CHICAGO BEARS NFL PLAYOFF ODYSSEY: FIRST SEQUENCE

"Playoffs? PLAYOFFS!?"

The stage is set, and after a near-miracle and me forgetting how the seeding works and being pleasantly surprised, the Bears shall face the Seahawks at home this Sunday, and at fucking noon. NOON. Not three or whatever the first-round games started at, but stupid-ass noon. And on that day I will be trapped at gay-work, so the results of the game will remain utterly mysterious to me until after three, and that sucks. Because let's fucking face reality for a minute: After this year, Lovie and Jerry are absolutely not getting fired, and there might not even be football in 2011. This could be the last playoff game the Bears play for a long, long, looooooong time. And I'm gonna miss it. Fuck.

Even he can't save me this time.

But anyway, yeah, the Seahawks. Mathematically, the worst playoff team in history, but somehow, they ambushed the Saints and potentially saved the Bears from a home loss to the Packers. Because yeah, they (barely) beat the Saints, and yeah, they did beat the Bears earlier in the year, but come on. Come right the hell on. They have a forty year old egghead of a quarterback who just used up his one yearly good game, their defense is just sort of sad, and their running game for the year consists of one long run by Marshawn Lynch that was helped out by a few few blocks in the back and bad tackling by Saints of the likes not seen since the 2007 Chicago Bears. Seriously, that guy was washed right the hell up since sometime last year with the Bills, and now, people are all like "O NOES THE BEARS CANNOT STOP THE POWER OF BEAST MODE~!" even though he actually had a shitty game against the Saints the rest of the time. Let's face it; aside from the fluke Saturday, this was a team that was on a severe downhill slide for most of the second half of the season, and they only managed a 7-9 record, despite being in a division where an actual playoff team would have a hard time not getting a guaranteed six wins just by showing up.


And seriously, I don't think Seattle gets enough credit for the loathsomeness of its sports fans. The twelfth man? What the fuck is that shit, man? First of all, sucking up to your fans by trying to act like they're a part of the team is cutesy bullshit, but I can't hate on it completely, because well, the Bears do it too. But you see, when the Bears do it, they call it "The Fourth Phase." Oh wow. That sounds like part of a plan for world domination. All such as, "and then, after we've crushed Canada and Eastern Europe, the fourth phase begins with Australia." That is sinister as hell. What is the Twelfth Man supposed to be? Oh, that's right; it's the fucking backup. The guy they never let out on the field. If the Fourth Phase involves fighter jets and chemical warfare, the Twelfth Man is just some small-school wide receiver who dropped a lot of passes in preseason, but made the team after a couple other guys got hurt. The Twelfth Man? He's a bitch.

(Insert audio file here of Nelson from the Simpsons going "HA-ha!"

And I got a special perspective on their bullshit living within projectile-vomiting distance of Oklahoma City. You know, where the team plays now that used to be the Seattle Supersonics. When that whole deal went down, you couldn't turn on the radio for the longest time without having to hear Seattle people whining who I guess had hunted down the internet streams and phone numbers of the local stations here, just to enhance the accuracy of their whining. Look, I know they were there for a long time and all, but let's face the facts here, cappuccino-boy: The Sonics were not the Brooklyn Dodgers, the O.G. Cleveland Browns, or even the Baltimore Colts. Yeah, they had been there for forty-something years, but they weren't exactly a storied franchise that was the pride-and-joy institution that gave a city something to believe in. They were the Montreal Expos. They were a lifetime middle-of-the-pack dwelling team that ranked somewhere behind the Seahawks, the Mariners, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Microsoft, (which is actually located in Redmond) Frasier Crane, Alice in Chains, rain, fog, and suicide in the city pride power rankings. Your city didn't have its heart ripped out when some Okie came and bought your team; if the Supersonics were that big a deal, you shit heels might have gone to enough games and bought enough foam fingers and t-shirts to keep them from being moved to a more (admittedly inexplicably) basketball-friendly town.

The Accused were pretty cool until they kicked out all but one of the original dudes, though.

Anyway, summing up: I need to quit my job and get on the food stamps. The Bears are better at passing, running, kicking, returning kicks, and all aspects of defense than the Seahawks, who are probably better at blocking, but that's just an assumption, because of how bad the Bears are at that. Seattle sports fans are whiners, but I'm not going to say they should kill themselves, because living in Seattle, it means they probably will, and I don't want that on my head. The Seahawks beat the Bears long ago, (by three points) but that was back when they still looked like a potentially decent team and the Bears were still Martz-balling their way to a seemingly inevitable 6-10 season. The Seahawks don't have the defensive firepower to sack Cutler six times again in a world of five-step drops and short passes, the Bears aren't riddled with defensive injuries the way the Saints were, and all the clever YouTube videos in the world aren't going to make Marshawn Lynch anything other than a guy who's been a disappointment since 2008. And here's a thing: Early in the year, I lamented the loss of Alex Brown that seemingly left the Bears lacking at non-Peppers defensive end. In the end, however, Israel Idonije turned out to be better than Brown ever was, actually making his departure a good thing. Meanwhile, the Seahawks beat the Saints last week to set up their improbable game vs. the Bears by less than a touchdown, meaning that oft-mentioned Lynch run more or less was the game-winning score, depending on how far you stretch things. And the last guy who miss a tackle (after an illegal block in the back, but it actually pushed him closer to Lynch, so it was a helpful block in the back) on that play? Alex Fucking Brown. That's no coincidence. That is destiny. Retarded Destiny.

PREDICTION: Bears 31, Seahawks 17.