They could clinch the NFC North on Sunday by defeating the Packers, who are already eliminated from playoff contention and are being led by a disgruntled Aaron Rodgers and a former Cleveland Browns coach.
The Bears just faced a team that coming into Soldier Field Sunday night was 11-1, scoring 30+ points in 10 of those games, and averaging over 400 yards of offense per contest. It was a Prime Time, nationally broadcast game that had the air of a conference championship.
The Bears defense, without the assistance of gales of wind or a blizzard, exposed and obliterated the vaunted Rams offense. They wreaked havoc on an offensive line that was nowhere near ready for a challenge, rattled a former #1 overall pick star quarterback, and picked him off 4 times for good measure.
The Rams defense, not lacking for big names themselves, got beaten thanks in part to a touchdown pass to a reserve offensive lineman.
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Go ahead, read that first part again. Feels good, huh? While I think we all had some idea of the Bears being pretty good this season, I don't know if anyone had planned to be writing that out by this point in the year.
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There's Super Bowl hype in the air, affirmation of the Bears as a legitimate threat to the rest of the NFL, and yet it's still too early to say just where this Bears team should fit in the minds of fans. A popular thing that has happened a lot on these boards (and around the internet in general) is to look at this 2018 Bears squad and place expectations next to two teams in recent Chicago sports history:
- The 2008/09 Chicago Blackhawks
- The 2015 Chicago Cubs
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The 2008/2009 Chicago Blackhawks were a stew of star talent that had finally started to reach a boil, cultivated from a number of key draft picks and free agent splashes. They doled out big-time coin for defenseman Brian Campbell (good call) and goalie Cristobal Huet (bad call). After a slow start, they promoted Joel Quenneville to be head coach while keeping fired coach and Blackhawks alum Denis Savard in the loop as a franchise ambassador.
There was an air of class about the Blackhawks that season which spoke to their maturing into a franchise that was serious about winning, winning championships, and restructuring their organization into one that was more about success and less about the almighty dollar.
Speaking of which, a huge portion of the Blackhawks resurgence into relevancy has to do with the death of "Dollar" Bill Wirtz, whose crippling philosophies set a once-proud symbol of the Chicago sports scene into the "pay-no-mind" list for far, far too long.
The 08/09 'Hawks turned heads, qualifying for the playoffs and introducing the NHL in earnest to names like Toews, Kane, Sharp, Keith, and Seabrook. It was their most successful season since the early 90s and first playoff berth since 2002.
Their long-time foe, the Detroit Red Wings, ultimately put a stop to the train of excitement, dispatching the upstart Blackhawks 4-1 in the Western Conference Finals. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but it signaled to the Blackhawks faithful and Chicago sports scene that this team was one to watch.
With a roster bolstered by all-world veteran talent Marian Hossa, acquired with an absurd 12-year contract that offseason, and a few other herbs and spices of 20-somethings, expectations were set for them to finish what they started in 2009. In the Western Conference Quarterfinals, they found themselves down 4-3 (blowing a 3-1 lead). With Hossa committing a 5 minute penalty with 1 minute to play, the Blackhawks would have to not only score a tying goal down a player, but survive a further 4 minutes of being shorthanded in overtime.
Pulling their goalie, Chicago made a miracle happen, as Kane netted the game tying goal with seconds remaining. They held the puck desperately for 4 minutes of shorthanded play in overtime, and as Hossa flew from the penalty box, Dave Bolland's pass came right to him, and the Blackhawks stole a game that turned the tide of the series, the season, and the franchise. They proved they could overcome adversity, meet and exceed expectations, and be the instigators of their own success.
The symbolic moment of that hinge in Blackhawks history, however, didn't happen for me until 2013, when the Blackhawks, one title already in their pockets, coming off of a Presidents Trophy regular season, once again had to make it past the Detroit Red Wings in the 2013 Western Conference Finals. This was a symbolic matchup, not only because of how the 2009 WCF defeat had forged the Blackhawks into winners, but because it would be last time this could happen, as the Red Wings were leaving the Western Conference and Central Division in 2014.
The Blackhawks were down 3-1 in that series before storming back and winning in 7 games, the final victory coming in overtime at the United Center. They would go on to win perhaps the most incredible Stanley Cup in hockey history against the Boston Bruins, but that triumph, that vanquishing of their longtime foe of Detroit, marked the changing of the guard. The Red Wings have been a hockey afterthought ever since.
MOMENTS THAT MADE THEM:
- Losing to the Red Wings in the 2009/10 Western Conference Finals
- Stealing an overtime win in 2010 against Nashville
- Beating Detroit in 7 games in the 2013 WCF
The 2015 Chicago Cubs had trace elements of those Blackhawks salad days: Much of their roster was grown from within, young and feisty. They had their "Hossa" signing in star pitcher Jon Lester,, seasoned with the veteran salt in catcher David Ross, bolstering a young roster of thrilling talent: Names like Rizzo, Baez, Bryant, Fowler, Russell, Arrieta, and Hendricks, among others. Quirky manager Joe Maddon seemed like the perfect fit for the cast of characters, who unlike the stern-but-fiery Joel Quenneville's maturing effect on the Blackhawks, needed to keep smiles on the faces of young Cubs, reminding them to stay loose, forget expectations, and remember that baseball is a child's game.
They were competing in an NL Central race that featured a ton of competitive teams, including their arch rival St. Louis Cardinals, the dominating force of the division who had often crushed the Cubs at every opportunity, and the Pittsburgh Pirates, a similarly plucky team aching for relevance with a scrappy roster of their own.
Rookie of the Year Kris Bryant was a revelation, and Anthony Rizzo came into his own as a face of the franchise. Jake Arrieta came out of nowhere to win the Cy Young and had a second half of pitching that may go down as the most dominant series of starts in the long history of baseball. Rookie Kyle Schwarber was crushing balls out of the park. Magic seemed to be in the air.
The division was so good in fact that the Cubs, despite winning 97 games in the regular season, would finish third in the Central. The Cardinals and Pirates won 100 and 98 games respectively, putting the Cubs and Buccos in the awkward position of a 1-game playoff to determine whose vaunted season would be eradicated in a 9-inning bout. The Pirates (1882) and Cubs (1876) in all those years had never once met in the postseason, and their first occasion would be a play-in game.
In Pittsburgh, the Pirates fans could only watch as Arrieta shut them down over 9 innings.
The real triumph came as the Cardinals, playoff veterans and no stranger to winning championships, were up next. That series was best represented by a Kyle Schwarber home run in game 4, a moon shot that landed on the roof of the Wrigley Field scoreboard. The Cardinals fell in that series 4 games to 1, and the Cubs were on to the National League Championship Series.
Ultimately the New York Mets extinguished the fire of what was a magical season, but the significance of vanquishing the Cardinals in a playoff series held symbolic significance that the tides had changed.
Acquiring another star in Jason Heyward and seasoning the roster further with veteran pitching, the Cubs came to life in 2016, finding themselves once again in the NLCS, this time against the Los Angeles Dodgers; a team dripping with pitching talent. Game 1 was a tense stalemate, 3-3 in the 8th at Wrigley. Pinch-hitter Miguel Montero crushed a Grand Slam. Montero, a veteran forgotten in the mix of young talent, sent Chicago's north side into a frenzy with that blast.
The tone was set for the series, and while it was no cakewalk, the Cubs made the World Series for the first time since 1945. Fast forward. Like the Blackhawks against the Red Wings three years earlier, the Cubbies were down 3-1 to the Indians and staring down the hot barrel of crushing disappointment.
Then they won. And won again. And again. And in Cleveland, just as the Blackhawks did against Detroit, game 7 went into overtime: Extra innings.
While fellow veteran catcher David Ross gets a lot of love for how he inspired that team to win a championship, many forget it was Montero's RBI that proved to be the crucial winning run in Game 7 of the World Series against Cleveland. You all should know the story by now of the Rain Delay, Schwarber's return from a torn ACL, Heyward's inspiring speech in the weight room, and a ragtag back end of relievers holding off an Indians rally to win the Cubs first World Series since 1908.
MOMENTS THAT MADE THEM:
- Beating the Cardinals in 5 games in 2015
- Montero's Grand Slam in Game 1 of the 2016 NLCS
- Coming out of the Game 7 Rain Delay with renewed purpose
So we circle back to these Chicago Bears, and how they measure up. Their success has not yet been fully measured, as the Bears haven't yet done what those two teams did: Win a championship.
...yet.
But the writing's on the wall, and as we can all attest to, the 'moments' that make these teams go from merely special to championship-level sports legends of Chicago are happening before our eyes.
Beating the Rams last night was perhaps one of those, but until we can see the whole picture of what these Bears are and how far they'll go, all we can do is place a bookmark in hopes we can come back in a couple months to revisit how this team became the 2018 Chicago Bears, how they became the team that kids have posters of on their wall for years to come, how they became the team that sports radio callers compare every subsequent team to over the next 30 years.
Or how they became a footnote in a long series of immensely talented teams that never got theirs in the end. But you look at this roster, these coaches, and the depth of talent from team brass to the equipment managers, and it really makes you wonder - how could this team NOT get theirs?
During the 2006 Chicago Bears NFC Championship run, coach Lovie Smith described his own squad as a 'team of destiny.' Obviously it didn't pan out, but maybe he spoke too soon. Maybe the mantra was wrong.
Coach Matt Nagy's words seem a bit more appropriate for this group:
- Be You
Be You, Bears. Be Champions.
