by @anarchyroll
10/10/13
I’m very happy that I picked the Bears with my heart before the season started as opposed to with my head. My head didn’t do me much better since I picked the Atlanta Falcons to go all the way, please if you have a heart, light a candle for Tony Gonzalez, he deserves better.
The Bears are having a good season so far, regardless of what talk radio in Chicago would have you believe. They are tied for first place in their division, and have been since the season started. Their offense has entered the modern era, and the defense hasn’t skipped a beat after the departures of Lovie Smith and Brian Urlacher. Devin Hester and the special teams unit have been producing their now expected high quality results.
However there is a sense of doom and gloom beyond the perennially toxic talk radio scene in the Chicagoland area. The Bears have lost their two starting defensive tackles and their offensive line appears to be regressing enabling Jay Cutler to follow suit. At least Cutler nailed his performance in The League on FXX, and by him, I mean his wife.
But in all seriousness, or as serious as talking about sports in an age of record high poverty and infrastructure crumbling, if the lines on both sides of the ball crumble, the rest of the team will fall like a house of cards. If that happens, much like Kevin Spacey’s stream show of the same name, the Bears won’t be receiving any awards for their work no matter how hard they try. Much like the Best Drama Series category, the Bears play in a stacked division which makes the situation worse.
Offense wins games, defense wins championships, and franchises are built from the inside out. Inside out means from the offensive and defensive lines out to the skill positions. The Bears are legit stacked at all of their skill positions. They have a franchise quarterback, two running backs, a tight end setting the league on fire, three reliable wide receivers, an all time great return game, franchise best kicker, pro bowl linebackers, and corners that create turnovers in mass. All of those are players and franchise qualities the fans of Jacksonville would sacrifice Tim Tebow to the sun god for; but if you’re team is getting dominated in the trenches you don’t have a chance to win the in the NFL.
Steroids can give the appearance of strength, and can satisfy the ego’s thirst of vanity. But the muscles are just for show and put the test are prone to break and tear. A high powered offense and a defense that scored looks great, fantasy owners can’t snatch up Bears skill players fast enough. But without strength at the line all the Bears will be able to do is score points in the regular season while watching the playoffs from their homes in Florida and Arizona.
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