Waiting for the Other Cleat to Drop

Fandom is, itself, illogical.

You do not control the team. You do not control the outcome. And yet, the vast majority of the population willingly subjects themselves to stop to regular emotional torture rooting for some kind of team.

Given how little control we have over other parts of our lives, maybe it makes sense. If the seeming randomness of sports can make us happy, maybe there will be a roll of the dice in another direction, too?

Well, if you're a Chicago Bears fan, that's probably not something to count on. But this year has been different. Special? Maybe not. Different? Yes. Patrick is ready to ride the bronco and see where it takes him, while Rob remains...you know, let's call it skeptical.

Rob: If you had told me back in August that I would spend part of Thanksgiving Weekend watching the Chicago Bears pulverize Philadelphia Eagles and that they would be the number one team in the NFC, I would have assumed that there was some kind of freakish midair collision that involved multiple teams' charter planes. That the Bears would be winning these games wearing blacked-out logos for the Packers and Eagles on their uniforms. And yet here we are: the Bears are 9-3 and likely headed for the playoffs.

The thing is, Patrick, I can't shake the feeling that this is 2018 all over again. An offensive-minded culture guy has sparked a formerly moribund franchise. The quarterback frequently looks mediocre but with flashes of excellence, and the defense is getting turnovers even as they give up lots of yards. The Bears could easily be 3-9 if one thing goes differently in each of those six one-score wins. If we're being honest, a lot of those games have been pretty uninspiring. "Another fraudulent Bears win!" is what you yelled as we celebrated at the Bills game, and you could have said that about quite a few of those victories.

It's hard for me to enjoy the ride this time around because 2018 was a false dawn that heralded years of deepening dysfunction, winning too much trust for a front office and coaching staff that didn't deserve it. By the end of 2019 it was abundantly clear why Matt Nagy's and Mitch Trubisky's Bears needed so many fluke wins and when the luck ran out, so did any joy in watching our football team.

So I find myself dreading the next month of football, and in particular this weekend. Because the Bears are playing the Packers, and the schedule looks brutal from here, with rematches with the Lions and Packers both upcoming plus a game against the 49ers. In previous years, the Bears were so hopeless that you weren't really publicly shamed for being a fan because nobody was seeing their games outside of ritual sacrifices on Sunday and Monday night football. Now? Patrick, everybody is paying attention to our Bears! There's a good chance four of those next five games are going to be nationally featured. And dude, I just don't want this team to be an embarrassment anymore. I am sick of the texts from friends at halftime of a Sunday night disaster: "Yo is it always like this?" Yeah, historically, it is. This is my team. This is what shaped me.

Patrick: Dude, I’m sorry, but you have to stop this. Line in the sand. This team is fun. No, they’re not a Super Bowl team. Yes, they’ve won a bunch of coin flip games. But trust your eyes: this is a foundation.

Every basic and advanced statistic about the Chicago Bears tells you what they’re doing is real. The “maybe not 100% real” part is wins, but I’m sorry, this entire NFL season is about mid teams fighting one another. There is no dominant force in either conference. How else do you explain that if the Bears lose to the Packers, they move from the one to the seven seed? It’s a wholly unique year in a sport where weird shit happens and this is just a year where weird shit is happening to the Bears and they also happen to be putting things together at the right time of the year.

I’m done caveating all of that! The Bears are fun, man.