The greatest punchline in the history of television comedy.
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The Bears are a dreadful football team. On a neutral field, this Sunday, I would not favor the them against any team in the league. Not Atlanta. Not Tampa. Not the Jets or Jaguars or Raiders or the Buffalo Grove Bison.
So why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?
I *sigh* always like the Chicago Bears.
The Bears organization does not want to fire Marc Trestman at the end of this season; not when they know the 2015 offensive talent will look remarkably similar to the 2014 offensive talent and a systemic overhaul would likely burn through another year of “the window” in the name of transition. But Trestman won’t avoid the sack as a matter of convenience. The next seven weeks offer him an opportunity to earn another season at the helm. Here’s the map.
Step #1. Trestman’s Bears beat the Vikings and Bucs at home. This would move the team to 5-6 and at least slightly mute the chorus of naysayers. These games are must wins. Can anything Trestman achieves the remainder of the 2014 campaign be taken seriously if his team loses to Teddy Bridgewater or Josh McCown at home? (A loss to Lovie Smith would be an especially emphatic nail in the coffin.)
Step #2. Trestman’s Bears deliver a spirited effort on Thanksgiving. This will be the next time the Bears receive any national attention. It would be imperative from a public relations perspective for the Bears to (a) not embarrass themselves and (b) show the fight and passion missing from their efforts against New England and Green Bay. In many ways beating the Lions on Thanksgiving and moving to .500 would not only be a saving face performance but it might also create optimism around the coach’s potential to lead this organization into the future.
I’ve received more requests for radio spots and podcasts in the last 48 hours than in any 48 hour period since I started writing this site in 2005. Many of those requests came from websites and radio stations with no direct ties to Chicago. You wanted a transcendent franchise, Chicago? You got one.
As always my buddy Trent Condon in Des Moines asked the most direct questions and pulled the most succinct answers. This is how I feel about the state of the Chicago Bears today.
Deadspin reported the story on Monday about Bears fans harassing the daughters of Marc Trestman because, you know, he’s struggling as a football coach. The article’s author, Samer Kalaf, summed the entire ordeal up perfectly: “The Bears suck, but these people suck more.”
Sports are fun. They are life’s great escape. And I don’t judge anyone emotionally investing in a football or any other team because it is the one element of life where a human can be completely unselfish. We have nothing to do with these outcomes, even though we often blame the sandwich we ate or where we sat or what jersey we wore.
You’d hope these assholes harassing the Trestman girls are teenagers but unfortunately they are not. They are useless non-entities unhappy with their own existence who’ve put too much of their self worth on the wins and losses of football team. To any of those individuals who might come across this site I encourage you to grow up and get a fucking life. Marc Trestman may not last as the coach of the Bears but he’s achieved more in his last two years on this earth than you’ll achieve in all of yours.
It is people like these pricks starting fights in parking lots and giving sports fans a bad name all these years and I’m tired of it.
This space has never been used to call for the firing of a head coach and by all accounts Marc Trestman is a good and decent man whose tenacious pursuit of an NFL head coaching position deserves praise. But the Chicago Bears had two weeks to study the errs of back-to-back disasters against the Dolphins and Patriots. They had two weeks to prepare for the Green Bay Packers and set the stage for the second half of the season. What happened? They got worse. Somehow, they got less competitive.
Having spent a fair amount of this life watching NFL football I feel comfortable now making the following statement: Marc Trestman is not the right man to lead the Chicago Bears and the McCaskey family will be remiss not to make this change at year’s end.
Bruce Arians is a cool guy, a terrific hat wearer and his personality would have been a perfect match for the city of Chicago. (Look at how “beer and a shot Maddon” was universally beloved by Chicago media Monday.) To assume, however, that his not being hired by Phil Emery was some kind of administrative debacle is second-guessing of the worst kind. Yes, Arians won Coach of the Year. But he won that award less because of his work and more because his head coach that season was sidelined due to intense cancer treatments and he was put in charge of Andrew Luck. You know who else is going to win a lot of games as a head coach of Andrew Luck? Every single head coach with the luxury of having Andrew Luck as his quarterback.
Bruce Arians would not be any guarantee to make Cutler and this offense better. And his defensive coordinator of choice, Todd Bowles, would be no more successful with this absence of defensive talent.
Less his final decision, Emery’s approach to hiring the head coach has come under scrutiny recently and seems to have been something of a masterclass in weirdness. Think that’s too harsh? Let’s look at the two major elements revealed in various reports:
Also, was Marc Trestman so desperate to be an NFL head coach he would have accepted any terms? Does a man so desperate for his shot have it in his system to take over the leadership of a locker room?
“I think every team at some point faces a little bit of adversity in the season, and the measure of that team is how they react to that adversity,” [George] McCaskey said. “We’ll see what these guys are made of. We have every confidence in Phil and Marc and the players to pull us out of this.”
-From a Michael C. Wright piece for ESPN
Ponder this question when someone asks if you believe the Bears would consider firing Marc Trestman at the end of the 2014 season. What is the worse crime: changing the offensive system on quarterback Jay Cutler for the 212th time during his tenure in Chicago or potentially wasting another season of one of the NFL’s best collections of offensive talent?
Because that question exists, because it can be asked, the next seven days are the most important seven days of Marc Trestman’s professional coaching career.
The following is part of a series of position-by-position breakdowns at the halftime point of the 2014 season.
This coaching staff, through eight games, has not been good. Here are the questions that should be asked when issuing a grade:
(1) Are they getting the most out of their offensive talent?
Absolutely not.
(2) Are they getting the most out of their defensive talent?
No, their deployment of linebackers has been misguided. There’s nothing they can do with the secondary.
The Oakland Raiders are dreadful while Charles Woodson is playing every snap at an apparently high level. From an ESPN mailbag:
Woodson, who turns 38 next month, has been one of the Raiders’ best and most reliable defensive players. He has played every defensive snap. That is remarkable for a player of his age. When the Raiders brought him back in 2013, they were just hoping for some leadership and situational help on the field. But Woodson is giving him so much more. He is ending a Hall of Fame career on a high note. It’s really cool to witness.
Does he really want to wrap his career on a 2-14 Raiders team? If you’re Phil Emery, and you know what you’re fielding at safety, why not make an offer? Woodson would not only be the Bears best safety by a wide margin but also has a brilliant knowledge of the divisional opponents and leadership the secondary is now lacking with Peanut’s absence.
Jonathan Hughes is a die hard New York Jets fan. On Sunday, as the Jets sprinted ahead of the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field, I sent him a text message.
Jeff: J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!
Jon: Best start in ten years. Both sides of ball.
I haven’t spoken to Jon since.
Now the Bears travel to the New Jersey swamplands, in the shadows of my hometown, smells that define my childhood, air pollution that will inevitably land me at Sloan Kettering.
Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?
I always like the Chicago Bears.
