As the Bears’ season concluded, there’s a line from Phonte’s 2018 masterpiece album, “No News Is Good News,” that I’ve been thinking about. At the end of the album, there’s a drop after the final song. A voice comes on and says: “If you’re on the receiving end of this message, congratulations, you made it.” The drop acts as punctuation, but it’s more than that. The album is a triumph in personal growth. Throughout it, Phonte challenges himself and those around him that acknowledgement of mistakes means little without the impetus to change one’s behavior.
Bears game-day DJ Jay Illa described it as Jay-Z’s “4:44” for regular people. It’s an astute observation. As much as I appreciated the honesty and vulnerability of Jay-Z on that album, relating to the problems of a billionaire who’s married to another billionaire is a tough mental exercise.
The reason Phonte’s line has stuck with me is because Bears fans have been asked to do some heavy lifting this season. Every fan wanted massive changes after the Ryan Pace/Matt Nagy regime flamed out in 2021. Bears ownership obliged, but not without a warning about how hard the road back to relevance would be. And it has been tough, for sure.
Bears fans had to accept the idea that the team had to be bad in the short term in hopes of long-term success. That’s a hard thing for a football fan to accept. The NFL is a league built on the idea of going from worst to first quickly. Even in this year’s playoffs, there’s proof of that. The Jaguars went from last place to winning the AFC South this season.
The other main objective of the season was finding out if Justin Fields was the guy. I’m not going to go over all of his exploits and stats. You saw it. It’s one of the cool things about how Bears fans responded to him. Fields’ development was embraced and even celebrated. Watching him work was the weekly sorbet that you got for otherwise bad-tasting football. He’s the dude, and fans know it.
As an organization, the Bears seemingly have been on a never-ending quest for a quarterback. That pursuit has been mocked in every prime-time game the Bears have played for the last decade. As much as we all respect the legendary Sid Luckman, using him as the standard-bearer for Bears quarterbacking always felt like a backhanded compliment. Like the league was snickering at Chicago.
But no more.
On Sunday, the Bears were able to pull off quite the coup. They concluded Fields was worthy of building around, and they stumbled into the No. 1 pick in the draft. That would be enough to refill fans’ hope bucket, but there’s more. Part of the reason this Bears season was so bad was because general manager Ryan Poles had an inexpensive roster. Player salaries were kept low so Poles could stockpile cash and get ready for upcoming free agency.
As it stands, the Bears have more cap space than any team in the league, the most coveted draft position and a quarterback they feel good about. It’s quite the trifecta. One that allows them to set the agenda of the NFL offseason. A place where no one would’ve expected this franchise to be 12 months ago.
We can’t leave this column without singling out the contribution of former coach Lovie Smith. He did his old team a real solid by playing to win in his last act as the Texans’ coach. I know that Smith isn’t hurting for money, but he is now out of work. If he craves a challenge, he should announce his candidacy for mayor of Chicago right now. He won’t struggle to get enough signatures for his petition after Sunday. He wouldn’t even have to campaign.
The next part is fun. Expectations will be raised. Instead of hiding their heads in shame, Bears fans again can be puffy-chested. With all these assets acquired, Poles’ position is the most coveted in the league. The dark days are over.
Hey, Bears fans: If you’re on the receiving end of this message, congratulations, you made it!
You can hear Laurence Holmes talk Chicago sports Monday to Friday from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. on 670 The Score with Dan Bernstein.