2010 was a long time ago. And that time seems even more of a distant memory after a 15-14 embarrassing loss at Soldier Field this past Sunday. There are many words to describe what has been one of the most forgettable seasons in recent memory, but after yesterday there was only word to describe their latest performance. Bears’ legend Ed O’Bradovich said it best, it was ‘disgraceful.’
2010 was the last time the Bears made the playoffs, better yet, had a winning record. With Lovie Smith still in charge, the Bears won the NFC North, knocked off the Seattle Seahawks in the Divisional Round, before ultimately falling to the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship game with Caleb Hanie trying to lead an improbable comeback.
Think about that for a second. The Bears on the cusp of their second Super Bowl berth four years after their devastating loss to Peyton Manning and the Colts. The Bears could rewrite their history and remain atop the NFL with Jay Cutler, a Super Bowl Champion. Instead, ever since that season seven years ago, the Bears have spiraled out of control and with that, are losing their fans.
Chicago Tribune Columnist David Haugh checked the pulse of Bears nation in relation to that of Illini nation, who ironically are now coached by Love Smith after almost a decade of bad football. He thought that Illini fan apathy towards their football team was slightly worse than the Bears, but it was getting close.
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This is my sense:
Illini football fan apathy > Bears fan apathy
But it’s closer than it should be.
— David Haugh (@DavidHaugh) November 25, 2017
This was just after Thanksgiving. Since then, the Bears have lost two more games, falling to the Philadelphia Eagles, which was expected, and then lost to the now 2-10 San Francisco 49ers. The apathy arrow is now pointing squarely in the Bears direction, congrats Illinois.
Sitting in the stands this weekend, the game was almost laughable. It was expected that they would somehow find a way to lose to a team with only 1-win and a new starting Quarterback in Jimmy Garappolo. And that is exactly what happened. An unprepared Bears team with a vanilla offensive game plan, and a regressing defense looked ‘out-coached’ and ‘out-classed’ in front of their most passionate fans, not to mention on an unusually warm 60-degree day in December.
The feelings of embarrassment, disgust and apathy filled the stadium. Out of all the feelings in the stadium this Sunday and this whole season, APATHY is what the Bears should be most scared of. Apathy is why you have had back-to-back home games with a combined number of paid-no-shows as high as 18,500 people. Apathy is why season-ticket holders have sold their seats this season. Apathy is why fans aren’t carving out their Sundays anymore to watch games, when they see later that night what real football looks like, seeing Carson Wentz and Jared Goff light up the scoreboard.
The Bears are losing their fan base and are doing nothing about it. Thinking that fans will stay through thick and thin, is ignorant and not addressing their true problems is cowardice.
The Bears may believe their brand trumps all, but it doesn’t anymore. The Cubs are the talk of the town, with the Blackhawks a close second. While the Bears hold a special place in this city, the ‘talk’ for the last 7 years has only been negative.
Bears fans are tired of rooting for firings. Shouldn’t they deserve to root for winning?
As the losing continues, so does the interest in the team. And if the Bears continue to stick to the status quo, deny transparency, and continue to misfire on player and even coaching evaluation, the downward trend will continue. The Bears need to make changes, but by keeping John Fox through the season, watching Dowell Loggains hold back Mitchell Trubisky’s development through unimaginative play-calling, and seeing draft picks and former players continue to fall out of the league or find success on other teams, what is there to watch?
The Bears offer their fans no enjoyment on Sunday afternoons. And if you think the fans are apathetic towards their team, it seems as though former Bears’ Director of College Scouting Greg Gabriel thinks the players are too.
This is a 1 win team that has totally kicked the Bears ass. Bears players do not give a shit, that’s on the coaches
— Greg Gabriel (@greggabe) December 3, 2017
The Bears don’t care, so why should you? If they fired John Fox and or Dowell Loggains, it would start a fire under everyone else in Halas Hall, telling them ‘this is not acceptable.’ Gabriel talked about this today on the Bernstein and Goff Show. But with the continued miscues and lack of communication with the fan base about the team’s direction, Bears fans have no reason to stick by the team if the team doesn’t offer them any incentive to do so.
Since the firing of Lovie Smith in 2012, the Bears will have had seven straight seasons of .500 football or worse. Fans are taking notice. Just look at the tweets below populated on Sports Mockery’s website this weekend.
How about this one Dan? pic.twitter.com/OPmpE92XOF
— Neil Martyn (@Knee_Mart) December 4, 2017
From Emery to Trestman, to Pace to Fox, nobody is safe from blame. If the Cleveland Browns did not exist, the Chicago Bears, THE CHARTER FRANCHISE, would be the worst team in football over the last seven years, more importantly for the last four season, totaling 17 wins over that span as of Week 13 of the 2017 season.
Since the Bears won the Super Bowl in 1985, the seven-year playoff drought is their longest absence in over 30 years. How is that acceptable?
At the end of the season, when George McCasky holds his press conference and says at the podium that ‘mother is pissed,’ is that supposed to rile up Bears fans? He said that last time, when the Bears let go Marc Trestman, but they seemed to not learn from their mistakes in hiring John Fox.
It is not the anger of his mother Virginia McCasky that George should be scared of; it is the anger of the Bears fans, his paying customers that he should be worried about.
The Bears buzz in this city is at an all-time low. People simply don’t care like they used to. Bears games used to always be appointment TV, and it is getting very hard to make it so. The Bears continue to stunt young players development, coupled with an off-message head coach and general manager and a product that really isn’t worth anyone’s time. Even long-time Bears’ fan and NFL reporter Hub Arkush cannot take it anymore.
And coming home after the game yesterday, seeing teams score with ease on the Red Zone channel, or watching Carson Wentz make miraculous throws from one knee, it really shows just how far the Bears are from competing at the NFL level. As fans continue to watch the Bears, and then watch the rest of the league, they will continue to turn off the Bears game and focus on the Red Zone channel, as they care more about their fantasy team then the one that plays on the Lakefront.
Apathy is a very scary thing, and the Bears need to take notice before losing a generation of fans who are hungry for football, but who can’t find any resemblance of it in their own Chicago team.
