As a lifelong Bears fan, true-and-blue division, it kills me whenever the Bears look weak.
I sat through seasons when the Bears couldn’t beat 11 grandmothers. I endured too many years when the Bears had all the brawn and bite of a caribou shot by Alaska’s governor.
Like that year when they went 1-13.
Like that year when they ended the season losing to the Washington Redskins 42-0.
Like that year when they beat the Packers 26-0, then went to Houston a week later and got beat 47-0.
I remember installing a satellite dish and seeing my Bears drop 24 of 32 games during the 1997-98 campaigns and thinking it might be time to turn off my TV and spend my Sundays doing something more constructive … like, oh, going to church, or having a picnic, or hunting caribou or chasing storms for the Weather Channel.
When I moved back to my childhood hometown of Chicago in 2003, I couldn’t wait to be there in person to see my Bears in action again.
So I flew to San Francisco and saw the 49ers stomp on them 49-7.
That was no fun.
I began to lose hope until, practically overnight, coach Lovie Smith found a secret formula and turned his 5-11 team into an 11-5 team.
Next thing I knew, the Bears were having a 13-3 season that would have been 14-2 if they hadn’t phoned in the season finale at home against Green Bay.
I loved it. Not simply because the Bears were winning again, but because they were pulverizing people.
They began that 2006 schedule on the road, smacking the Packers by 26 points. They beat the Lions by 27, the Seahawks by 31 and the Bills by 33.
After a goofy game in Arizona — it was the night when Cardinals coach Dennis Green came unhinged — the Bears began mauling people again.
They defeated the 49ers by 31 points. They won back-to-back games with the New York teams on the road. They had a night game in St. Louis and put 42 points on the board.
A Bears team scoring 42 points on a Monday night? If you know the Bears, you know they traditionally stink on Monday nights.
This was a new era, all right.
I saw them find a quarterback. I saw Rex Grossman make 23 touchdown throws. I saw Mark Bradley catch one for 75 yards and Bernard Berrian a 62-yarder. I saw the tight ends take eight balls into the end zone. Throwing to a tight end! What a concept!
All of this wasn’t so long ago. A rainy night in a Super Bowl wasn’t the Bears’ best effort, but they did go into the fourth quarter down by only 22-17. That’s how close we came to having a parade down Michigan Avenue.
Where did things go wrong?
How could the Bears of last season lose nine of 16 and not even make the playoffs? How, in such rapid fashion, could they bench their quarterback, trade their running back and become the third-best team in a four-team division?
I don’t know, but I do care.
When the 2008 schedule came out, I was asked for a quickie prediction. I picked the Bears to go 9-7. A colleague of mine must have felt I was nuts. He follows the Bears even more closely than I do, but he had ’em 6-10.
I thought training camp would tell us more. If the big lineman the Bears took in the NFL draft played as good as he looked, everything might be OK.
But little by little, I have seen the Bears dismantle what they had.
Their double-duty Super Bowl running backs are no longer with the organization, replaced by a green kid from Tulane who has never played a down in the NFL. Their twin-threat Super Bowl wide receivers are also gone, off to play for other teams.
As for the quarterback who beat Detroit 34-7, Seattle 37-6, Buffalo 40-7, San Francisco 41-10, the New York Giants 38-20 and New Orleans 39-14, he isn’t even the No. 1 guy at his position anymore.
Instead, the team has turned to Kyle Orton, who as the primary starter in 2005 threw more interceptions than touchdown passes, got sacked 30 times and had a passer rating of 59.7, which is like a baseball batting average of around .220.
So I wish the Bears luck.
I have downgraded, however, my prediction from 9-7 to 7-9. It pains me to do so. But the first four opponents on their schedule could be playoff teams. Detroit also looks better, and Minnesota looks mean. I could see the Bears being 2-6 at the halfway point if they don’t bear down.
Will they surprise me? I would like that. Maybe the defense and special teams will permit them to take those first two road games by scores of 9-7 and 6-3.
I would love to believe that Lovie’s Bears will be stronger than most people expect this season. But I don’t.
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mikedowney@tribune.com
