Wednesday, December 15, 2010

WEEK FOURTEEN

Not pictured: The Ugg boots I meant to paste in.

Well. A couple weeks back, the Bears defeated the Eagles in the most utterly complete game I had seen them play in years. The defense held, the offense executed with surgical precision, and the end result was a beautiful victory that was far less close than the final score indicated. Then, after narrowly surviving the Admiral Ackbar game against the Lions... This happened.
The Patriots stormed into Chicago like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, spreading fear and carnage in their wake, the Bear defense packed up and went home late in the first quarter, and the Bear offense allowed as many points as it scored. Outside of some damn fine kick and punt returns by Danieal Manning and Devin Hester, this was the most utterly horrifying and absolute collapse of a football team I've ever seen. A putrid nightmare of football, ghastly beyond comprehension, it was nowhere near as close as the 36-7 score indicated. This is the sort of game people are going to talk about around a campfire with a flashlight under their chin. The kind of game footage of which will only be sold in black markets in Thailand, where after making it through the ten levels of security necessary for the sellers to be sure that he isn't a cop, some wealthy American will hole himself up in a seedy hotel, pop the tape into a VCR, and spend a week doing coke and masturbating furiously as he watches the unspeakable acts on the screen unfold. So yeah, bad game.

Pictured en route to Thailand, 12-13-10.

I'm sure there are many ways people have broken down this game, but from what I saw, it came down to this: The Patriots blocked. The Bears didn't. Yeah, there were passes dropped and balls fumbled, and yeah, the Tampa Two philosophy of "make them run enough plays and sooner or later, they'll make a mistake" doesn't typically work against teams that finish better than 6-10, but the blocking was the thing. The Doom of 2010 gave Cutler no time and Forte no openings to run through, while the Patriots line often looked as if there were thirteen of them out there, enabling the Patriots to carve up the Bears defense, even with a quad-named running back and a bunch of white guys the Patriots drafted to keep the Boston fans from rioting. As I've said, it resulted in an ugly-ass game, so ugly, in fact, that after a while, I actually just quit watching the game, and kept up instead with the NFL.com GameCenter thing. I know, if there were typical Bears fans reading this thing (and good lord, I hope there aren't), I'd get a shitload of comments about how I'm not a real fan for doing that or whatever, but shit, if you have a kid, and it's being eaten by wolves and there is literally no way to stop it whatsoever, wouldn't you turn your head? Shit.

GONNA EAT YOUR BABIES

And speaking of watching the game, once again, the stupid buttholes around here decided that the Chiefs are local enough a team (370 miles is apparently "local" here) that their television presence trumps all other games except the Cowboys and occasionally the stupid Rams. So once again, I was forced to hit up the nefarious, inexplicably illegal (I mean, I AM watching the commercials that way, which is what really matters) means of game-watching on the internet. So I hit up the same source I used to watch half of that Eagles game earlier, and man... I mean, I am eternally grateful to the dude that puts those streams up for me to be able to watch football games not happening in Missouri or Texas, but man, that dude... I touched on this in that post a little, but the picture of that dude that he posted on his Twitter is amazing. How someone can post a picture that looks so much like the Worst Dude in the World without stopping to think that it might be a bad idea just astounds me. Definitely a dude who wears sunglasses indoors, he looks like a dude who probably also does that shirt-mullet thing where he tucks in the back of his pants but not the front, so he can show off his new chromed-plastic UFC belt buckle. A dude who would get a Monster brand energy drink tattoo, and then cut the sleeves off all his shirts to show it to the world. A dude who refers to his car as his "whip." A dude who sees nothing wrong with trying to strike up conversations about hardcore porn with coworkers. A dude who has a porn collection. A dude who crosses his arms and stuffs his fists under his barely-there biceps when someone pulls out a camera. A dude who regularly calls and texts the Jim Rome show. A dude who played high school football his sophomore year and seldom saw the field, but still saw it necessary to spend hundreds of his mom's dollars on fancy cleats, gloves, Under Armor crap, wristbands, a neck roll, a flak jacket, a $30 mouthpiece, and a mirrored helmet visor. A dude who tells you he's into "the heavy stuff," and then name-drops Shinedown and Theory of a Deadman and asks you if you have Death Magnetic yet. A dude with the model of his car displayed in decal form on the windshield of the car itself. A shameful dude. But he is cool for allowing for me to actually see the game, though.

Such as it was.

Meanwhile, it wasn't all bad Sunday. The Packers lost, which means the Bears didn't lose any ground in the division, and they lost Aaron Rodgers in the process, which damn near guarantees a division title to the Bears. And they lost to the Lions at that, and until they can keep an actual NFL-level quarterback healthy for more than two games and actually become a factor in the division, I can comfortably root for them for fourteen games out of the year, so yeah, good job, dudes~ Also, Brett Favre's consecutive starts streak ended right around the same time the Metrodome's roof collapsed, and oh man, I wish that had happened a few weeks ago. Because after all that Lord of the Rings shit I posted prior to the game with the Bears, that would have been so goddamn perfect.

And I would have posted this picture.

But yeah, a terrible loss to an insufferable team, but you have to move on and all that other horse crap, and with the Packers down and the schedule not looking quite as scary as it once did, the Retarded Destiny of the Bears is still intact. So maybe they can continue to outlast the injury-riddled rest of the league and maybe do something meaningful with the year. From here, we charge headlong at the Vikings, Jets, and Packers, and at least one place beyond that. Not gonna let the worst loss of my lifetime break my unexplained positivity. No sir. First week of the playoffs will probably do for that.

NEXT WEEK: The Bears play the Vikings on Monday night, in another game I'll have to hit up my unfortunately-bespectacled guido friend to watch illegally. It's funny, because with the depleted Packers playing the Patriotic Juggernaut next week, the Bears will likely gain another game on them, but this is still a must-win for the Bears. Why? Because with Favre, Tarvaris Jackson, AND Joe Webb possibly out for the Vikings, that team is going to be in such a shambles that any loss to them would be beyond embarrassing. Still, they do have a defense that won't have a line blocking them, and Adrian Peterson is always a dangerous dude to face, but he can't carry a team on his back THAT far, especially if they have to just go grab somebody off the streets to start. So I'm thinking that the ship gets righted a little, and with the deadly misfortune about to befall Green Bay, the next time I post a game recap, it will be with the Bears as NFC North Champions.

No hard feelings, though.

Prediction: Bears 24, Vikings 10.


2 comments:

Neil said...

That first pic pretty much closed shit down. Everything after that was just a wonderful bonus.

Whiouxsie said...

Agreed. Although the implication of Rush Limbaugh flying across the Pacific to buy sketchy Thai Porn direct from the source warms my heart as well.