By Carl Mohrbacher
Epic Performance
It was as if there had been a way to turn the difficulty down to “Grandma” on real life Madden 25 and the CPU opponent was the Bears.
Nearly as one-sided as they come, Sunday night produced an ass-whooping for the ages that featured some of the empirically worst pass coverage in NFL history.
The distance between Jordy Nelson and members of the Bears secondary ceased to be measured in yards in favor of units like “clicks” and “leagues.”
For those of you who didn’t watch the plays, I’m going to indulge in a rare bit of journalistic integrity here and direct you towards the film session column of Bear Goggles On by Chad Wandall.
Don’t worry, it’s mostly pictures.
Pair these hijinks with this season’s least effective offensive game plan and accompany them with poor execution and you’ve got what we like to call “a real boner” in the sports biz.
The last team to give up 42 points by halftime was the 1921 Westchester Billy Waggles, a franchise whose only notable contribution to league history was being unanimously voted out of the NFL in 1925 for employing an Irish center.
“We’re here to show the world that even freak show-sized men weighing 170, 180 or upwards of 190 pounds can still be professional in the realm of athletic pursuits,” said commissioner Jeremiah P. Tinmouth. “The last thing we need is some potato-crazed zealot snapping the ball when the Pope says ‘hop.'”
Thanks to advancements in mobile technology, Sunday was the first recorded incident in NFL history where four members of any coaching staff were captured on film at a local Perkins restaurant during the third quarter of a game in which they had appeared in the first half.
They would have gotten away with it too, but were recognized after removing their fake mustaches. Curse Perkins’ Trademark Onion Tanglers piled high atop the homemade meatloaf, the delicious garnish that sticks to your upper lip!
The reach of the beating extended beyond the immediate football world.
Stella Bouldercreek of Billings, Montana, won $345,000 on a $10 exotic bet which surmised that on November 8th, the New Orleans Pelicans would be outscored by the last two Bears opponents. On top of that, plumbers across the Chicago area enjoyed a huge uptick in business when more than 13,000 households in the greater metropolitan area were forced to make emergency repairs when one or more members of the home literally shat bricks, instantly destroying the soil stack and pipes adjacent to the water closet.
Most of us were hoping that the drubbing the Patriots administered in Week 8 was the low point of the Bears’ 2014 season.
The defense was going to start admitting they were powerless over offense, make a fearless moral inventory of the roster, and make amends to every fan in Chicago.
It was a great idea, but Mel Tucker’s unit is really committed to outdoing last year’s record-breaking performance.
I guess you can’t fall off a wagon you never get on.
Proof Reed
See if you can figure out which one of these headlines is fake:
A) Brandon Marshall Offers Random Guy $25,000 In Exchange Four Fisticuffs.
B) Bears Predicted To Yeild Fewer Than 50 Points Against Vikings.
C) Lance Briggs Slumbers Through Film Session, Injury Not A Factor At The Thyme.
D) In Addition To Green Bay Packers, Ratings For Walking Dead* Also Beets Bears.
E) Dewy Defeats Truman.
Ha! Trick question, I misspelled one word in each, so none of them are headlines.
Home On The Rage
There’s a terrible pattern developing the past calendar year where, at least anecdotally, it seems as though the Bears lose all of their home games.
Frankly, this is quite an exaggeration.
If the Bears win two of their next three home games, which is totally plausible, that would mean that . . . let me just thumb through the game logs between last December 9th and the Week 14 match-up against Dallas . . . they will have collected two home wins in the last 12 months.
Wait, what? Wow that blows.
This week they look to break this trend by beating the Minnesota Vikings and skyrocket back into a tie for fourth place in the four-team NFC North.
Soldier Field hasn’t exactly been synonymous with “victory” for the last, uh, little while and unless I have something to say about it we’re getting dangerously close to the time of year when mascot Barry The Bear retires to sleep in his cave beneath the parking lot. A deadly advantage when paired with salmon-scented cologne.
That said, there are reasons to be optimistic.
- Jay Cutler is the first player in 2014 to have his jersey publicly burned in effigy. Better luck next time Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice and Greg Hardy. We’re number one! We’re number one!
- Every fan in attendance gets a free taco if Toni Kukoc scores more than 11 points!
- You can see winning football at Soldier Field anytime you want . . . assuming you are a fan of the visiting team.
- Free viewing of the Field Museum’s “Roof Of The Field Museum” exhibit with every ticket purchased in the north end zone.
- Finally have a quiet spot to finish up the last 350 pages of the fifth Dark Tower novel.
Kool Aid (1 of 5 – Warm Miller Lite)
I’m not willing to bust out the good stuff for this game, though I reserve the right to lapse back into good taste during the coming weeks.
It’s going to be tough to move the needle on Sunday.
Storylines may include “Jared Allen Plays Against Professional Football Team Which Used To Employ Him” and “Despite Earlier Efforts, Bears Players Continue To Earn Paychecks.”
We’ve covered a few good reasons to watch the game live, but for those of us who aren’t into it for $75 a seat, it’s going to be tough to justify.
You really wanted to get a good look at this McKinnon kid on Minnesota? Or, with Marquess Wilson coming back we can get a glimpse into the future of the franchise?
I’m thinking, “I’ve been trapped on the living room floor with a debilitating case of vertigo since Friday and I just happened to have the TV tuned to Fox when the remote slipped under the couch, someone please call medical personnel before I die of dehydration.”
If you plan to make the best of it like me, you’ll (marginally) enjoy a hollow victory over a middling team.
Bears 24, Vikings 13
* A better headline might be “Despite Rickety Structure’s Noisy/Delicious Human Occupants, Church In Woods Largely Ignored By Rural Georgia Abominations.” I can’t be the only person who spends 40 minutes a week yelling “HOW ARE THESE IDIOTS STILL IN BUSINESS WHEN EVERY TIME THEY SCAVAGE ANY ABANDONED GROCERY STORE, SOMEBODY DIES” at the screen.
–
Carl Mohrbacher is our man on the Kool-Aid. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on November 14, 2014