That Same Ol’ Doom

I don’t want to talk about the offensive line anymore. I don’t want to talk about the offensive line anymore. I DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE STUPID OFFENSIVE LINE ANYMORE. But really, what else can you do? Ignoring it won’t make it go away; if that worked, there’d be no problem, Aldon Smith would have five less sacks, and Jay Cutler and Jason Campbell would both have a lot more fully-functioning brain cells. And after Monday night, things might have finally hit some sort of horrible, psychotic tipping point.Hands are wringing, teeth are gnashing, one guy’s already lost his job, and another just sort of… left. Shit’s getting weird, and just a week removed from NBC’s big “Super Bowl preview, question mark, question mark, question mark” game against the Texans, everyone is finally having to acknowledge what should have been obvious three years ago; that this offensive line is broken way beyond a one-year rebuilding job, and when you spend zero years improving it, it only gets worse. The bus has no breaks, the abyss has no bottom, and the cobras you’re ankle-deep in are incapable of remorse. The good times, they have gone.

Well. Bye.

Of course, the weirdest news of all involves apparently ex-guard Chilo Rachal. Precious little info has been trickling out about what happened, but apparently, when they told him that he wasn’t going to be a starter anymore, the dude just took off. Quit the team, hopped in the car, took his happy ass home, and ended up on that “reserve/left squad” list that Harvey Unga spent ten years on. He rejoined the team today, but really, he might as well have stayed back at the house, because if that really was the reason he took off, he has about as much of a chance of playing another game for the Chicago Bears as I do. As of right now, his season is over, moved over to the “reserve/non-football injury” list, which I think is upper management's way of making fun of him for being terminally butthurt.  Still, though, as bitch-made a thing as leaving because you got benched is, it probably gives this a much happier ending than anything anybody might have been speculating on yesterday would have been. I mean for real, as a lapsed pro wrestling nerd, I hear “so-and-so has left the team for personal reasons,” and my mind immediately jumps to “ohhhhh snap, dude’s gonna text his physical address to Chavo Guerrero Jr. and strangle his family.”
Like when Brian Urlacher took off to go have secret knee surgery in Europe from the Human Centipede guy or whatever, I was like, “Nooooo, don’t murder Jenny McCarthy, Brian! Sure, she’s nuts, but she was kind of funny in BASEketball, I guess! It’s not worth it!” But instead of killing her, all he did was dump her, which would seem baffling to a time-traveling fourteen year-old version of me, but made all the sense in the world to the grown-ass version of me. And Urlacher probably has enough experience with crazies, after his baby-momma pulled that crap she did a few years back, where she publically accused him of trying to turn their son gay, because she needed to shake him down for money, because she owed over ten million dollars to Michael Flatley – the goddamn Lord of the Dance -  from that time she accused him of rape. Wow, holy shit, no matter how many times I read, think about, or type that situation, it never gets any less insane. Like for real, I could not in a million years have made up a situation like that. No one could have. So yeah, Brian Urlacher knows a thing or two about crazy maniacs with Crazy Maniac’s Disease and knows better than to risk having one slip past the goalie and end up with a lifelong, child-based connection to another crazy maniac. I mean yeah, Jenny McCarthy is more of a “misguided” crazy than Tyna Robertson’s “something’s about to get set on fire” brand of crazy, but it’s best not to risk things on a woman who might slap the vaccination needle out of a doctor’s hand that would have prevented the kid from getting parvo three years later. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Chilo Rachal.
Anyway, dude got benched, then immediately threw away any prospects he might have had for a “rest of his career” ever really happening. Of course, who he got benched in favor of is a scary prospect, with Chris Spencer as the frontrunner. Chris Spencer being a guy who got benched earlier in the year in favor of Chilo freaking Rachal. So there’s one problem that’s not getting any better.

Meanwhile, he wasn’t the only starting lineman who isn’t one anymore. Gabe Carimi lost his starting job, although he’s admittedly taking it a lot better than Rachal did. A year ago, he was a first round pick, the sure-fire, can’t-miss savior who was going to come in, play right tackle, and then everything would be alright for the next decade. Nope. Much like Chris Williams – the previous first-round tackle savior from 2008 -  he lost his rookie season to a pre-existing condition, then collapsed into a big pile of holding penalties and time spent laying on his back like a great big baby-man while the other team’s defensive end runs a victory lap around the stadium with a clump of Jason Campbell’s internal organs raised victoriously in his mighty hand. So now, Jonathan Scott takes over at right tackle, so you give up on the first-rounder in favor of a career backup that no one wanted, and somewhere, Frank Omiyale laughs at my anguish.  It’s a curious thing that of the team’s two starting tackles to get slapped down, Carimi’s the one on the bench now, though. Because in a perfect world, you’d be able to find two serviceable tackles somewhere and bench both guys, but man, J’Marcus Webb has been over on the left side of the line – the blind side that Sandra Bullock told us about – being just as bad or way, way worse than Carimi, and he’s been doing that for three years now.

And man, J’Marcus Webb. I just don’t know, man. How he continues to even reside on the active roster week in and week out, to say nothing of his set-in-stone starting job, is completely mind-boggling. He was apocalyptically bad as rookie, and he’s never gotten any better, so you’d think there would be some back up plan in place. But nope, here’s to another six games of endless Twitter updates about food and the stupid JWEBB NATION, while he continues to seemingly not give a flying squirrel shit about professional football. And it sucks, because somehow, you really want to like the guy, because he just seems like such a positive dude who’s just happy as hell to be here, and he’s got that same big goofy, kinda droopy gigantism face that The Big Show has, and I dunno, man, he’s just so goddamn loveable, in a weird sort of way. But you see, here’s this thing. I got this dog, Cocoa. Now, for the record, I hate that name, but she already answered to it by the time we accidentally adopted her, so there was nothing we could do. Anyway, she’s dumb as a sack of hammers, but is otherwise a pretty loveable dog; just this awkwardly floppy, lumbering galumphus, running into shit and just being happy as hell to see anyone or anything that comes within 50 feet of her, and she’s got this big smooshy face, and OOOHHHH GODDDD. But for argument’s sake, let’s say I went out back, fixed all the holes in the fence, and started up a goat farm. Like a serious, big-money goat farm, and my whole operation hinged upon the success of one particular goat. A goat that I had purchased for fifty million dollars. Let’s call him Goatler. And let’s say that once a week, usually on Sunday, but sometimes on Thursday or Monday, my whole neighborhood gets filled up with ravening wolves, and those wolves want nothing more than to see the what the flesh of a fifty-million dollar goat tastes like. And for some reason, I have to choose one dog to watch over my Powerball-priced flock, with three years of time to bring in a series of new dogs and trial-and-error that shit until I can find one that’s the best at keeping the wolves away from Goatler. And you know, I love the hell out of that dog, but for the love of all that is fucking holy, the first time I caught Cocoa sitting in a mud puddle, barking at squirrels on the old Dish Network dish that may or may not still work, but we don’t have Dish Network, so who knows, while a shifty-ass wolf is taking bolt-cutters to the chain-link fence; man, I would snatch her ass up, throw her in the house, and have another dog out there immediately. This would not be a decision that took me four years to arrive at. Yet here we are, 2012, and J’Marcus Webb is still sitting in that damn mud puddle, chewing on an empty Mr. Pibb can at one of the church kids from next door tossed over the fence, while Jared Allen calmly roasts Goatler on a spit. Jesus Christ, there has to be a better way.

Beethoven seems the obvious answer, but he has bad footwork and trouble recognizing complex blitz packages.

I just don’t know. I’m sure that there are mean things I could say about the other two guys, but I just don’t have the energy for it anymore. But I can say that when Lance Louis is probably your team’s best offensive lineman, something has gone terribly, horribly, obscenely wrong somehow. Anyway, this week, the Bears play the Vikings, and they’re probably going to lose. In addition to the usual Jared Allen horrors, I’m honestly not so sure about the defense anymore. Not to say that they were never as good as people were saying they were while the team was winning, because no, they really can be that good. But this is that point of the season where it becomes more than apparent that the offense will never hold up their end of the bargain and that there’s really not much hope of even a one-game playoff run, and the combination of hopelessness exhaustion makes the defense just sort of peter out over time. So the big story this week will be how the Bears handle the Vikings offense, in particular the resurrected Purple Jesus, Adrian Peterson. Regardless of the actual final score, this more than anything else will reveal what the rest of the season will be like. If the Bears can remain respectable, maybe they split the series with the Vikings, stomp the Cardinals, then steal a close one from someone like Seattle, and hell, ten wins gets you in the playoffs, where everyone's 0-0, etc. If there’s another San Francisco game, the Bears get blown out, and Peterson runs for 190 yards? You can just forget it and hope for the best in 2013, because going from a 7-1 start to a 7-9 finish could seriously happen. The hurting never stops, horror, doom, pain, fear, cobras, etc. Awful, just awful.

PREDICTION: VIKINGS 24, BEARS 10

Week 10: This is it, I guess.

One of these two men might not play Sunday. The other definitely will, but might not play any more games after that.

Well, if any Bears fans (or maybe some confused Lions fans who somehow don't despise the Bears) ever stumble across this thing, I just want to say that I hope you've enjoyed the last several weeks. It's been really cool watching this team steamroll the living piss out of hapless bums like the Cowboys, Titans, and Jaguars, and it sure is cool seeing TV types bringing up memories of the '85 team and even the Grossman-ruined '06 team. But the fun times are over; I hope you realize that. Because from this point out, there's only one true tomato can left on the schedule, and that's not until the Cardinals in week sixteen. Every other team left on the schedule can beat the Bears, a division title is going to be harder than anyone wants to admit, the playoffs aren't a certainty, and I'm guessing a 15-1 finish is about as likely as me jumping flat-footed across the goddamn Pacific. Because the second half of the schedule is going to suck ass, and they've saved the worst part for first.

Oh sweet Christ.

It's like all the worst possible nightmares all hitting at once. Jay Cutler seems to save his worst games for prime time, and Wade Phillips has already come right out and said that Brandon Marshall is getting double-teamed on every play. The second part is really bad, because Cutler has made no secret so far that he's pretty much ready to throw it to Marshall on every play, regardless of what the coverage situation is. Not to mention that even with new dudes in charge, the Bears just ignored the offensive line again this last off-season, and this leaves 2012's leading mega-destroyer J.J. Watt up up against Gabe Carimi and J'Marcus Webb all night, and hoooo-leeee shit, that is terrifying. Webb is only not the league's worst lineman because I'm pretty sure Frank Omiyale didn't die at any point this year, and the only reason Carimi isn't developing a similar reputation is because he gets a stupid holding penalty every time a defensive end blows past him for a would-be sack. So Watt comes into the game on pace to be over twenty sacks by the end of the year, and if Mike Tice doesn't figure out some creative ideas to keep him out of the backfield, he might hit that by the third quarter. And yeah, I do realize how ridiculous it sounds to mention Mike Tice and the concept of these things called "ideas" in the same sentence, because the dude's never had any. So you've got the NFL's most destructive force with only the NFL's worst five guys at preventing destruction between him and Cutler's cervical vertebrae, and OH GOD COBRAS.

You know, he's turning out to not be so good at the American football, but I will say that Gabe Carimi is one goddamn handsome man.

And yeah, all the analyst types I keep reading keep mentioning how important it'll be for the Bears to establish the run, so the Texans won't just be able to tee off on Cutler all night, but if they even think that's a remote possibility, they've clearly not been actually watching any football games this year. Because you know what, Matt Forte rules, and everyone knows it. Even in situations of complete shithouse blockingm, he's got the moves to escape, and I seriously think the Texans would have a harder time stopping him than the Bears will have stopping Arian Foster. But you see, it doesn't matter, because Chicago Bear logic defies regular football logic. In regular football logic, you get the running game going, this puts the defense on its heels, and all of a sudden you just throw it way the hell downfield, and they don't know what hit them, and it's great. In Chicago Bear logic, you start to get the running game going, then just abandon it altogether, even though someone just ran in another fumble and you're up by twenty. So the Texans have nothing to fear from Chicago's running game, because even if they start getting gashed by it early in the first quarter, by the middle of the second, the Bears will revert to "pass, pass, pass, punt" Martz-ball. So even if you've got your star running back who just made a Pro Bowl and signed a huge contract in a groove, he might as well not even be in the game, and it's time to just blitz Cutler's ligaments off. This instills him with The Fear and makes him just chuck it to Marshall on every play, because he's the only competent non-Forte out there most of the time, and Mark Schlereth cackles with glee as the sacks and interceptions mount.

This is his O-face.

Notice, I haven't mentioned the defense much, because there's not much need to. The Chicago Bears have been a blisteringly evil force of devastation on that side of the ball all year, and are pretty much more of a scoring threat than the offense at this point. And sure, the Texans are a real football team, so it won't be anything even resembling the Music City Massacre, but they'll do their job. If last week is any indicator, Urlacher is finally back from last year's knee injury, and man, I don't even know what to say about Charles Tillman. Dude has been completely goddamn nuts this year, to the point where you don't even notice that the guy opposite him already has six interceptions. So barring an early child birth that makes him skip the game, if Tillman plays, Andre Johnson basically doesn't. And the Bears are a team with enough power up front to get pressure without blitzing and stop the run without bringing linebackers to the line, so I think even a team as good as Houston is (and yeah, it seriously is still bizarre to think of them as any good) is going to have trouble getting anything done offensively tonight. Looking back, though, I seriously wish it had been the Bears instead of the Texans who had drafted Whitney Mercilus. I think one of the main reasons I haven't been as active here as recent years is because I burned myself out pre-draft thinking of all the shit that could be said about a dude with such a killer last name. But instead of Whitney the Merciless, a mysterious warrior from a far-away land whose eyes see only death and whose hands make it so, we ended up with Shea McClellin, good ol' Wee Baby Sheamus, biding his time being kind of okay, I guess,  but fourth on the depth chart until his rookie contract runs out and he can go be awesome for some 3-4 team, possibly even the Texans. Stupid football.

LEFT: Shea McClellin. RIGHT: Whitney Mercilus.

Anyway, I'm going to come right out and say a win tonight is highly unlikely, but not completely hopeless. More than anything, the Bears have to find a way to score first. Because the Bears always abandon the run for no reason, but they do it more slowly when they're in the lead. And the less often the Bears have to pass, the better, because I get the feeling that mostly bad things will happen that way. Get Forte going, and instead of saying, "welp, don't want him to get tired, better throw nine straight to Marshall," just use the other guy you gave a ton of money to, because he's not a complete asshole, you know. If the Bears are forced to pass all day (or choose to) they will lose. If they can run with any sort of regularly, they only might lose. This is hard-hitting analysis, people. On defense, just keep doing your thing, man. Just make absolutely sure that Mrs. Tillman manages to keep her water unbroken until Monday morning, or Kelvin Hayden gets the start, which is a diplomatic way of saying the phrase "all is lost." If the Bears can keep Houston under 20 points, there's a shot, because even if this is one of those "oh god, they can't find Cutler's lower half" games, they still usually manage to accidentally score a couple times. But even as a dude who pretty much has bad feelings about any game the Bears play, this one is giving me more of them than usual.

PREDICTION: Bears 13, Texans 27.

2012 Chicago Bears: Looking for reasons to complain.

"I will destroy you and all you've ever loved! YAAAAAAAAY!"

I originally had every intention of keeping up that one-a-week pattern I've had in years past, but weird life schedules and the league's insistence on having Bears play at times when I have to be asleep because of my weird schedule have stood in the way of that more often than not. Fuck Monday Night games, Fuck Thursday night games, and I'm not gonna try to fake like I have some insight about what happened in a game I didn't watch, because no one gains anything from reading another soulless stat-based recap, which is I'm pretty sure is why Armchair Linebacker was started in the first place. That and mushrooms, probably. Also, let's face it: Things have been going really well for the Bears this year, and football fans writing about their team being awesome can only come off sounding like total assholes, and I have at least that much self-awareness that I'd know I was being an asshole while doing it. So if that's what you want, just imagine the rest of this being things like, "guys, (insert name, probably of a defensive player) is a BEAST! BEAR DOWN!" or whatever, and then don't ever come back.

And with me being a sports pessimist of almost pathological levels, I've had this weird feeling of unease ever since it started to become apparent that the Packers game wasn't going to repeat itself ten more times in a row. Like things probably aren't actually as good as the record suggests, and even if they are, it can all fall apart at any second. Like in 2006, when the Bears were briefly a team making the '72 Dolphins nervous until the Cardinals exposed Rex Grossman as a piece of shit, or last year, when the Bears were a semi-legit contender until Jay Cutler and Matt Forte were both struck down by the wrath of Zeus in consecutive weeks. And in reality, the question of whether things will all fall apart is always an if question, but in my brain that's been beaten into submission by twenty-plus years of the Bears always almost being good, but never completely, it's more of a question of when. Somehow, something's going to give, and instead of reveling in a 5-1 record, when I think about the Bears, it's always future visions of death and pain that may yet come to pass. Something is wrong with me, probably. But the warning signs and unexposed flaws are there. They're always there.


For starters, the Bears haven't really played anybody yet. The Bears have only played one team with a winning record so far, and that was the Packers, and the Bears lost that game. The Colts were bad enough to draft #1 overall last year, the Cowboys and Rams are pieces of shit, the Jaguars are huuuuuge pieces of shit, and the Lions seem to be having one of those "what the hell, I thought these guys were going to be contenders" downfalls that some team has every year. Of course the Bears beat up on the Colts, Rams, Cowboys, and Jaguars, because that's what you're supposed to do to those teams. Against a team with elements of a team that was supposed to be good and they barely escape with the win. Put them against an actual, fully-good team, and they lose. This is not what happens when a team is going to finish 15-1 with a Lombardi trophy. Starting in November, the Bears hit a six-game stretch that includes Houston, San Francisco, Green Bay and Minnesota twice. (And Tennessee, but who cares about them) If they can win at least four of those non-Tennessee games, then I might start getting excited. Until then, it's fear and lots of Tums.

And man, no one seems to notice this, but outside of The Glorious Brandon Marshall, the entire offense always looks like it's this close to becoming a complete shambles again. And you'd think that more people would be screaming about it because everyone hates Jay Cutler, but overall, the passing game really hasn't been there. Cutler has attached himself to Marshall like a goddamn remora riding a goddamn great white shark, and the end result is a whole bunch of stupid-assed throws in stupid-assed places, because the dude gets tunnel vision and sees no jersey number other than 15. So instead of this finally being the year a Bear QB finally smashes all the single-season team passing records, (that are mostly just maybe above average by most teams' standards) he's turned into a lower-tier QB who's lucky to have more touchdowns than interceptions, and if the team was 2-4 instead of 5-1 with the same performance, fat dudes with mustaches everywhere would be screaming for Jason Campbell to start, making it the first time in history that the Bears fan base has yearned for the white man to get his comeuppance. I've been the world's biggest Jay Cutler apologist for the last few years, but if he's going to have his worst year as a starter now that he finally has real receivers and no Mike Martz plotting his demise, it might be time to face the possibility that he's really not all that good.

So yeah, you've got a really good defense here that hasn't even played its best football yet, with Urlacher and the Uberklaw walking wounded out there, (Weird observation here - People keep comparing them to the 2006 team, but no one remembers that the '05 team still had Tommie Harris and Mike Brown healthy, and actually had a better defense overall. Just like no one knows that the 1986 team was actually better than the '85 Super Bowl team. TODD BELL WAS THE KEY.) and I suppose the running game hasn't been that bad. But between Jay Cutler's selective blindness, the fact that Alshon Jeffery and Johnny Knox (remember him?) are out means Devin Hester is thrust back into the awkward role as a starting wide receiver, and that fucking offensive line, this is a team that's one twisted ankle for Brandon Marshall away from going on a six-game losing streak at any second. So pardon me for not jumping with joy, spray painting the house navy blue and orange, and waving my genitals in the general direction of all the stupid goddamn Cowboys fans around here. Because we've been here before, and we know it can always fall apart, because aside from that one time when I was five years old, it always has fallen apart. Or maybe I just have some sort of brain disease, who knows.

Anyway, the Bears play the Panthers in a minute, and the Panthers are awful garbage, but for some reason, Charles Tillman is as bad at covering little tiny wide receivers like Steve Smith as he is at covering big, impossible-to-cover ones like Calvin Johnson, so it won't be a shutout. So, hell, I dunno, Bears 38, Panthers 17, and I'll get to watch this one on illegal internets for a change, so I might actually have things to say about it. I might not actually say them, but eh, what can you do.

Symptoms and Signs

Tim Jennings!

To most normal people, the first week of the NFL season is a time a wide-eyed hope and good thoughts for the future; "every team is 0-0" and whatnot. Of course, for at least 50% of those puddinheads, any peaceful easy feeling they might have had about the year goes down in nightmarish flames in the first couple weeks, usually taking at least three starters to Injured Reserve in the process. But you see, that sort of thing rarely happens to me, because I'm not normal people, and I know better. And I know that the recent history of the Chicago Bears is the same every year: Show just enough to make people think they might be good next year, squeak out some ugly wins over losers, get blown out by all the real teams, somehow manage to split the series with the Packers, then either go somewhere between 7-9 and 9-7, missing the playoffs, or go 11-5, then lose in soul-crushing fashion in a game that counts. But when comparing last year's off season to the one that just happened, and especially after watching the Colts game, holy crap, dudes, something actually seems different this time.  I'm pretty sure that at some point either earlier this year (or maybe even late last year when the Bears' season was over while still having games left on the schedule) I made reference to Roy Williams or someone like that being pretty much the Symptom of the Chicago Bears, in as much as he was a living example of everything that was wrong at the time. (As opposed to the Symptom of the Universe, which is a love that never dies.) As a shitty player that everyone knew was shitty but got signed anyway, because he was cheap and willing and because he had played some small part in a coach's (real or imagined) past success, it was all right there in one big human ball of shit. And holy hell, with Jerry Angelo gone, a new GM around, and me making the mental leap to stretch a few performances from Sunday into an indicator of the future season as a whole, it's even more apparent that the Roy Williams era of Chicago football may have finally died a terrible death. Because when I think to the way the Chicago offense played, it suddenly hits me that all of the new guys they signed, drafted, or traded for and put into major roles affected the team in a positive way, and none of them were directly tied to Lovie Smith or Mike Tice in the past. And not only this, but to put a big-ass damning spotlight on the way the team used to be run, almost all of them were brought in to replace someone who was supposed to make everything better last year. To sum shit up all nice-like, it's looking an awful lot like the Bears are actually going after players that might logically help them, rather than just settling for Senor Spielbergo and their cheaper, non-union equivalents.

The most obvious of all was Brandon Marshall, the guy you've all heard of, who looked goddamn near uncoverable at times, like a slightly smaller, way slower, but still fairly unstoppable Calvin Johnson. The Bears finally have a true Number One Receiver™ for the first time since... Hell, I dunno, Marcus Robinson and Marty Booker were both really good for like a year apiece, I guess? Harlon Hill? Christ, like ever, maybe? Barring injury, the dude is almost a lock to break every meaningful single-season team receiving record, not to mention that the gaggle of slot guys and deep threats the Bears usually have masquerading as the main guy might actually get open once in a while. Most importantly, a real receiving threat forcing opponents to actually drop people back into coverage on any given play means that they can't just tee off on the Bears still pretty makeshift offensive line with seven or eight guys at a time. It's a crazy-ass development that as a Bears fan, I still can't quite wrap my head around, because outside of a one year wonder or two, the wide receiver position has been a complete dead zone for this team for almost my entire life. Crazy. The thing is, under the Old Ways, Roy Williams was the guy who was supposed to do and be all of these things. Roy-ass Williams who had been forgotten for years and only remember to be the subject for a joke. And I know, Marshall is no sure thing with the kind of past that guy has had, but you have to admit, no matter how many times his brain has flipped the script and he and his wife have decided to headbutt each other over the side of a mountain or whatever, it's never affected what he's done on the field. Not to mention that unlike all the other head-case wide receivers that litter the NFL, Marshall's borderline personality disorder gives him the street cred of being legitimately messed-up in the head, as opposed to the Randy Mosses of the world who just saw Jerry Maguire too many times and decided to try living out their stupid Cuba Gooding Jr. pouty superstar fantasies. Marshall has reasons for the weird things he's done; Roy Williams and dudes like him are just assholes.

And Brandon Marshall wasn't the only case like that who I saw Sunday. The guy I noticed the most was rookie fullback/tight end/h-back/executive chef/forklift driver/whatever Evan Rodriguez, who took over for gritty, hard-working fan favorite Tyler Clutts, and seemed to be right there plowing a path for every time Matt Forte and Michael Bush made positive gains. Last year, the Bears just plucked Clutts off someone's practice squad and made him a starter at the last minute, and the dude was a mess. He had a blocking technique that consisted of just madly flopping around like a catfish that had been sprayed with mace; just diving at whoever was in front of him and missing a good seven-eighths of the time. Of course, the eighth time when he actually knocked a guy over, the announcers would just freak out, telling you his whole harrowing journey through the Arena league and wherever else he had come from, because they had those note cards right there, and they had to get that out of the way eventually. Mostly, he just ended up with his dick in the dirt, while Forte fought valiantly to juke the dude he was supposed to have been blocking. Now, he's been traded to Houston, and I suppose they'll like him there, because I figure that's a place where they're real sympathetic to below-average, blond white dudes who just lost their job because their boss figured out that they could get the job done cheaper and more efficiently with a guy named Rodriguez. Then, there's Michael Bush at running back, doing the job that Marion Barber was supposed to do last year, taking all the short yardage, smash-people-in-the-face runs and adding a couple years to Matt Forte's career in the process. Not to mention Eric Weems, taking over the special teams, all-around utility WR role that Sam Hurd was supposed to have last year, except that Weems is also a kick-ass return guy who can screw with teams trying to kick away from Devin Hester. Not to mention that he's not pushing keys of coke on the side. That's kind of important. Overall, what I'm seeing is that the Bears approached the off season with a plan for any sort of future, rather than the old way of doing things. Last year, it was like this was a Madden franchise that had run out of cap room and still needed 9 new starters before the computer would let them play a game, so they just said "Well, that guy there, he only wants $600,000 and he exists. Suit him up." Now, it's like they're actually thinking and getting the guys they want, rather than just struggling to hit the magic number of 53 dudes.And hell, add in Alshon Jefferey as Marshall's twisted little Mini-Me and you've started adding new pieces to the machine, instead of just replacing the broke-ass old ones all the time. Such is the way of champions, probably.

But really, enough about all that. The Bears stomped all over Peyton Junior and the Colts, but really, it was just one game, it was just the stupid Colts, (Weird to think of the Colts as a dismissible team after the last decade-plus) and it's over now. There's bigger issues at hand, and those are the Green Bay Packers. Really not sure what to think of this one, as I'm not sure what to think of the Packers right now. I know, the 49ers beat up on them pretty good, and people are acting like this is some perfect storm of opportunity, where the Bears and their fancy new offense are going to steam into Lambeau and assert their new-found dominance over the NFC North the old country way. But really, I don't buy the Packers as a team in shambles so much as it was a case of the 49ers being that ridiculously good right now. And the Bears are more vulnerable than the Colts game would make them appear, with a lot of "yeah, but"s attached to the win, with the biggest being that it was a game against the Indianapolis Colts. The Packers are going to be pissed off and unwilling to drop to 0-2 against their biggest rival, and there's Charles Tillman's playing tonight, but there's no guarantee he'll be in there all night. If Andrew Luck's rookie ass was able to put up big numbers against the side of the Bears secondary that didn't have Tim Jennings on it once he went down, what will Aaron Rodgers do? Behind Tillman and Jennings, the Bears have no secondary to speak of, and things could get really bad if Rodgers remembers that Kelvin Hayden exists. Of course, the Packers themselves won't have Greg Jennings, (I guess he's not gonna put da team on he back this time.) so if Tillman does play, chances improve drastically. If you shut down the pass, you shut down the Packers, because that's really all they have. Of course, if you can apparently go 15-1 that way, it might be all they need. The big difference this time is that if the Packers do wild out and start scoring points all over the place, the Bears might actually be able to shoot back a few times. So as much as I'd love to sit here and tell you people that the Bears are going to devastate and destroy the Packers so hard that they have to disband the team, and that Cedric Benson will literally have his soul ripped out of his body by the dreaded Uberklaw, and that Clay Matthews Jr. will be so utterly destroyed by the Bears suddenly-competent offensive line that his children shall weep, for they will never again see their dear father's face, the reality is that it  probably won't happen that way. I'm guessing it'll be a long and ugly game, but rather than ugly in the Bears vs. Packers way, with running and defense and all, that it'll be ugly in more of a 21st century NFL Lawyerball way, where quarterbacks go nuts, a brand name is plastered to every surface, and physical contact of any kind will be subject to heavy financial penalty. And a lot of points will be scored. And since I'm feeling pretty positive right now, looking more to embrace a destiny than accept a fate, I'm saying the Bears win.

PREDICTION: BEARS 38, PACKERS 31

Just sucks that I'll probably have to be in bed before the second quarter starts. Fuck Thursday Night games.

Pre-Draft Pretending-I-Know-Things Festival: The Top 10 Guys That Are Supposed to Go to the Bears.

Never forget.

It's that time again. The NFL Draft is right around the corner, and with it comes the hopes and dreams of a bright future for NFL fans everywhere, whether it be immediate, delayed, or imaginary, in the case of Cleveland Browns fans. As always, I approach matters of dreaming and hoping with cautious optimism, because with the Chicago Bears, things are never good, but rarely completely hopeless, and much like Whitesnake, I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams. So with that in mind, here I go again on my own, down the only road I've ever known, which is the road of science. And as a scientist, rather than try to figure out who the Bears are going to draft using outdated methods like "research" or "knowing anything at all about college football," I'm turning to more futuristic methods: Google and bullshit. Basically, I ran a Google search for "2011 NFL mock draft" and read the opinions of various people who all pretended to know things until I had come up with a list of the first ten guys that the experts all agreed the Bears would draft this year with their one first round pick. From there, I spun a line of bullshit that hopefully, you're all about to read. Now, in the order that Google gave them to me, the potential ten:

1. Kendall Wright - WR/KR, Baylor (Walterfootball.com)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: The Bears still think that if there are any missing pieces to their offense, they're all at wide receiver.This, of course, ignores glaring weaknesses at center, left guard, right guard, left tackle, and maybe right tackle, too. This is standard procedure at this point, so what can you do? Still, I guess it almost makes sense for once, because even with Brandon Marshall in town, the thought of having two real-ass starting receivers is something the Bears haven't had in forever, and if Cutler has a bunch of guys that defenses actually have to bother covering, they can't just bank on sacking him ten times a game.I'm sure they'll come close, but eight or nine, tops.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: Wrong place at the wrong time. If Michael Floyd or various defensive linemen are there, they'll go that way first. Also, a Google Image Search for Kendall Wright throws up "kendall wright fat" as a related search, so clearly there are clearly problems with his conditioning. Clearly.

Whoa.

2. Michael Floyd - WR, Notre Dame (Steve Wyche and Albert Breer at NFL.com, Rotoworld.com, a bunch of others)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: It seems like the big pre-draft buzz relating to the Chicago Bears is mostly around Whitney Mercilus and this guy, but for most of the early going, this guy. Between Floyd and Wright, everyone wants Floyd, because he's the one everyone expects to blow up into a potential number one guy, which might be something the Bears need at this point. Because you never know if or when Brandon Marshall and his wife are going to start stabbing each other or pushing each other down the stairs or dropping anvils on each other or whatever, and with Johnny Knox a big question mark from here on out, a disaster with him would lead to Earl Bennett as the Bears' top guy. And I like Bennett, but he's not that guy. Also, oh man, this would mark the first time the Bears have had two receivers that everyone was scared of since the 1995 Bears faked being good and Jeff Graham and Curtis Conway ruled the land. Oh man.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: He's not gonna be available. There's not many first-round wide receiver prospects, and due to NFL regulations, only one team gets to draft Justin Blackmon. Floyd might not make it out of the top ten.

3. Dontari Poe - DT, Memphis (Charlie Casserly at NFL.com)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: For the first time in years, the Bears aren't so paper-thin at nearly all positions that they can actually draft to get better players at positions that aren't complete travesties, so defensive tackle is an option. And a big, beastly nose tackle to clog up offenses would be the perfect thing to throw next to Henry Melton, allowing him to go nuts with that "pressure up the middle" that Cover-2 defenses love so much. Because if you can get pressure up the middle, you take away an offense's ability to throw a hundred blockers at Urlacher and Peppers. Plus, pressure up the middle is its own reward anyway, which sounds so, so very dirty.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: The Bears are already on the verge of having defensive tackle be a team strength, with Henry Melton blowing up last year and the looming potential of Stephen Paea blowing up this year. Losing Amobi Okoye sucks, but I'm not sure that losing the fourth guy in the rotation is something worth blowing a first on. Even if we're going best player available, there are best players available at positions the Bears need more.

4. Quinton Coples - DE, North Carolina (Charles Davis and Bucky Brooks at NFL.com, Matt Vensel at the Baltimore Sun, others)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: Israel Idonije is on the decline, Julius Peppers will probably start declining sometime soon, and the Bears don't have much else to get excited about at defensive end. And the Bears haven't had two defensive ends on the team at the same time who could rush the passer since the storied duo of Trace Armstrong and Richard Dent, (or Alonzo Spellman, if we're being generous) plus picking up a guy from the same college wearing the same number as Julius Peppers is just a good story, you know? He could be the Darth Vader to Peppers's Emperor Palpatine, or in Armchair Linebacker terms, the Unterklaw to his Uberklaw. Also, the related search term that Google Image Search threw up at me was "quinton coples SCAR," and holy shit, that's perfect.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: Same story as Michael Floyd. He'll probably make it out of the top ten, but not all the way to #19.

 

5. Stephon Gilmore - CB, South Carolina (Chad Reuter at NFL.com, DraftTek.com, DraftCountdown.com)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: The Bears really aren't doing badly at cornerback at all right now, but Charles Tillman isn't getting any younger, and the Bears might never admit to themselves that Tim Jennings isn't a piece of shit. And hell, even if they ever do realize that Jennings is an actual worthwhile football player, he's still got the strike against him of being a tiny little dude. So in Gilmore, you get a big, physical corner who matches up with monsters like Calvin Johnson in ways that are faster and ten years younger than the ways Charles Tillman does it. And with new GM Phil emery's new-fangled strategy of having position depth consisting of more than just random dudes from the bus station, you can do a whole helluva lot worse than having Jennings, D.J. Moore, and Kelvin Hayden as your backup corners.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: He might jump all the way into the top ten by the time the actual draft happens, and if he falls, the pessimist in me says it would make too much sense, now that I've kind of talked myself into liking the idea. Also, I'm with the rest of the world in being convinced that the next guy is whose ass the Bears are fully stuck inside.

6. Whitney Mercilus - DE, Illinois (Brian Baldinger at NFL.com)
After hella internet articles and radio chatter about the Bears being high on this guy, inviting him to Chicago and all, it kind of shocked me to only see one mock drafter go with him as the Bears' guy. Because really, at this point, you'd think that the only way they'd pass on him was if Coples was still available, and some seem to think Mercilus might last into the early twenties. And god damn, if he's there at #19, look at the dude's name. It's pronounced the same as "merciless," and somehow looks even more evil spelled wrong. Can you imagine the sort of stupid-ass internet hell I could raise around here if the Bears teamed The Uberklaw up with Whtiney the Merciless? I could spin all sorts of weird tales of dark villainy, and it's just too bad that in between all these undead Dark Lords and wild island savages the Bears have stocked their defensive linemen with, that Henry Melton has to have a name that sounds like a dude who would join a volunteer fire department and maybe run for deputy sheriff. I know he's a good player and all, but maybe for weird internet football literary purposes, we could just work out a deal with Vince McMahon to trade Melton to the WWE for Lord Tensai.

WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: Whitney Mercilus is a superduper athlete who was really good at the college footballs last year, but he was only good for that one year out of the three he spent in college, which is always a huge warning sign. And now that we're in the post-Angelo era, there's a chance that the Bears might start actually paying attention to huge warning signs in guys that they use high draft picks on. Also, hell, a lot of people think he's going to go to the Chargers at #18.

7. Jonathan Martin - OT, Stanford (Don Banks at Sports Illustrated)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: Because J'Marcus Webb is horrible and Gabe Carimi has been one big, giant, human injury so far.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: Mike Tice loves J'Marcus Webb as much as God hates me.

8 and 9. Riley Reiff - OT, Iowa (Gabe Zaldivar at the Bleacher Report) and Mike Adams - OT, Ohio State (FootballDraftNotebook.com)
WHY IT IS/ISN'T GONNA HAPPEN: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T MAKE ME TALK ABOUT THE STUPID TERRIBLE OFFENSIVE LINE ANYMORE, WHEN WILL IT STOP OH GOD ASFHJSFDJHSRKWDFJHSDF ASFJDHASFASF QWETRRHG SNAKES. I'm so tired, so very tired. And the Bears just signed Chilo Rachal, so hey, PROBLEM SOLVED.  *shoots self*

10. Michael Brockers - DT/DE, LSU (Jonathan Bales at the New York Times, NFLDraftDog.com, NewNFLDraft.com)
WHY IT'S GONNA HAPPEN: Hey, the Bears want a defensive tackle. They also want a defensive end. WHY NOT TAKE A GUY WHO DOES BOTH? And the dude is one of the more monstrous physical specimens in the draft, so if he even becomes half the player he looks like he should be able to become, he'll be pretty damn good. Also, when it's not all gnarled up and weird looking, his beard looks like the kind that dudes who play his position stopped having in the mid to late 1980s.
WHY IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN: Another one-year wonder like Mercilus, plus one that probably left school way too early. That being said, no one knows what to make of him, whether he'll be a 3-4 defensive end or a 4-3 defensive tackle, and no one can seem to decide whether he'll he end up being drafted just outside the top ten or almost in the second round as a result. The Bears are still paying for all the gambling in the early rounds that they spent the last decade doing, and once again, tackle isn't a huge need right now.

FINAL ANALYSIS: Expecting Mercilus or Wright, hoping for Gilmore, and performing voodoo rituals to somehow ensnare the minds of the previous 18 teams in the draft, to make them all pass on David DeCastro.

2011 Chicago Bears Post Season Awards - The Bad.

The Showcase of the Immortals.

 The Fruit Stripe Gum Award for Biggest Disappointment goes to...

Chris Harris, S. Man, up until Jay Cutler's thumb injury sending the team on an excruciating death-slide, this had to be the most heart-breaking part of 2011 for me. Last year, Harris was the man, the most clutch of clutch players, and the secret reason for the Bears defense actually earning their big reputation for the first time in years. This year? He was injured, then he sucked, then he became a Detroit Lion, then he presumably kept sucking over there. And all of this lead to at least a week or so of the kind of godawful safety-reshuffling that he came in and put a stop to in 2010. So instead of having at least one spot locked down in a solid-ass way for the next three-to-five years, it's back to more trial-and-error with and endless string of rookies. From Mike Green to Todd Johnson to Brandon McGowan to Chris Harris to Adam Archuleta to Kevin Payne to Al Afalava to Chris Harris to Major Wright and it goes on and on and on, it's Heaven and Hell.
Honorable Mention: Gabe Carimi, OT.
Past Winner: 2010 - Devin Aromashodu, WR.


The Jerry Angelo Memorial Award for Biggest Stupid Waste of Money goes to...

(TIE) Roy Williams, WR and Brandon Meriweather, S. I had to make up a new award for these two guys, because I was going to just throw them up in a tie for biggest disappointment, but really, can you actually be disappointed by two guys whose failure was basically a sure thing from the start? Roy Williams hasn't been any good since 2006, and he really never was all that good before that. He was a disappointment in Detroit, a joke in Dallas, and not much more than an annoyance in Chicago. I know I've beaten that dead horse into an indistinguishable pile of horse-dust at this point, but for Christ's sake, the Bears had to pretend that he was a starter all year, putting him in on the first snap and then yanking as soon as possible, to keep their stupid, soon-to-be-gut-punched offensive coordinator happy. He was just a symptom of every Larger Issue, ever. As for Meriweather, anyone who knew anything could have told the front office that this guy wasn't going to work out. I mean sure, he did make two Pro Bowls, but then again, Deangelo Hall had just made one, so how much does that mean anymore? If they had just stopped and thought maybe the Patriots -  an established winning team for like a decade now - might have had some reason for cutting the dude loose after watching him for four years and one full preseason, this could have all been avoided. But no, he got a few more million dollars, and the Bears got a shitty head-hunting safety who couldn't even hunt heads well. But he sure did provide big-name depth as the number five safety behind Winston Venable and Anthony Walters, I guess.
Honorable Mention: Chris Spencer, C/G.
Theoretical Past Winners: 2010 - (TIE) Brandon Manumaleuna, TE and Chester Taylor, RB. 2009 - Frank Omiyale, OT.


The George Blanda Award for Ex-Bear of the Year goes to...

Greg Olsen, TE, Carolina Panthers. So, you fancy yourself having a high-powered, fancy passing offense. Alright, so who are your receivers? A bunch of kick returners, Earl Bennett, a bunch of bullshit, and Roy Williams? Wait, so your top receiver is a running back who's also going to have to carry the ball twenty times a game? Ooh, not good. Oh, but don't forget, this is 2011 in the National Football League, and this is the Year of the Tight End. This shall be a full seventeen week festival of records being broken and games being won by the new breed of fast, athletic, sure-handed tight ends. And you've got one right there in Greg Olsen, primed and ready to take advantages of mismatched linebackers and cornerbacks a full foot shorter than he is. Wait, what's that? Your offensive coordinator who's already turned down a contract extension doesn't like tight ends, because they're not what he used in 1999? And you traded him to the Panthers? Ha ha, oh man, ha ha hahaha, that's a good one, ha ha ho ho, haha ha. Wait, you're serious, and that really happened? Fuck.
Honorable Mention: Mark Anderson, DE, New England Patriots
Past Winner: 2010 - Brandon Lloyd, WR, Denver Broncos.

The Brian Piccolo Memorial Award for Gritty, Hard-Working Fan Favorite of the Year goes to...

(TIE) Dane Sanzenbacher, WR and Tyler Clutts, FB. This was a banner year for the white man in Chicago. Not only did the team decide to continue their "eh, just throw whoever's cheap back there" policy at fullback with Aryan warrior Tyler Clutts, but they also grabbed a slow, shitty white wide receiver - the ultimate kind of football player in the eyes of the Chicago fan base - and even let him play in actual games this time. Sanzenbacher was the sensation of the first quarter of the season, with his habit of constantly dropping passes and not having a chance in hell of seeing any major playing time once Earl Bennett was back being completely ignored, as pork-fed Type 2 diabetics everywhere found their new Tom Waddle. Meanwhile, Clutts was possibly even worse than the bullshit fullbacks this team has had to endure over the last decade or so, (although oddly enough, the closest to an actual good one was Greg goddamned Olsen) and used his stunning accidental elusiveness to funnel defenders directly into Matt Forte and Marion Barber more often than not. Sometimes, you have to just look past "grit and determination" or whatever, and just use guys that are actually good at football, no matter how much it pisses the fans off.
Honorable Mention: Chris Conte, S.
Past Winner: 2010 - Patrick Mannelly, LS.

The Alonzo Spellman Rampage Award for Controversy, Off-the-Field Issue, or Other Distraction of the Year goes to...

Sam Hurd, WR/Drug Kingpin. Man, Sam Hurd being busted for huge amounts of cocaine was a thing no one could have ever seen coming, unless of course they had noticed that a buddy of his had been busted with $70 grand of Hurd's money in Hurd's car on the way to buy a huge amount of cocaine like a day before the stupid Bears signed him. So yeah, score another one for Mr. Angelo. I guess the craziest part is that he seemed like the least likely dude on the roster to be the NFL's answer to Nicky Barnes. The textbook backup wide receiver/special teams contributor, he was a completely unflashy dude without a huge criminal record or a diamond encrusted Rolls Royce or anything like that; just your typical "good teammate." And the dude was selling coke by the goddamn pound. On the other hand, he was a former Dallas Cowboy, so there you go.
Honorable Mention:  Angelo refuses to negotiate with terrorists, Matt Forte spends breakout superstar season making close to the league minimum.
Past Winner: 2010 - Jay Cutler NFC Championship Mannerismgate.

The John Thierry Award for Defensive Least Valuable Player goes to...

Zackary Bowman, CB. Of all the stupid, no-brained goddamned nonsense. Look, Tim Jennings is a small dude, I get that. But he was solid as hell all year long in spite of all this, but stupid Lovie Smith benched him after he had one bad game. Even though he had to know that this guy was the next guy in line behind him, and even though he had just got done blowing several huge plays against the Broncos to help keep Tebowmania on life support for another few weeks. And he's awful, and aside from that one game he had a a rookie, he's always been awful. Oh yeah, he had a bunch of interceptions in '09, but when quarterbacks throw your way constantly because they know it's the safest bet on the field, eventually a receiver is going to have one ricochet off his hands and into yours. Law of averages. For goddamn real, it even got so bad that you could see Aaron Rodgers's eyes get huge and a half-smile show up on his horrible face every time he'd see Bowman lined up against Jordy Nelson or Donald Driver, and every time, he would stare his receiver down like a shitty high school freshman, all but shouting out to the defense, "HEY GUYS, I'M GONNA THROW IT OVER WHERE NUMBER THIRTY-FIVE IS! YOU KNOW, ZACKARY BOWMAN'S GUY!"  But every time, the ball would be caught for a huge gain, because Zack Bowman is bullshit. But they just never have wanted to give up on the dude, and it would not shock me if he's the one back on the Bears next year instead of Jennings. Unbelievable.
Honorable Mention: Brandon Meriweather, S
Theoretical Past Winners: 2010 - Tommie Harris, DT, 2009 - Zackary Bowman, CB.

The Ron Turner's Playbook Memorial Award for Offensive Least Valuable Player goes to...

Caleb Hanie, QB. Oh man. You poor, poor bastard you. After an NFC championship game where people were to busy shitting all over Jay Cutler to notice that Hanie was kind of awful, this guy was poised for big things, at least in terms of finance. He was going to be a free agent in 2012, Mike Martz hated him, and the Bears weren't going to bring him back, and it was heavily rumored that some poor GM was seriously going to pay him starting QB money to hopefully be a starting QB someday. And then, Cutler went down, and Hanie had his Date with Destiny. And Destiny, she's a girl with high standards, so you better make damn sure you make a good first impression, because sometimes, there are no second dates, you know? But this guy, he took her on this date, man, and he ordered a cheeseburger at the fancy French restaurant. He spent the entire meal telling dead baby jokes and filling her in on every aspect of his Pokemon card collection, loudly announced at one point that "I gotta go take a piss," made her pay for the meal, and when dinner was over, he took her to the shitty dollar theater to see Saw, part 6. But even then at the end of the date when he had her drive him back to his mom's house, Destiny, she decided that she pitied him enough to give him one kiss before she left, because hell, it might be the only one he'd ever get you know? And when she did, the dude sneezed right into her mouth, blowing snot all over her face, sneezing so hard that he not only shat himself, but decided to let her know that this had happened, as though it was information she wanted. Of all the dates Destiny has had, no one has had a more utterly disastrous Date With Destiny than Caleb Hanie.
Honorable Mention: (TIE) Roy Williams, WR and J'Marcus Webb, OT.
Past Winner: 2010 - (TIE) The Doom of 2010, (Kreutz, Garza, Williams, Omiyale, Webb, etc.) OL.

NEXT TIME - THE GOOD.

2011 Chicago Bears Postseason Postmortem, Part One: New Guy Report.

Someone out there is selling Patrick Trahan jerseys for the ladies.

 So here we are, the Bears' season in hell finally officially over about seven weeks after Jay Cutler's thumb unofficially ended it. And with Jerry Angelo finally -thank god, finally - out of the picture, I thought I'd give you people a taste of just how badly this team was managed. I'm too lazy to actually count everybody, but counting Injured Reserve guys, the Bears finished the season with a little over sixty guys on the payroll, and a whopping thirty of them weren't with the team last year. In a normal situation and on a team with any sort of plan for the future beyond the next three days or so, this would sound like some huge rebuilding year, clearing out all the dead weight and laying down the foundation for something special sometime in the next couple years. But this is the Bears, and you should know better than that. When faced with glaring weaknesses and gaping holes, this team had a philosophy of just plug-and-playing the shit out of it, snatching up whoever they could find on the cheap, crossing their fingers, covering their eyes, and hoping for the best; the "best" in this situation being Stupid Angelo getting to pretend he's smart when one of his blind reaches pans out, which he should have figured out never happens sometime around 2005 or so. Don't believe me? Thirty new players, fifteen officially recognized as rookies, ten of those being undrafted rookies, and maybe three or four other guys being blind grabs from other teams' practice squads who might as well be rookies. Add in all the other players already on the team who never should have been more than preseason bodies, (basically every offensive lineman other than Garza and C. Williams, for starters) and you've got a team that seriously might have twenty or less actual NFL-caliber players. Looking back, that this team finished 8-8 instead of 1-15 probably means that Jay Cutler is some sort of destitute man's Peyton Manning. Just look at these motherfuckers:

* = Rookie, ** = Undrafted Free Agent Rookie

Kyle Adams** - TE - This was a fine example of a dude they just sort of plucked out of thin air and threw on the roster. Personally, I'd have just kept Desmond Clark around for veteran presence, or whatever, because hell, if you hit a point where you have to really rely on your #3 tight end, you're probably screwed anyway. I think this guy played special teams, maybe?

Armando Allen** - RB - Once injuries started piling up, the Bears went on this crazy flurry of just signing everyone and their grandma over the last few weeks, and that's how this guy got on the team. Actually didn't do bad against Green Bay, but shit, with newly-shitty B.J. Raji barely even bothering to leave a three-point stance half the time, I could probably get four yards a carry against Green Bay. Either way, I doubt he makes the team next year.

Marion Barber III - RB - Actually was decent here and there in spot duty, where he didn't have as many opportunities to randomly tear a ligament, but FUUUUUUUUCK.

Gabe Carimi* - OT -  Well. This guy was my Only Hope for 2011, and he plays about a game and a half before spending the rest of the year basically just having knee surgeries every few weeks. And with the Lessons of 2008 being forgotten, just like Chris Williams, it was with a repeat of a pretty serious college injury (that went strangely unspoken of until about Week 8) that made other teams pass on him. So this guy is heading into his second year with about half a career worth of wear already on the tires now. Just god damn.

Tyler Clutts - FB - Man, this guy. This guy confirmed everything I ever suspected or made jokes about on the internet about white people as pro sports fans. People just absolutely rave about this guy, even to the point that one NFL.com guy gave him a Pro Bowl vote, and no one notices that he's completely terrible at everything he does. I'm sure it could be that they're blinded by the smoke-and-mirrors combo of his rags-to-riches story of coming up throw the AFL, CFL, and UFL and the one good block per game he would make, but you know better. He's a blond white guy with a name like "Tyler Clutts" who wears the number 44 and plays what I guess could be called a skill position, and he represents a return to the white man's sport, back before they added all these forward passes and dreadlocked thugs. It's a shame, because once the team decided that Mike Martz was stupid and that they should start doing things Mike Tice's way, they probably could have found an actual decent fullback instead of a whiff-machine like Clutts, but instead went the Jason McKie route and just groped in the darkness for whoever. Stupid Bears.

Chris Conte* - S - You know, once Chris Harris crumbled into dust and Brandon Meriweather did whatever the hell he did, I was horrified at the thought of this guy getting to play, but he was way better than I figured he would be. Sure, he did some stupid crap every so often, but it's better to have a teachable rookie doing that, as opposed to a shitty ten-year veteran, you know? Also, his nickname is apparently "Birdman," and that makes me hope that he becomes a star and that NBC hires more complete dorks for their production crew, so that someday, he'll score a touchdown on Football Night in America, and all of a sudden Koko B. Ware's WWF theme will start playing. I have small dreams, but dreams nonetheless.

Chauncey Davis - DE -  This guy has played for the Falcons for a while and was one of those aforementioned late-year signings. Actually wasn't too terrible, and given the sad shape of the Bears' DE depth, might stick around. Also, his name is Chauncey.

Dom DeCicco** - LB - 

Nathan Enderle* - QB - Okay, I'm going to do a thing here I never figured I'd ever do. Okay, Mike Martz, for once in your life, you were right. Caleb Hanie was not the guy, and you recognized it, and that's why you kept getting the team to draft people like this dude and Dan LeFevour. So there you go. I still hate you though, you cocksucker. Remember, Mike. Fuckin' gut punch.

Thaddeus Gibson - DE - I... Don't remember a goddamn thing about this guy. He might just be a fictional dude made up by the Chicagobears.com webmaster to test us. What if nothing is real? Whoa.

Ricky Henry** - G - Oh man, this guy, too.

Max Komar - WR - This guy played in a couple games for the Cardinals last year and was apparently half-decent, but it couldn't get him anything better than a practice squad spot in 2012. The Bears signed him to their roster, but apparently didn't feel strongly enough to actually put him on the field, even after all their other receivers were either injured, heading to federal prison, or Roy Williams. As for me, I could have sworn he was a quarterback.

Chris Massey - LS - An era ended when Patrick Mannelly went down in week 11, and it illustrates just how crazy good he was as a long snapper. Like this Massey dude had been a pretty good one for like nine years, and whoever he had played for just cut his ass loose, because long-snappers are a dime a dozen, but Mannelly had stuck in one place for fourteen years. Damn. his will be the most ignored intense position battle of 2012 in the entire NFL.


Josh McCown - QB - Hey, he played well enough to be a backup quarterback in the NFL, which is more than could be said for Hanie. The Bears might have lost in the playoffs this week if someone had thought to sign him or someone similar about fifteen weeks earlier.

Brandon Meriweather - S - Well, I guess the Adam Archuleta fiasco had been forgotten. You'd think that when a team that actually wins games more often than not just dumps a guy following the preseason, it might mean that his actual real-life performance doesn't live up to his reputation. But nope, Lovie and Jerry knew better, so this guy got paid several million dollars to blow a bunch of coverages, miss a bunch of tackles, and spend the last part of the year buried on the depth chart behind Craig Steltz and Winston freaking Venable. BUT GUYS, GUYS, HE MADE A PRO BOWL!!! Ugh.

Jordan Miller** - DT - This is another one of those dudes that I think was just made up for the website. You're not real, Jordan Miller.

Amobi Okoye - DT -Hey, this guy was alright. Never broke the starting lineup, but that was more because of what Henry Melton did than because of anything Okoye didn't do. Why do the Bears always seem to have like thirty defensive tackles? Hey, speaking of which...


Stephen Paea* - DT - He never wilded out and ripped everyone's heads off like I figured he would, but in limited action, he was alright.

Adam Podlesh - P - Okay, okay, I admit it. I always knew his name, and that thing where I would just say I forgot it and throw in some crazy made-up name was just a joke for the internet. But for the record, in addition to Chuck Balls and Dirk Buttocks, other names I figured I would use eventually included Craig Testicles, Jake Taint, Duke Titties, and Slade Van Der Butt. But it's over now. Anyway, I didn't really notice how much Brad Maynard had regressed over the last few years until I saw the kind of things this guy was doing with the ball this season. So good job, Pete Hooters.


Dane Sanzenbacher** - WR - I really don't know if there's anything left to be said about racist football fans and their undying love of the white wide receiver, so I'm not going to go headfirst into that again. But while he was filling in as the Fake Earl Bennett, you have to wonder if there all those dropped passes would have been ignored as much as people tended to ignore them if his name had been Tyrone Jenkins. People tried really hard to make this guy out to be the diamond in the rough undrafted sensation of the early NFL season, but really, he was kind of terrible.


Andre Smith** - TE - Yes, alright.

Matt Spaeth - TE - There's not much to say about a blocking tight end. This guy sure did block. Yes.

Chris Spencer - C - With the worst offensive line ever and Gabe Carimi being the only major difference from 2011, this was supposed to be the signing that turned it all around. A first round bust, cut at the end of preseason, and playing out of position at guard all year, while a guard played center. Still, there were times when he looked like the team's best lineman, but on the Bears, that usually means giving up two sacks to J'Marcus Webb's five.

J.T. Thomas* - LB - Seems like a nice fellow, but has spent his entire career on injured reserve.

Patrick Trahan - LB - I could have sworn this guy was a rookie, but I guess he was a 2010 guy. Huh. Speicial teams dude, I think.

Winston Venable** - S - I saw this guy try to murder one of the Browns in the preseason, so I know he exists. That's all I got, really.

Anthony Walters** - S - They cut Winston Venable to sign this guy, then re-signed Venable when this guy got hurt. That had to be awkward.


Jabara Williams** - LB - For some reason, his first name always looks misspelled to me, like it should be "Jabar" or "Jabari." Other than that, I got nothing.

Roy Williams - WR - I remember that smug prick Martz practically guaranteeing that Ol' Roy would do something like catch eighty passes for twelve-hundred yards, and in the end, I think he maybe had a quarter of that. He was the worst player ever, but he was still listed as the starter, by god, even if it meant just throwing him out for one play and then getting Johnny Knox out on the field as soon as possible. No one outside of Martz could have possibly seen this move panning out, and that's why this franchise needs to be blown up and rebuilt from the inside out. And he wants to be a Bear next year, which is like the funniest thing ever.

Mansfield Wrotto - G - Holy shit, that is a crazy villain name and completely makes up for not keeping  Tressor Baptiste on the final roster. Like this guy should have pulled some crazy evil shit in a Disney/Pixar movie, probably.

I Think I Love You, George McCaskey

Ever since I reached an age when I had any concept whatsoever of  team ownership or the "front office" in general, somehow, I've always known that what the Chicago Bears had there was no good. They refused to pay players their fair market value and did nothing as the 1985 Super Bowl team crumbled into dust before the 1990s had even started. They gave Dave Wannstedt (The Enemy) free reign to cut loose any and every player from the Ditka era, regardless of whether or not they needed to go or whether or not they had anyone to replace them with. There was the fiasco with the Dave McGinnis non-hiring, which led directly to turning their football team over to the unsteady hands of glorified accountant Ted Phillips. With the sort of talent already in place that should have provided the basis of a dynasty, they kept rewarding Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo for crushing failure after crushing failure with lucrative new contracts. The list goes on and on.
The Bears are one of the original NFL teams in the league's second-largest market. They should be the New York Yankees of pro football, the team everyone despises because they just won't stop winning every damn thing. But instead, this is a team who, outside a quick blip in the mid-1980s, hasn't really won shit since they stopped calling wide receivers "ends" and whose star quarterback and star defensive back weren't the same guy. It always seemed like Virginia McCaskey barely even knew she owned a football team and that her boy Mike had some sort of bizarre narcissism/mental retardation combo going on. So it really didn't give me any warm feelings when little brother George was named Chairman of the Board last summer. But god damn, in one fell swoop, he has gone a long way toward winning me over.

 Asshole.

 In summation: Fuck you, Jerry Angelo. You came to this team with Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown, and Olin Kreutz right fucking there, three players who could have been the foundation of something special, and you never managed to put together an entire team around them in ten years. You purposefully tanked the 2001 offseason - setting the team back  a year talent-wise - to try and get Dick Jauron fired, when you knew damn well he'd just do the job himself. You lucked out when you drafted Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman and just couldn't help yourself after that, thinking you could build a real football team out of players drafted after the second round. You traded Thomas Jones for a pile of shit, just so you could try and convince yourself that Cedric Benson deserved a starting job in the NFL, and your insurance policy was to draft a high school-sized guy in the third round that you might have been able to sign as a free agent in Garrett Wolfe. You also drafted Dan Bazuin, Mike Okwo, Michael Haynes, Jarron Gilbert, Juaquin Iglesias, and Mark Bradley, when the team needed actual NFL players. You gave new contracts to Edwin Williams and Earl Bennett, while feeding Matt Forte some line of bullshit about not negotiating deals during the season. You gave Terrence Metcalf a thousand second chances and made him a millionaire to keep the bench warm. You caved when coaches wanted their old shitty players from their old shitty teams, a policy that got chained Roy Williams, Adam Archuleta, John St. Clair, Brandon Manumaleuna, and the withered corpse of Orlando Pace around the team's neck, to name a few. You let Lovie Smith fire all the real assistant coaches after Super Bowl XLI and replace them with random buddies he had who happened to be college coaches. You could have had Kurt Warner, but told him that if he was a Bear, he would only ever back up Rex Grossman.  You gave an eleven million dollar deal to Frank Omiyale, history's greatest monster, based on about three quarters of football you saw him play after he was a backup for like five years. You have been a piece of human cholesterol, thwarting and destroying this team from the inside out, the whole time patting yourself on the back as a genius, no matter how often you fail, like Wile E. fucking Coyote, and I'm glad you're gone. But no, I hope the door does hit you in the ass on the way out, and I hope it knocks you straight to Hell.

 Double asshole.

But especially fuck you, Mike Martz. You worm. You sack of shit. I'm gonna come to your house, Mike Martz; I'm gonna find you. And I'm gonna take you out with a fuckin' gut punch. You think you're so fuckin' clever, with your offensive scheme that hasn't worked at the pro level since there were still two World Trade Center towers. You're too taken with the aroma of your own shit to see when everything's on fire around you. Too smugly certain of the perfection of your game plan to notice that a quarterback can't drop back seven steps when both defensive ends only need four to get there. This team has Roy Williams because of you, you fuck. Roy fucking Williams, Mike. And the Bears had to keep putting him in there for the first play of every game, even though he was really the team's Number Five receiver at best - behind Knox, Bennett, Hester, and Dane punk-ass Sanzenbacher - just so he would still be listed as the starter, just to keep your dumb ass happy. Is his ankle 100 percent yet, Mike? And is his ankle why he can't catch a fucking thrown ball, despite allegedly having done it professionally for the last eight years, Mike?  We have Roy Williams, and we don't have Greg Olsen. This was the year of the tight end, when everywhere you looked, there was a Rob Gronkowski or a Jimmy Graham or a Vernon Davis or a Jason Witten or whoever else there was who was the key to everything for his team, and the Bears traded theirs away, traded the team's only real receiving threat - in an offense where all you ever wanted to do was pass - smooth the fuck away for next to nothing. Why? Because you couldn't stand to crack open your dusty-ass playbook and switch a few things around to properly use the talent you had around you. You didn't resign. You ran like a little bitch from what you knew was going to happen to you. I hate you, Mike Martz. Gut punch, Mike Martz. Gut punch. It's coming.

 A hard rain's gonna fall, Lovie Smith. Watch your back.