Did you find yourself averting your gaze Sunday as the Bears lined up for what proved to be the game winning 49-yard field goal? Bears quarterback Rex Grossman apparently did. He said he “didn’t want to watch it. I didn’t see the hold or anything. I was just waiting around and I saw the ball in the air.”
Grossman evidently didn’t look away long enough to miss the winning field goal. But we wonder how many Bears fans, rapt in front of their televisions, having barely survived an emotionally draining game, denied themselves the glorious sight of the football sailing through the golden uprights?
We imagine quite a few. That’s only a guess, based on our own moments of exultation and exasperation. Those included slamming down the remote, even angrily turning off the television at one point, fuming about one botched play or another, swearing to forget the game and learn the outcome later.
But we crept back and watched. And, late in the game, instead of looking away at moments of high drama, as some long-suffering fans have been known to do, we resolved not to blink.
Now, this isn’t a Bears team that demoralizes and annihilates foes the way the 1986 Super Bowl Bears did. They had a stifling defense–and all-world running back Walter Payton.
This is a Bears team that finds ways to win, even if it isn’t playing perfectly. And you know what? That’s fine with us. Perfection is, as we’ve often said, overrated. In sports, it can be tedious, if not downright boring.
Yes, fans tend to remember with affection and nostalgia the teams that eviscerate the competition, just as Chicagoans of a certain age revel in Ditka and Singletary and the “46” defense.
But that doesn’t detract from these Bears. They have a glory all their own, and it comes from the ferocity that Brian Urlacher & Co. bring to the field on their best days.
Come Sunday, there will be breathtaking moments that the game pivots one way or the other. And those are the moments, the ones where the adrenaline flows and you may be tempted to shield your eyes, that you must not. The beauty of the game is in how this team–any team–confronts imminent disaster. Forget about TiVo or checking out the instant replay after the drama is done. Live the moment!
So far, these Bears have given fans a thrilling season. This being Chicago, it’s only natural that some fans may fear the worst, and sense that doom is just around the corner, wearing a New Orleans Saints uniform. But this is also one of those magical seasons where it is possible to believe that the Bears will find a way to win.
Sure, we could be wrong. But we’ll watch the Bears and Saints on Sunday. Every single play.
