WEEK TEN: Hope and Confusion

I know I should be angry at the Überklaw for consorting with villains like that, but all I can think of when I see this picture is that his hat is fucking sweet.

I almost feel bad for making this post. This seems to have been a horrifying hell-week at Armchair Linebacker, what with the Redskins being prison-raped by Dog-Hitler and the Eagles, and the Lions allowing Matt Millen and Daunte Culpepper to finally break out that celebratory bottle of Boone's Farm that they've been keeping on ice all these long weeks. But meanwhile, the Bears did just fine. Seriously. I know, the Vikings are kind of the NFL laughing stock right now, but seriously, this was a huge game, and nothing really went wrong. For the second week in a row, the Bears only gave up one sack, mainly because they actually made and adjustment and don't have Cutler sitting back there for thirty seconds at a time behind his high school offensive line.

Cutler is throwing the ball, and the offensive line is IN FRONT of him. And STANDING. What universe is this?

And oh yeah. That guy Favre. To sum up in a perfectly internet way, I would just type about three lines of "LOLOLOLOLOL," but I am a professional, so I'll try to form words. I'll try to not go into all that Middle-Earth glue I was sniffing last week, (For the record, my parents were big Tolkien fans, to the point where my actual real name is from one of the books. In case you didn't know, my name is Witch-King of Angmar Jackson.) and instead say this was as nearly perfect as things could have gone. I mean, Favre wasn't torn in half of brutally mutilated or anything, but you know, you don't wish harm on players, because it's just a game, and the police monitor that shit online. But to kind of steal a thought from Dan Patrick that I heard on a lunch break Monday, with that loss, the Vikings are pretty much done for 2010. And after this year, there's no way they'll bring that guy back, and after his next fake-retirement, very few teams worth playing for are going to want that guy. Brett Favre has played his last meaningful NFL game, and he ended it with a game-clinching interception. That's just like the most blisteringly perfect thing, ever. The Universe is back into alignment, and for once, all is right with the world. Fuckin' A.

PICTURED: Brett Favre's next retirement press conference.

But right now, things are strange and I don't know what to think. In some weird cosmic bullshit way, I think the Bears on-paper success has been due to the all-powerful emotion of pessimism. I have said "well, they're gonna lose this one" for almost every game this year, and the two times I picked them to win, they lost. But man, the Bills and Vikings aren't exactly the NFL elite, and the Bears didn't really blow either of them out, but there are little things going on. Things that... Give me... Hope? Maybe the coaching staff isn't so rigidly set in their ways that they can change the plan when it's going horribly awry. Maybe this team isn't filled with bullshit players, and some of the ones who were bullshit in past weeks are actually getting better. Who knows. But I've had this feeling before, and it scares me, because it always leads to a letdown. See? There's that pessimism that's helped the Bears win so far. So maybe there IS hope. Wait. Fuck.

IN A LITTLE WHILE: The Bears play the Dolphins in a Thursday night game, after a short-ass week. This would be the perfect situation to lose a game, riding high off a division win, and only getting a few days off, but the Dolphins have had the same short week, and half their team is out injured right now. They might not have Jake Long, and they're down to their eighth or ninth quarterback, and times is hard for those guys. And maybe the real key to the Bears success is that they've managed to last this long without a whole lot of major injuries, in a sense just outlasting the rest of the league. So their chances look good against a depleted Dolphins squad. Which usually means they'll lose. Which could mean that they'll win. Or, um... Fuck, man.

Bears 24, Dolphins 17.