There are reasons to be optimistic if you’re a Chicago Bears fan this morning.
If you are a Chicago Bears fan waking up and reading the headline of this piece, you’d likely recommend I have my head examined. On Sunday, the Bears lost their sixth straight game in demoralizing fashion to the Detroit Lions. Despite that embarrassing loss, there is reason for optimism this morning.
How could that be — especially after blowing a 10-point 4th quarter lead to a Lions team that scored 34 points a week after firing their head coach.
In order to find the positives after yesterday’s debacle, you’re going to need to accept a hard dose of reality. Some of you were probably already there, but there was a fairly decent sized contingent that was holding out hope this team could still make a run. Well, that wasn’t happening.
Despite being mathematically in the playoff hunt, there was absolutely no chance this team was making a legitimate playoff run. Holding on to that false hope would only delay the inevitable. But once you accept the premise that this team was dead in the water, you can start to see the positives.
For starters, there is no absolutely no chance this regime of Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace (and potentially Ted Phillips) return next season. All the Lions’ flaws that made yesterday’s loss so bad, would have undermined the result had the Bears won. But it might have fooled people into thinking the “offense was back” or that perhaps Nagy could right the ship.
After seeing how the end of the game unfolded, we now know that’s not possible. Had they won, and Nagy could have found a way to eke out two more meaningless wins, perhaps he could have persuaded ownership for another shot. That possibility is long gone.
Now, with the current regime all but gone, we can turn to the other reason fans should be optimistic this morning — and that is a new regime will be running things next year. Perhaps that is of little comfort to you, especially if you’ve been a Bears fan for decades and have seen this organization muck things up.
But while there is no guarantee a new regime will be successful, they will bring hope. Hope that they will find the right GM and the right head coach. They will also bring a new quarterback into the mix. And regardless of your opinion of the pick at the time, remember the feeling of excitement of having a new quarterback to get behind in 2017? Before it all came crashing down, remember thinking “maybe we’ve got our guy.” Remember that feeling? It was great. And it’s going to return soon — so be optimistic, because the alternative is just too sad.
