Predicting Chicago Bears season: Real bears will be utilized, and all losses will be RIGGED!
After careful consideration, hours of reflective meditation and a detailed consultation with my primary care physician, I’ve decided I am, in fact, ready for some football.
I assume many Chicagoans are as well, which is good, because the Chicago Bears start the 2021 NFL season Sunday night, taking on the Los Angeles Rams in what I’m sure will be a football game that consists of four 15-minute quarters and, in the event of a tie, one 10-minute overtime period.
That’s really the only accurate preseason prediction anyone can make, right? Each year, in the months leading up to the NFL season, American sports journalists generate approximately 950 trillion words worth of football prognostication. About five of those words wind up being accurate, but nobody cares because it gives us something to yell about when our team performs worse than predicted, and who doesn’t love yelling?
The one thing I love more than football (and yelling) is pretending I know enough about football to devote an entire column to a series of predictions and suggestions guaranteed to lead the Bears to a championship season.
That said, here are my predictions and suggestions guaranteed to lead the Bears to a championship season:
1. Utilize more actual bears. I’ve been saying this for years, but no one at Halas Hall seems to listen, probably because they’re embarrassed they didn’t think of it first. Your team is literally called “the Bears,” so go out and get some darn bears, stuff them into navy blue and orange jerseys and get them out on the gridiron. We’ll see how successful Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is when he’s trying to see the field from inside a North American black bear’s digestive tract.
I’ve checked the NFL rule book, and there are no apparent restrictions on carnivoran mammals playing the game. Bear up, Bears. C’mon.
2. The Bears will win 14 games, lose one and have two ties.
Sticking on the subject of bears, I always pick the winner of a Bears game by deciding whether an actual bear would beat whatever is represented by the other team’s name.
So in Sunday night’s opening game, I’m taking the Bears to win over the Rams, because I feel confident a bear would tear a ram to shreds.
The rest of the Bears’ 2021 opponents break down like this: Cincinnati Bengals (tough, but the bear still beats a tiger); Cleveland Browns (duh, it’s a color, easy bear win); Detroit Lions, twice (lions are no pushover, both games end in a tie); Las Vegas Raiders (bear vs. pirate, the bear eats him up, cutlass and all); Green Bay Packers, twice (no clue what a “packer” is, sounds kind of weenie, bear devours it in both games); Tampa Bay Buccaneers (another silly pirate, bear chows down); San Francisco 49ers (scraggly old gold miner, easy picking for a bear); Pittsburgh Steelers (you work with steel, big whup, here’s a bear EATING YOUR FACE!!); Baltimore Ravens (bird = bear snack); Arizona Cardinals (more bird, yum!); Seattle Seahawks (it’s wings night!); New York Giants (giants are big and scary, bear loses); Minnesota Vikings, twice ( just a pirate who showers less, bear wins both).
3. Andy Dalton will do well, and everyone will still get mad at him.
New Bears quarterback Andy Dalton, a veteran expected to start ahead of tantalizing rookie quarterback Justin Fields, will perform well as the starter, buoyed by the installment of several live bears on the offensive line.
Because Chicagoans are genetically predisposed to feel disappointment in their quarterback, they will boo Dalton anyway and produce a steady stream of social media demands that Fields be named the starter.
Coach Matt Nagy will wilt under the relentless pressure, bench Dalton and start Fields. The former Ohio State quarterback will also perform well, at which point Bears fans will boo him and routinely start chants of “DAL-TON, DAL-TON, DAL-TON!” in the hope Fields gets benched and now-backup Dalton enters the game.
This is Chicago. It’s like the movie “Speed.” If the quarterback carousel ever stops, the city will explode.
4. The Bears will only accept the result of a game if they win.
Following a model now firmly established by the Republican Party, the Bears will enter each game loudly suggesting the only way the opposing team can win is by cheating.
Chicago team officials will say they have a group of “score lawyers” standing by to contest any result that is not in the Bears favor, and in the event of a loss, players will count it as a win and forever declare themselves both robbed and victorious.
So, for example, should the Rams score more points than the Bears on Sunday night, the coaching staff should immediately claim the scoreboard was rigged and likely hacked by either Rams supporters in China or members of “antibears,” a radical leftwing coalition of Chicago haters.
If the Bears have more points on the scoreboard, then it’s a win and the integrity of the process cannot be questioned.
Just remember, Bears (and bears): A win is a win, even if it isn’t.
Now get out there and maul the opposition.