Let's Go Bears!

I may have never been more ready for some football.



Like many other Chicago Bears fans, I have been chewing on Super Bowl XLI for seven long months. I'm tired of the taste of defeat and humiliation.

Last year was a remarkable season. The Bears won their division and then the NFC championship. One for the record books? Yes. Fun? You bet. Tumultuous? Duh.

Ultimately unsatisfying? Absolutely.

The team is back, largely intact. The schedule is tougher. Rex is, uhm, Rex.

And the defense remains the biggest, baddest, meanest "D" in the NFL.

Yet, there's unfinished business here, gentlemen. The league does not respect the Chicago Bears. I mean, did you see that Nike/LaDainian Tomlinson commercial?

So, the only way to wipe that bad taste out of our collective mouths is for Urlacher, Harris, Briggs and crew to go out there Sunday and HIT people. Might I suggest this year's "LT" be made to feel like he has a rather large target on his back?

If last year was a fluke, we'll find out soon enough. If the Bears don't make it to the Super Bowl, we'll live. But we should refuse to be laughed at or mocked.

The 1969 Bears team went 1-13. And you know what? Those who saw the season or played in the games remember something other than the record. They remember the fear. They knew they could out-score the Bears, but they also knew that some bad dudes like Dick Butkus, Doug Buffone and Ed O'Bradovich were going to beat the hell out of them. Teams won and went home bloodied.

Today will be a tough test, but much will be learned by the way these Chicago Bears win or lose. I would be just as happy starting the season 0-1, if Tomlinson's leg is held aloft at the end of the game as sort of a makeshift Lombardi Trophy.

That could be OUR Super Bowl.

Which brings us to my annual Bears season prediction. Last year, I predicted that the Bears would go 13-3, win both the NFC North Division title and the NFC Championship before falling to the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl LXI.*

This year, I say the Bears will go 11-5, with the North title again and will be Super Bowl-bound after they win a second consecutive NFC championship title.

In any case, "Let's go Bears!" And don't forget that you can follow all of the action over at our popular site:

Super Bowl-Bound Bears

More later,


Mark

* I predicted this to myself in a hotel room in Cocoa Beach but I forgot to post it. Sorry.


Urlacher's bumpersticker?