Is it safe to come out now?
The last time I caught a glimpse of the Chicago sports landscape in the light of day, it was horrifying. This was all the way back on Sunday, when — stop me if you’ve heard this already — the Bears not only failed to walk and chew on a three-touchdown lead at the same time but committed the mother of all chokes against an opponent so cartoonishly bad that it had lost its previous game by 50 points. Or was it 100?
And this heinous display against the Broncos at Soldier Field unfolded exactly a day after one of our city’s maddening baseball teams lost its 100th game and the other completed an all-out September collapse by being eliminated from the wild-card race. Thanks for playing, White Sox and Cubs. No, not really.
Hang on, you knew about these developments already? Then why didn’t you stop me?
Probably because you’re as numbed and stultified by it all as I am, as anyone with any standards or expectations as an observer of pro sports in a leading market should be. The Bears are an organization fit for the world’s biggest cow town, way too mom-and-pop for their own good and willing to over-employ most anyone who might say yes to taking on a position of utmost importance. What, never been in charge of a team before? Never put together a roster before? Never developed a quarterback into a star before? Perfect! When can you start?
Bears quarterback Justin Fields is so utterly doomed, the best day of his career turned into a spectacular debacle. Sox manager Pedro Grifol is so far over his skis, he’ll correctly tell you the 2023 team hadn’t a single area in which it excelled and then add — can the man possibly be serious? — that it doesn’t mean the 2024 Sox can’t be big winners. And the Cubs are so OK with not going for the jugular as often as they could, and should, it’s almost like they’re proud of it.
“The key to consistency is not to build, like, a one-year superteam,” chairman Tom Ricketts said, “but to try to get to the playoffs as often as possible.”
“To make the leap up to Atlanta territory,” president Jed Hoyer said, “that’s going to take a little bit of time.”
Sure, fellas, take all the time you need. We’ll just sit here like doofuses and pretend the Dodgers, Braves, Astros and others aren’t ruthlessly putting “superteams” out there year after year and leaving the adorable Cubbies in the dust.
Speaking of superteams, did you catch wind of that Bucks trade for Damian Lillard? Of course you did. Upshot: With Lillard joining Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton and Brook Lopez, the Bulls can forget about breaking through at any time with their current core. OK, you got me, that was facetious — the Bulls weren’t going anywhere regardless.
Too often here, it feels like everything is terrible. And this is one of those times when the feeling is multiplied by an all-time gut-punch — or, in the case of the weekend just past, a flurry of gut-punches.
It’s reminiscent of the cruel, sudden end of the Bears’ 2018 season on that Cody Parkey double-doink. Cubs fans had just been through the wringer, the 2018 team’s offense having “broken,” according to then-president Theo Epstein, as a division title was fumbled away. The Sox had just lost 100 games. The stagnating Blackhawks had fired Joel Quenneville in November and replaced him with Jeremy Colliton (who?). The Bulls had fired Fred Hoiberg in December and replaced him with Jim Boylen (seriously now, who?).
It’s never fun to think back on Derrick Rose’s ACL tear in April of 2012 after he and the Bulls had soared into the playoffs. The Cubs were embarking on a 101-loss campaign. The Sox were moving on from Ozzie Guillen to Robin Ventura. Five days before Rose fell to the United Center floor, the Hawks had been eliminated in the first round for the second straight year in that same building, and it was baffling.
As the Cubs lost that Game 6 in the 2003 NLCS, another awful memory, there was bad all over town. The Bears were bumbling around with Kordell Stewart and Chris Chandler at quarterback, while first-round pick Rex Grossman gathered dust. What choices, right? Bulls guard Jay Williams had crashed his motorcycle a few months earlier, his career ruined. The Hawks were the worst team in the Western Conference.
Bad times. Just like now.
Anyway, I know what some of you are dying to say:
“Connor Bedard.”
Yes, we’ve got the Hawks’ Bedard, the brightest light on our sports landscape, our next superstar. Or so they all say.
What could go wrong?
