Photo : Nam Y. Huh ( AP )

Some people are fans of the Chicago Bears. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Chicago Bears. This 2019 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.


Your team: Doinkity-doink-doink!

Your 2018 record: DOINK AND DOINK. Our DOINK, who art in DOINK, hallowed be thy DOINK-DOINK…


“Oh he hits the upright AGAIN! That’s impossible!” My dear Al, it IS possible. It is indeed possible for a formerly woebegone team to hire a future Coach of the Year winner, trade for Khalil Mack, barnstorm their way to a division title, and see a blinding, dazzling future suddenly appear before them … only to watch that future double-doink its way right down the wishing well. Imagine having your window of opportunity burst open and then cruelly slam shut all in the course of just one season. It’s possible! It’s possible to lose to Philly in the most humiliating fashion imaginable, and then win eight games a year every year thereafter, your players hating each other more with each passing game.

Your coach: Matt Nagy, a once competent fellow whose psyche has completely, visibly deteriorated since kicker Cody Parkey missed the 43-yard field goal that would have sent the Bears to their doom at the hands of L.A. in the divisional round. You would have thought Nagy missed the kick himself. Here is what Nagy did after Parkey missed that field goal:

• He got pissy that Parkey went on the Today Show to talk about it.

• He cut Parkey.

• He brought in three new kickers and forced all of them to attempt kicks from that same haunted distance, and ordered them to do so in an atmosphere of manufactured pindrop silence. They all missed.


• He kept showing the rest of the team film of the kick. WHY? Why would you do this?

Nagy has shown footage of the final seconds of that game, so the players “never forget that hurt.”


Was that really ever gonna be a problem here? If Nagy were a normal coach (and yes, I am aware that no such coach exists), he would be like, “Shit happens. We’re burning the tape.” They would move forward. Meanwhile, Nagy is acting like it was a Scott Norwood–level miss when all the Bears did was lose a fucking Wild Card game to a team that went out in the next round. Parkey’s miss wasn’t even the top chokejob moment in the NFL playoffs last year. The kick was tipped anyway! And yet, Nagy is going to allow a fluke play to eat away at his, and his team’s, sanity for the rest of eternity, or until he gets fired and takes a job coaching a MAC school. I’m appalled. You brought this shit on yourself, Matt Nagy. You could have had the Vikings’ horrific karma if you had simply asked for it. Let’s check in on Nagy’s current state of mind:

“I’m going to always revert back to that when you have high character people, they can handle that. If you have a bunch of bad people or turds, they don’t. And we don’t have turds on this team.”


Matthew, if you can’t spot the turd in your first half hour on the practice field...

Also, your new defensive coordinator is Chuck Pagano. Excited for him to overrule Nagy and have Leonard Floyd run a fake punt.


Your quarterback: Mitch Trubisky, who currently resides in the Bortles Valley where you can be a top-3 draft pick and have people still be shocked when you do something capable on the field. The Bears have a tremendous roster yet they’re basically stuck with Steve Fuller at QB. Trubisky genuinely does not know how to play quarterback for the first three quarters of every game. He can occasionally throw dimes in crunch time, but it’s often in service of a comeback that his ineptitude forced him to stage in the first place. There are times when Mitch looks razor sharp, and then there are times when he looks like he just converted from playing slot receiver.


You have a better chance of escaping from H.H. Holmes’s murder castle than you do of seeing Trubisky win a game all by himself. Behind Trubisky is the immortal Chase Daniel, who will still be a well-paid and invisible clipholder in the NFL 60 years from now.

What’s new that sucks: After misusing Jordan Howard last year and watching all of his averages plummet, the Bears dealt him away to the very same Eagles team that now lives in their nightmares. Here to replace Howard in the backfield is Seahawks castoff Mike Davis, who is just here to have fun…


“Have a good time all the time”

Davis will be joined by speed back Tarik Cohen, until Cohen is reduced to eating his own hair after Nagy has subjected him to footage of the double doink 6,000,000 more times. Otherwise, this offense remains unchanged from a year ago, with the un-notable exception of WR Cord Patterson stopping in for an Italian beef sandwich. The defense also remains as formidable as a year ago, with Ha Ha Clinton-Dix filling in at safety for the departed Adrian Amos. That’s good because this defense will need to score as many touchdowns as an average running back does for the Bears to have any chance. Unfortunately, as someone who has watched more than a few dominant defenses regress to the mean the following year, I regret to inform Bears fans that they’re in for a very rude awakening.


At least Kevin White is finally gone. You never have to worry about not seeing him on the field ever again. Even the kicker who “won” the camp competition’s job isn’t safe. May I suggest Blair Walsh? He’s not doing anything.

What has always sucked: Kyle Long barfed!


Feels like a metaphor! Can’t quite say for what, though! It is painfully obvious by now that, with the notable exception of the Khalil Mack trade, that the Bears essentially lucked into success a season ago and now have absolutely no idea what to do with it. At heart, they remain a rundown family business operated by a bunch of skinflints who find the actual staging of Bears football games to be a necessary irritant on their way to compiling flash money for weekend trips to Lake Geneva.

None of that will stop fans from acting like Soldier Field is now the gauntlet through which any other NFC team must pass if they wanna go to the Super Bowl. Give a Chicagoan any chance to indulge in shameless arrogance and they’ll latch onto it like it’s a Vienna Beef footlong. These fans are like Skins fans in that they’ll interpret any current flash of success as a divine sign that their return to glory is both inevitable and swiftly forthcoming, and they’re like Browns fans in that they’re too fucking stupid to know any better. The double-doink may have paralyzed Matt Nagy, but not these meat-breathing snowhumpers. All they need is Akiem Hicks to score another touchdown at fullback to scrawl out SHADES OF ’85! in yellow mustard across their man-tits.


You would think Bears fans would understand how to be football fans. They do not. They don’t know to shut the fuck up when their team is on offense. They don’t know how to attend a game without getting into a fistfight with a nearby fire hydrant. They think they’re a food town because they like bad pizza and salad on hot dogs. They’re all third graders. Chicago is like if Toronto were shittier. Chicagoans eat like they do on purpose so they can die early and not have to live in Chicago any more.The most famous people associated with the Bears are still everyone in the old SNL skit. All the Dick Wolf Chicago shows are pale imitations of the Dick Wolf shows set in New York. The only vegetable sold within city limits is giardiniera.

This Bears’ prospects, once seemingly so vast, are utterly wasted on this town, on ownership, and on the Bears’ PTSD victim of a head coach. Fuck them. Fuck their fans. Fuck the Ricketts. Malort is raw gasoline and Chicagoans who say they ENJOY the taste of it are either posers or sociopaths. Or both. DOINK TO THE DOINK TO THE DOINK DOINK DOINK. THE PIG SAYS DOINK, BITCH.


What might not suck: Rahm’s not mayor anymore! You’re FREE. Until he goes on television again eight seconds from now.

HEAR IT FROM BEARS FANS!

Nate:


Dante:

Fuck Cody Parkey.

Kyle:

Fuck kickers.

Blaise:

I knew Parkey was going to blow the kick the second he got iced. I have never been more certain of anything. I firmly believe there is no limit to how far I could go in life if I could take the confidence I had that we were going to blow it during that timeout and apply it to other outlets.


Matt:

I will never ever be able to stub my toe without saying “Fuck you Cody Parkey!” It’s now just my normal reaction to anything involving a foot and a post.


Josh:

Real Bears fans knew that any team that employed Jay Cutler and Marc Trestman at the same fucking time was never going to make that goddamn kick.


Tim:

Do grown men pee in sinks at Soldier Field? You bet! Do fans still believe in “Bear weather” bringing the team success despite data proving them wrong? Of course!


Barry:

Fuck every kicker not named Robbie Gould or Kevin Butler.

Pat:

Mike Ditka is a piece of shit.

Rich:

I’m really struggling to pretend that this isn’t going to follow the same path of the last 35 years of one good year with playoff disappointment followed by 5 years of irrelevance. Mike Ditka is a gigantic asshole.


Chris:

As long as Trubisky keeps looking like a red-shirt freshman, I just can’t.

Jared:

Nagy needs to move on, but he won’t.

Pete:

Since the Eisenhower administration, the Bears have basically been as successful as the Buccaneers and yet our fans act like we’re NFL royalty.


Dan:

Here’s what’s wrong with Bears fandom: being angry about a kicker who already showed you many fucking times that this was how it would all go down.


Kyle:

What did ONE season of coaching this team get Nagy? Four padded walls and a straitjacket while he mutters “double doink” through applesauce spittle.


Doug:

Double Doink, but every game, every year somehow.

Matt:

Just find someone who isn’t bad at kicking. Christ, this isn’t hard. The Voice finds a winner in a less contrived and ridiculous way.


Nickas:

Every little nugget of something good happening with this team is eventually revealed to be covered in shit.


Sean:

If I was granted three free wishes, I’d happily use two of them on Cody Parkey contracting Ebola. Also fuck John Fox with a whole pineapple.

Nathan:

In every game on every kick attempt, some doofus announcer (probably Joe Buck) is going to bring up the D-word. I want to open my veins just thinking about it.


Mitch:

Last year’s end was just karma for releasing Robbie Gould for being too cheap.

Ron:

Adam Shaheen is the equivalent to the Dollar Store Aluminum Foil.

Patrick:

Jay Cutler still haunts my dreams. I fear the grave is the only escape.

Lou:

It’s tough to imagine a world in which Mitch Trubisky isn’t an avid Barstool reader.


Michael:

My coach is the only man in the world who can pull off a visor. That alone is worth it.


Chris:

The worst part about the “double doink” was knowing it was going to happen. Khalil Mack will be in an iron lung by Week 3.

John:

- Can’t wait for another year of ‘is Trubisky any good?’ (Probably not! - The field sucks - The stadium sucks - The fan base is fucking insane - “Bear weather” is dumb - We will lose on a missed FG this year and 350 lb. guys in Urlacher jerseys will riot through the south lot - The McCaskeys will suck forever - Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks are so fucking good it turns me into a big sweaty fan every Sunday again and I hate them for it.


Brad:

I’ve read Why Everyone’s Teams Suck and there has been one constant: everyone’s fanbase is racist. But Bears fans are the MOST racist.


Rich:

It’s been 7 months and we still don’t know what has-been is going to kick field goals for us.


Myles:

They have me by the balls. They’re going to waste this championship window that they’ve created, they’re never going to win a Super Bowl in my lifetime, and I’ll be there for every soul-sucking moment of it. I’m like a fucking prisoner chained up in a dirty, dimly-lit basement somewhere and the Bears are the serial killer prepping their torture tools. Just put me out of my misery already, goddamnit!


Michael:

During the playoff game against the Eagles, right before the double doink, I was so confident Parkey would make the field goal and redeem himself I offered to buy all the beers the five or six of us drank at the bar during the entirety of the game if he missed, if they all would buy me one at a later date if he made it. As soon as he missed they all immediately left the bar so I couldn’t go back on my deal. That rat bastard Parkey didn’t just cause me personal pain, he cost me close to $200 as well.


James:

Six years ago I moved from northwest Indiana to Milwaukee due to a job transfer. As football season rolled around, I am making some small talk with my new colleagues about the upcoming season. That’s when they all find out that I am a Bears fan and not a Packers fan like the rest of them. One of them then says to me, “Well you live in Wisconsin now, so you have to root for the Packers.” I come up with what I feel is a logical and witty response: “If you had to move to Illinois for your job, would you change what teams you cheer for away from a team that you rooted for your whole life? No, you wouldn’t.” She then replied, “Of course I wouldn’t. I cheer for a good team.”


Michael:

Chicago spent the entire off-season scapegoating a kicker to divert the attention away from an undisciplined defense that had three penalties during a third-quarter touchdown drive from the Eagles and from an offense that couldn’t score a touchdown thus needing to rely on the aforementioned scapegoated kicker. In natural Bears fashion, they have not upgraded the kicker position at all.

Alexander:

I went to the tailgate for the Playoff game, and ran into my ex-girlfriend, who I haven’t seen in years. After we made eye contact, and awkwardly said hello to each other, I was introduced to her now to the man she cheated on with me with, then left me for, and is now her husband. Thanks to Cody Parkey, that was the second worst thing to happen to me that day.


Tony:

Matt Nagy somehow managed to both over-address and under-address the kicking position this offseason by signing a million obscure kickers and putting them through gauntlet style challenges, watching them mostly fail and then cutting them. Training camp is about to start and I have no idea who the kicker will be this season and I bet the coaching staff doesn’t either.


Michael:

The oldest, nine, is now sucked in. He has a lifetime of futility and heartbreak ahead of him. He actually started to learn this during Cody Parkey’s double doink in the playoffs last year. My boy didn’t yell or rage. He just quietly went up to his room. My wife found him there 30 minutes later just sitting in the dark, staring at the floor, with no words to say.


Will:

Last season Ryan Pace swindled that cherry faced Luddite in Oakland out of a first ballot Hall of Famer and helped get this team from worst to first. We were all riding high, way out over our fucking skis. We asked ourselves “is this team better than ‘85?” because god forbid we spend one second of the year not marinating ourselves in Ditka brand au jus and thinking about those fucking dinosaurs. Then, because we live in a just universe sometimes, it all bounced right back in our faces on the last play of the year not once but TWICE. Just incredible. They should play that kick in a highlight reel before every game just to remind us all of the inevitable.


Scott:

After I got done screaming at the TV, my 9 year old son looked at me and asked “Why do you do this to yourself? The Bears will always be bad.” And he is absolutely right.


Steve:

We have a GM who wasn’t allowed to have the sack to stand up to his head coach and not let Robbie Gould walk out the door. And now we can’t find a kicker who can actually make a kick.


Marco:

What was my Dad’s opinion towards our prized possession Khalil Mack? “Paid the stupid fuck too much money and he can’t even play offense.” I’m not kidding. Who does my dad blame for the Bears loss to the Eagles? Khalil Mack. “He didn’t do anything.” Bears fans deserved Parkey’s double-doink.

Brandon:

The Bears make the most impactful draft day move in franchise history to draft a player at the most important position in football, who becomes the first Bears QB to play in a Pro Bowl in 30 years, after helping the team to their first Division Championship and playoff berth since 2010 and people still fucking call him TRUBINKSY.


Zach:

Each year, I buy a bottle of champagne at the beginning of the NFL season. It has nothing to do with any measure of Bears success. I pop the bottle whenever it becomes official the Packers will not be winning the Super Bowl.


Zak:

Now we get to go 8-8 for about 4 years until everyone gets paid/quits/signs with another team/retires/dies and we go straight back to 4-12/6-10 range which is where we belong.


Charlie:

I’m gonna be on death’s doorstep, and the last thing I’m gonna mutter is “Why the fuck didn’t we just draft Watson or Mahomes?!” And then I’ll die, and finally be happy as a Bears fan. Oh, and fuck Aaron Rodgers with the Sears Tower.


Todd:

I was at a Super Bowl party in 2007. It was the second half, the Bears had possession but were on the ropes and needed a score. My friend was wearing a Cade McNown jersey he was trying to pass off as a Rex Grossman jersey — which is like trying to pass off cancer as congestive heart failure. With people heckling him from all sides my friend declared “No! Career-defining possession right here!” Which was when Grossman threw an interception the Colts’ Kelvin Hayden returned 56 yards for a touchdown. So my friend was right.

Zack:

It is the first game of the season, and the Bears were firing on all cylinders. 17-0 lead at halftime, Rodgers is seriously hurt, my Dad texts me to ask how many Super Bowl tickets I want. I’ve designated Khalil Mack to be the one who raises my future children. We finally have a coach who isn’t afraid to call entertaining plays and our QB is serviceable for the first time since Smokin’ Jay got here. I haven’t been this happy to be a Bears fan since sometime in January 2006. But then I see it. I see Rodgers come out of the tunnel after halftime and the entire Jack’s frozen pizza I ate for dinner almost ends up on the carpet. I look at my girlfriend and tell her, “The Bears are going to lose this game.” Fast forward, the Bears have given up 17 straight points. Rodgers is being Rodgers and Cris Collinsworth has an erection that is threatening to knock his mic off of his coat. Kyle Fuller drops what would’ve been a game ending Pick 6. I looked at my girlfriend again and said, “Rodgers is going to throw the game winner right here.” He threw a 75-yard touchdown pass. Bears lose 24-23. I should start fucking gambling.


Chuck:

This year the regularly scheduled destruction of Bear’s fans hopes and dreams occurred on January 6th, which is also my daughter’s birthday. We were having a small get together for my daughter in which the game was on and everyone was pacing and saying very little. It came time to sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles when Mr. Parkey trotted out on the field. A hush fell over the gathering. You know what happened next. What followed was similar to a scene out of one of those documentaries from the 70's and 80's about poorly run/funded state mental hospitals. There was incoherent screaming, yelling, sobbing, flailing, languishing. Relatives and friends were called, on speakerphone and FaceTime, at which point they were invited to join in on the cacophony of despair. The word FUCK was said, nay shouted, no less than 577 times all while my two young children looked on in horror and fear. Several folks had to excuse themselves to the garage or patio to talk to God in private, as was probably best given the circumstances. After all this, we still had to sing and open presents. HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE!


Submissions for the NFL previews are closed. Next up: Philadelphia Eagles.