The Ballad of Ricky-Bobby: Ohhhhhh It's The Bears

The Bears open training camp in Bourbonnais today. How are you feeling about this team?

RICKY: I've pulled the NBA card when talking about my baseball ignorance this summer, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to pull it again: why else would I not be super pumped up for the NFL to begin? Because, right now, I'm having a little trouble grasping that football season is finally back, and that it starts, like, right now. Is this not my favorite league, featuring my favorite team? Well, yes. Yes it is. But, as always, I'm going to have to blame everything on LeBron for framing the universe in basketball-only lenses the last three months. Is it possible I sort of forgot that the world's best sports league exists? Oh man, LBJ really is a son of a bitch, and the vaunted Summer of 2010 was just as nuclear as everyone thought.

Let's recap TUP's (read: my) stance on the Bears since we last talked about them, which feels like it was probably in 2008. In summation: I thought this was pretty much the worst 7-9 team you'll ever see in your life last season.

7-9 is, by definition, not a terrible record. But let's not forget how bad some of those losses were last year. 45-10 at Cincinnatti. 41-21 at home against the Cardinals. 10-6 against the freaking 49'ers during a nationally televised Thursday night game. 31-7 in Baltimore. And this was all after they teased us with a 3-1 start. And the wins? Well, two came against the Lions, one came against the Browns, and another was against the Rams. To frame that 7-9 record: it came against what was deemed the NFL's easiest schedule before the season started. And yes: lots of those cupcakes that appeared in 2009 are nowhere to be seen this year.

I wanted Lovie to be fired, I wanted Jerry Angelo to be fired, I wanted to start over. We all made the mistake of thinking Jay Cutler was the final piece to the championship puzzle when he came over from Denver last year. He's probably only the first piece, if that. But instead of eating money and firing the coach, the faceless Bears franchise (who's call was it really to keep Lovie? Virginia's?) decided to remain status quo, to give the whole gang another shot.

And I think that's the story of the 2010 Bears: desperation. Would they really have made Julius Peppers the highest paid player in franchise history if Mike Shanahan was the coach? What if Gaines Adams never would have died? But the poster boy for this can only be one person: Mike Martz. As I wrote on February 2:

Martz is a cast-off, someone who lives on the fringe of the football world. There's a reason he was openly lobbying for this job as five other candidates passed: how else was he going to get back in football? No one would trust the long-term well being of a franchise with Martz, but the Bears aren't in that position. 2010 exists by itself. If the Bears fail, everyone is fired, the slate is wiped clean. 

I have to admit, however, that this desperation is very intriguing. To anyone who's doubting Peppers: why? He was clearly the best free agent available, and the Bears got him. Is this not a reason to rejoice? It is, if not for the player, than even for the boldness of the move. And Martz certainly has a stacked resume, and he's been talking a big game since Day One. He sees the world in Cutler's eyes, he thinks this rag-tag group of receivers can be a real asset, and he may even be delusional enough to think he can turn Matt Forte into Marshall Faulk.

For as silly as this all sounds on July 29, I must admit that it's better than the alternative: a young (read: cheap) coach, with a cheap staff, without Peppers and Chester Taylor and Brandon Manumaleuna.  Go big or go home, right? That's what the cool kids do. At least there are possibilities for this season: it could blow up spectacularly, it could work out somehow. If nothing else, it should be fun to watch.

BOBBY: If the Bears were a murder suspect in an interrogation room, I'd most likely be the bad cop to your good cop. My feelings on this team can usually be described as laughably pessimistic. I barely enjoyed the recent Super Bowl year*. But even with all of that said, my mind is in a great place with this 2010 Bears team. I think it boils down to two things...

1) Like you said, this is a desperation year. Everything's at stake for pretty much everyone (except maybe Peppers), so we're going to see an all or nothing season.

2) Keeping in mind the coaching staff was retained, the Bears really have done everything possible to win this year. They got the boom-or-bust potential quick fix in Martz and a bunch of real nice free agents. The only qualm is the lack of new rookies coming in. And by "qualm," I mean "I still don't regret the Jay Cutler trade as it remains my No. 1 day/moment as a Bears fan, ever, but apparently some people still do."

I'm so optimistic, man; don't even care where it takes me. I choose to believe -- believe! -- Peppers will play relatively well, Urlacher will bounce back, and the WRs can become something. I'm looking at you, Aromashodu (slight rhyme).

At worst, this season should at least be exciting. Picture the Bears losing games by 10-17, Martz saying "fuck it," and Cutler just throwing risky darts all over the field to these (maybe) excellent playmakers. Sounds great! Right? ... Well, maybe that could be pretty terrible. Ah, but still.

My question: is the defense, like, pretty bad? Everyone assumed -- as, again, you said -- Cutler was the missing piece, but really, they were assuming the defense was the defense it was five years ago. No longer the case. Would you call them a respectable unit? Maybe top half of the league? I certainly wouldn't call them elite. It really comes down to the O anyway, so maybe the question doesn't even matter.

* - because they were terrible

BOBBY: The Bears are for sure cool now. They're doing everything that we, as cool fans, have always wanted them to do. What remains to be seen is whether or not this will actually pan out. I'm a Michigan fan, and it kind of reminds me of where UM is at right now. Two years ago, we were all like "WE NEED A NEW OFFENSE, GET THE SPREAD OFFENSE, GRUMBLE GUMBLE," but after a few seasons of spread 'n' shred sputtering, I wouldn't be surprised if a big chunk of Michigan fans would welcome the boring, pro-style offense that was successful in years past. The bottom line is fans just want something that works. Getting there is the problem sometimes, and that's where fans might not necessarily know what they want.

So, in this equation: Michigan = Bears. Pro Style Offense = Terrible Offense. Spread Offense = Jay Cutler/Mike Martz.

The difference is this: pro-style offense worked at Michigan at one time -- the Bears have never had an offense really, truly "work" on a consistent basis. If this pass-happy machine doesn't work, the Bears don't really have anything to fall back on. And, as negative as this might sound, that's what will make this season so freaking watchable.

They fail? Everybody's out. It's time to clean house. We can forget this ever happened. It's that damn easy.

They succeed? Man, oh man. Would you have seen it coming? Hypothetically, if I told you the Bears made the playoffs this season, you might believe me, right? But if I told you the Bears won five games this year, you'd definitely believe me. A lot can go wrong, and a lot can go wrong easily... I'm talking a lethal combination of under-performance and injuries. But things can go right, too, and that's something to keep in mind.

Albert Haynesworth sorta ruined the expectations of all big money free agent d-linemen -- with extreme prejudice -- which is why I think the skeptical people are so boorish when approaching King Peppers (he is our LeBron, from now until TUP says otherwise) as a player. But let's say he becomes elite -- that and that alone will take a ton of pressure off the rest of the (probably mediocre) defense. It'd be one less thing for the coaching staff to think about, and that's definitely a step in the right direction. KP is just one example, though -- this can come from a lot of other places: Urlacher, Harris, 'Shodu, Cutler, and, way less realistically, Hester, can all provide these types of mega-boosts. It's kind of similar to the 2010 White Sox. And you've seen what they do when click, and you've seen what they do when they're a mess. There's just no point to go crazy when the roster has these types of players all across the board.

The stakes are high in many ways, but ultimately -- in a big picture sense -- they might be as low as they've been in a pretty long time. So enjoy.