The thoughts has armor to guard itself from trauma, so it’s doable I’m blocking right here. However as I stand amid the wreckage of the 2024 Bears, I’m fairly positive that is the worst season I’ve witnessed from the franchise.
Taken in totality, what the Bears have performed is so brutal that I’m undecided any of us who’ve had the misfortune of watching them will ever get better. Not the followers who confirmed up at Soldier Area with brown paper baggage over their heads in protest of this shameful season. They’ll be in remedy till their final dying breath. Not the individuals who chanted for the McCaskey household to promote the staff. They’ll be coping with everlasting throat injury and everlasting disappointment.
What can’t we unsee? Horrible teaching selections, adopted by unyielding and unconvincing rationalizations. Undisciplined gamers. Just a few semi-precious stones within the rubble of a nasty roster. It’s as if somebody up there needed to see how a lot a viewing viewers might take.
The Bears’ loss to the Seahawks on Thursday night time, a 6-3 assault on the senses, was unwatchable. I wouldn’t be shocked if Amazon Prime announcer Al Michaels renounced his perception in miracles after the sport. The outstanding factor in regards to the night was that, as dangerous because it was, it was hardly shocking. A season that has included Matt Eberflus’ weird in-game selections, his eventual firing, Tyrique Stevenson’s Hail Mary asshattery, back-to-back video games with blocked field-goal makes an attempt and a 10-game shedding streak … effectively, one thing as terrible because the Seahawks recreation made full sense. It adopted, logically.
The place does that logic take us with one recreation left, towards the hated Packers? I anticipate some type of Bears desecration on the 50-yard line at Lambeau Area. One thing to do with lighter fluid and a Bronko Nagurski jersey? The thoughts recoils.
I don’t know the way Bears followers can forgive common supervisor Ryan Poles for this. I don’t know the way they may give him a cross for correctly taking quarterback Caleb Williams with the No. 1 choose within the 2024 draft after which going mind useless whereas deciding who would block for him (nobody, apparently). If there’s one lasting picture from this season, it’s of Williams within the aftermath of one other sack, physique slumped, confidence draining from his eyes. It’s too dangerous the Bears couldn’t have discovered a strategy to outfit the child’s uniform with airbags. That Poles allowed all this to occur is worthy of a lawsuit or 10.
One other lasting picture of this season is the clean look on the face of a head coach unable to course of in actual time what’s occurring on the sphere. We noticed it when Eberflus left a timeout and a field-goal try in his pocket in a horrible, laughingstock loss to the Lions in late November. And we noticed it once more Thursday, when interim head coach Thomas Brown had late-game points with indecisiveness and timeouts. Two coaches wandering within the bewilder-ness.
Now, I’m positive old-timers will wish to present me their scars from different dangerous Bears seasons. Many people witnessed the two-year Marc Trestman “period.’’ We noticed back-to-back video games of permitting 50-plus factors that 12 months and by no means correctly recuperated.
However this season was constructed on the concept of upward motion. It was constructed on the concept the gifted Williams would develop, if not shortly then at the least steadily. It was constructed on the flicker of the skill-position baubles that Poles had given the quarterback. It was constructed on the promise of an excellent protection.
All of it turned out to be fiction.
That’s what makes this season so tough to swallow and digest. Poles’ miscalculations too usually have made Williams’ skills tough to see, turning what was a slam-dunk draft-day determination right into a foolish debate about whether or not the quarterback is definitely any good. Poles’ largest transgression has been exposing Williams to grave hazard on each snap. His second-biggest transgression has been exposing Williams to criticism he doesn’t deserve.
If you happen to’ve watched this franchise for any size of time, you’ve probably come to the conclusion that one thing is basically incorrect with it. There’s one thing faulty in its marrow. If you happen to imagine, as I do, that this season is the worst ever for the Bears, you additionally imagine that it could worsen, as a result of it all the time does. Be at liberty to name that negativity or cynicism. I desire to name it reality, the unlucky variety.
The followers at Soldier Area who chanted “Promote the staff!” after the horrible loss to the Seahawks knew what they had been speaking about. They don’t appear to know what to do about it, nonetheless. They hold shopping for tickets to Bears video games. They proceed to pay good cash for his or her struggling.
The McCaskeys don’t know how you can construct a profitable soccer staff. Why hold rewarding them for it, particularly after they refuse to launch their grip on the franchise?
Some recommendation: For the love of all that’s good, cease that.
