Last Night's Bears Win Matters And Here's Why

Ok maybe it doesn’t matter this year but again, that’s an old journalism trick I use to get people to read about the Chicago Bears. There’s an old saying in College Football when rebuilding a program, you start by losing big, then you lose small, then you win small, then you win big, then you’re rebuilt. In that process the 2015 Chicago Bears have crossed from losing big (2014 Bears) right into that middle ground of losing/winning small. Last night’s game was the perfect illustration of how you rebuild a football team and culture. Down 14-0 in the first half, a couple of turnovers, a ton of mental mistakes and a rare missed Field Goal. Last year’s team packs that thing up and goes home. Loses by 20+ while the camera pans the crowd for sad Bear fans. This year? 7 plays, 80 yards, and a Defense that didn’t let the Chargers number 1 rated offense coming into the game back in the endzone. And yes I know the Chargers suck, and I know people will still say it doesn’t matter and I’m celebrating meaningless victories but this is what rebuilding looks like. It’s happening right in front of our eyes. The Bears have been in every single game this season (minus the 6 Jimmy Clausen quarters because, well you know why). They compete hard, they still don’t have the talent at all of the positions but the coaching staff is fantastic and the players want to play.

Let’s put it a different way, do you know where we were the morning of November 10th last year? Here.

That team is long gone. This team is 5th in passing yards against, an unbelievable stat when you think about where it was a year ago. Jay Cutler is playing great football (congrats on the Bears TD record as well, I’m telling you once he’s gone people will miss him). Guys like Charles Leno, Kyle Long at tackle, Jeremy Langford, Alshon Jeffery, they’re not only good but they’re young. Fuck we even saw Lamarr Houston last night, I thought that guy was dead forever. The point of this rambling is that this is what rebuilding looks like. They’re not going to make the playoffs this year, hell they probably won’t even make the playoffs next year but the point remains, we’re out of the woods, the darkest days of this franchise are in the rearview, if you can’t celebrate that then you can’t call yourself a real sports fan or you’re a spoiled brat. Bear Down.

Oh and that catch.