t going to make me rich, it’s certainly going to make me smile.
Since the fall of 2000, I have missed one Bears game. 24 years. One game. I was in Ireland and spent more than an hour at a pay phone, as my buddy Josh relayed to me the play-by-play of a Bears victory over the Vikings in 2005. I’ve been late to a grandfather’s funeral. I’ve watched the Bears from a Paris hotel in the middle of the night. If they’re playing, I’m watching, and it’s been that way for two and a half decades.
This Sunday, at the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY, I’ll be presenting one of my favorite films, the 1957 classic Sweet Smell of Success. It will start at 11 AM, with my introduction, followed by a twenty-minute lecture by yours truly and a Q&A. I won’t be leaving the theater until around 2 PM. There is a bar in Pleasantville that will be showing the Bears v. Patriots, and honestly, I will more than likely hustle over there for the end of Q2 and second half. But why I will do that is becoming something of a mystery.
I was so excited about this team a few weeks ago that I went to Washington D.C. to see them. Now, I’m not despondent or dejected. I’m apathetic. I’ve seen this story before, many times. It’s still boring. You want me to use this space to talk about New England’s turnover differential or third-down conversion percentage? You want me to pick three Bears under pressure? Why? You want me to keep a window on my phone open during the Q&A and double-time it to Foley’s on Sunday? I may do that! But it’ll be more instinct than excitement.
I’ll make a prediction tomorrow, and I’ll probably predict the Bears to win. But honestly, it’s more interesting if they lose! If they lose, there’s something to write about Monday morning, something to talk about. Clearly this structure is not working and it’s not going to work. Something has to change. But this is the Chicago Bears. Something always has to change.
Sunday, at least for me, will be a change.
It is a season drifting away. Again.
In Glendale, we learned
a game can tell a story.
A tragic drama.
Lifeless and listless,
the Bears quit on their head coach,
ending their season.
When do you move on?
When do you know it’s over?
Has that time not come?
Deidre and Colleen are seated in their golf start, waiting for the group ahead of them to tee off at Talking Stick. Deidre smokes cigar. Colleen sips a gin and tonic. It is 6:30 AM.
Deidre: It’s a dry heat.
Colleen: Then why am I drenched at six o’clock in the morning.
Deidre: I hate that word.
Colleen: What word?
Deidre: Drenched.
Colleen: What word would you prefer I use?
Deidre: I don’t care.
Colleen: Sweaty? Saturated? Moistened?
Deidre: Towels are moistened, not human.
Colleen: I’ve been moistened.
Beat.
Deidre: How do you know?
Colleen: How do I know what?
Deidre: When it’s time to go, when it’s time to stop doing something.
Colleen: What are you talking about?
Deidre: We do things, human being. We do things because we’re supposed to, because that’s what you do. But how do you know when to stop doing a thing?
Colleen: You’re talking about Eberflus.
Deidre: I’m talking about Eberflus.
Colleen: It’s time.
Deidre: Is it?
Colleen: Time.
Deidre: Okay.
Beat.
So, what is going to happen on Sunday?
Chicago Bears 30, Arizona Cardinals 20
I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
So, as many of you might have realized, I took a step back from the “insider” stuff when returning to school. That kind of work requires diligence, dedication and most importantly, nerve. You have to be willing to go with information when you trust it, and then sweat it out until it becomes reality (while the rest of Bears media peppers you with texts). The “sweat it out” part was not for me.
But on the drive from DC to Newark Monday, and throughout the day Tuesday, I texted everyone, trying to gauge what the league-wide consensus was on Matt Eberflus. Here is what I gathered in that informal survey.
– Eberflus is an exceptionally well-liked man in the league.
– Said one personnel guy: “Never make decisions after a Hail Mary loss.” (And he’s been through a bad one.)
– Said one scout: “The Ben Johnson/Breer leak was interesting timing. Johnson smells blood in the water.” I had to sit with this text a bit. Is Ben Johnson really thinking about his NEXT job in October, while being the OC of a team that looks like the overwhelming favorite to make the Super Bowl from the NFC?
– Said one former personnel guy, now a TV guy: “These next few games are very important.”
And this last comment is where I’ve landed on Eberflus. I don’t think it particularly matters if he’s the coach in 2025 or not. Do I think they can win with him? Yes. I think he’s becoming an excellent in-game adjuster, which was his primary flaw a year ago. But there’s not enough positive with Flus that I believe he’d be a major loss on the sideline should they replace him, and I don’t think Caleb would be all that flustered by a system change on offense, especially if they move to an offensive head coach.
But if Flus wants to stave off calls for his job, I think he must win these next two games. I’m not saying he’ll be fired either way, but the calls for his job will persist all season long if he’s not 6-3.
The Bears are 4-3, and in last place in the NFC North.
The Arizona Cardinals are 4-4, and in first place in the NFC West.
The NFC is the wild, wild west, so it makes poetic sense that a contest to define the Bears’ season will take place just about 195 miles from the O.K. Corral.
The Hail Maryland is over. It’s in the past. So is the dismal effort the Bears delivered for three quarters of their loss in Landover, a stadium that provides perhaps the worst sports viewing atmosphere outside of the swamp in New Jersey. (I have chosen not to write about my time in Northwest Stadium. Nobody wants to read that.) When I analyzed this three-game stretch coming out of the bye, it seemed imperative for the Bears to go 2-1, splitting their road games and beating the Patriots at home. That is still on the table. If the Bears can finish this stretch at 6-3, tournament relevance in January is still very much on the table. If they are 5-4, those questions become more difficult to answer.
Thus, it is not difficult to position Sunday’s game in Arizona as the most important the Bears have played thus far in 2024. How they start, especially after Washington, will be scrutinized. The offensive and defensive game-planning going in, especially after Washington, will be scrutinized. How Matt Eberflus manages the game, especially after Washington, will be scrutinized. Every major contributor, especially those with big contracts like DJ Moore and Montez Sweat, will be scrutinized. Tyrique Stevenson will be…very scrutinized.
And that’s what makes Sunday fun. The leaves are changing. The air is chilling. The calendar will have flipped from October to November. New York City will be celebrating the NYC Marathon, its best day of the year. All the talk of meaningless preseason games and hitless camp practices ends. The Bears have a football game they must win if they have designs on more than just scoreboard watching a seven seed after Christmas. Everything will be magnified.
Can the 2024 version of this club hold up under that scrutiny?
