Some people are fans of the Chicago Bears. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Chicago Bears. This 2016 Deadspin NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here. And buy Drew’s new book here.




Your team: Chicago Bears.


Your 2015 record: 6-10. But for one day… one GLORIOUS day… this team was perfect, my friends. See for yourself:

And that wasn’t even the game they lost to Blaine Gabbert. I feel like the above graphic got lost in the shuffle last season because of the Jim Tomsula Job List graphic. But it shouldn’t have. Someone should etch this drive chart in pewter, bolt it to the shitter door in Canton, and then install Jimmy Clausen’s face as the toilet. No team in the past 35 years—not even the Browns—has had to punt on every single possession of a game. It’s a remarkable feat. Ditka himself couldn’t have coached it up better.

Your coach: John Fox. Please note that offensive coordinator Adam Gase left during the offseason, taking most of Fox’s coaching credibility with him. Your new OC is Dowell Loggains, who looks like he’s ten years old and just got caught with his hand in the Cheetos bag:


Without Gase, I’m ready for the Bears to unleash the kind of offense that would make Lloyd Carr shit his oxygen tank: power sweeps, power sweeps to the OTHER side, a pass play that LOOKS like a power sweep but is actually a drag route to the sixth tight end. We’re talking real 1908 World’s Fair-type innovations. I don’t know how you break that all-punt game record, but the 2016 Bears are gonna find a way. Maybe they’ll fumble every punt.



Your quarterback: Jay Cutler, who is less a quarterback these days than he is a chronic diagnosis. Let’s have a live look-in at him trying to grasp that new offense:


For real, I can’t believe he’s still here. I bet HE can’t believe he’s still here. For years now, Jay Cutler has been mentally prepared to walk off the field in the middle of the first quarter and retire to a life of homemade goat milk vaccinations…

The Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County star is so concerned about what goes into her kids’ bodies that she made her own goat’s milk formula for her babies.


Imagine how many spoonfuls of matcha tea powder this guy has been forced to sample over the past 18 months. Anyway, against all odds, Cutler is still the quarterback of this team. And the amazing thing is that he is still coasting on a reputation for being a gunslinger when A) He’s never thrown for 30 touchdowns in a season, B) He’s never thrown for 4,000 yards as a Bear, and C) He hasn’t played a full season this decade. In other words, Jay Cutler doesn’t even DESERVE to be stereotyped as a reckless, yard-hogging, turnover-prone idiot. He’s not prolific enough to merit that label. I don’t think there’s ever been a weaker franchise cornerstone. His new backup, Brian Hoyer, had a better TD/INT ratio last season. That’s… not encouraging.

What’s new that sucks: If you thought this offense was underwhelming last season (21st overall), wait until you watch them take the field without do-it-all running back Matt Forte, now a Jet, and tight end Martellus Bennett, who got traded (for virtually nothing) to the Patriots. THE PATRIOTS. Jesus. The Bears may as well have sprung Aaron Hernandez from prison while they were at it. What is it about the shit teams in this league that they feel compelled, repeatedly, to give New England whatever it is they happen to need to sustain their excellence? You know what I would trade to the Patriots? CYANIDE. The fuck is wrong with you, Ryan Pace? ARE YOU REALLY THE DEVIL?!


Anyway, the Bears offense is cratering just as the team has managed to shore up its horrific defense. Here’s Jerrell Freeman, signed away from the Colts. Here’s Georgia linebacker Leonard Floyd, fresh from the draft. And here’s newly minted Super Bowl champion Danny Trevathan, who knows a thing or two about dragging your team to victory despite having a dead cat at quarterback. In theory, this defense will be better than in years past. And yet, what does it matter? What good will these upgrades be when the defense is still gonna end up playing 90 snaps a game because Cutler won’t stop hucking it downfield to a quintuple-covered Alshon Jeffery? Every single Bears free agent signing lives to regret it.

Also, Kevin White is finally healthy. For now. Let’s see how he fares after a month of Kristin Cavallari rubbing moon dust into his sutures.


What has always sucked: These fucking fans. I bet the highlight of their season was when Richard Dent trashed Cam Newton. If you’re wondering how Chicago has managed to remain an openly corrupt and viciously segregated city for decades and decades, I refer you to parade of mustachioed cows shuffling through Soldier Field every other week hoping that the ghost of Jim McMahon’s motor function comes rising out of the turf. All signs of future economic and social progress are fucking Kryptonite to these people. The Bears haven’t done a single thing since 1985 and neither have they. It wouldn’t shock me if we found out that this franchise was deliberately killed by Rahm Emanuel years ago with the evidence kept under wraps until after his reelection.

What might not suck: Kyle Long seems nice enough, I guess. Who gives a shit.

Let’s remember some Bears:

John Thierry



Lemuel Stinson



Jay Hilgenberg



Dez White



Brad Muster



Hear it from Bears fans!

Larry:

Dump this shit into the toilet.

Marty:

I came across John Fox at a country music festival in Chicago a few weeks ago. I yelled, “John Fox!” he replied “FUCK YEAH!”.


Dan:

On Sunday, December 21st, 2014, my alarm went off around 8 a.m. I groaned. Then I got up, made some coffee, probably had something to eat. Showered. At this point it’s probably around 9 and my wife is stirring. I make some comment about needing to get dressed and then said something to try and guilt her into coming along. She wasn’t having it so I grimly started to get dressed. And that’s when she said: “You know, you don’t have to go either.” And it was like a 350-lb. lineman was lifted from my shoulder. I didn’t have to go either. So that day I didn’t put on 5 layers of clothes and I didn’t trek a mile to the train in Chicago winter and I didn’t sweat profusely on a 45 minute train ride and I didn’t walk another mile or so with fellow meatheads to Soldier Field and I didn’t climb 3,000 stairs to my seats. I didn’t endure 3+ hours of wind and cold just to have to make a similarly awful return trip home. And I didn’t see the Bears- led by Jimmy Fucking Clausen- lose to the Lions in person. None of this seems like a revelation but I assure you: eating approximately $200 in tickets instead of enduring that shit changed me. I don’t have to go.


Jace:



The Bears have gone full White Sox: they just don’t matter. We’re Pedro Martinez and the Packers are our daddy. We’re the Jets of the 2000s minus Rex Ryan’s foot fetish and all his charisma. We’re not the sexy young team like the Vikings (don’t worry Drew, they’ll find a way to fuck it up). We’re not historically inept in quite the same way as the Lions. We have a competent coach and competent players and seem like a competently bad team. We’re good enough to think we could win a few games and bad enough that I realize by midway into the 2nd quarter of each of those games that we’re outmatched. We’re irrelevant. And I’ll waste about 50 hours of my life this season (including naps) to see that through.


Jerimiah:

I thought about going through about 15 years of our first round picks, but I’m too apathetic to copy and paste that Wikipedia page much less relive those debacles. All of the methadone in the world cannot beat the rush of drafting pre-injured players. I was going to read up on offseason activities, but stopped after seeing this headline. “Eddie Royal could be the Bears’ breakout player of 2016 | Bears Wire.” Scientology couldn’t get its followers to buy that claim. Hey at least our coach is no longer a Canadian League bond trader. Fuck this team.


Kyle:

Peanut Tillman’s retirement is the most note-worthy offseason move. He didn’t even play for the Bears.


Colin:

My dad got a Rashaan Salaam jersey for free and he just threw it away with no explanation before the end of his first season. Now all I have left is a Kyle Orton or Johnny Knox jersey.


David:

Jay Cutler is the most prolific passer in Chicago Bears History. That is fucked up.


Nicholas:

I moved to Chicago in early 2006 - just before the season the Bears returned to the Super Bowl and got stomped by the Colts. Before I moved there, the Chicago Bears of 1985 were considered an ancient relic of the long-ago past: A great team that showed up, won a title, and faded out as far as the living, breathing football world was concerned. I can now tell you more about that 1985 team than either the Bears of 2006 or the current Bears, and that’s just pathetic. Chicago stopped its clock when it comes to football. It knows nothing of the NFL before or after 1985, even about its own team. A football fan in Chicago will get to know everything about the 1985 Bears, whether they’re interested or not. That’s because when Bears fans argue about football, it’s not two minutes before they drag the ‘85ers into it and rattle off names and statistics of football players who, by and large, are pushing through their 50's and 60's and whose achievements have been eclipsed by younger athletes in an evolving sport. It would be traditional right now for me to insist that the ‘85ers could get away with murder, but it’s worse than that. If they ran for public office, they could win in a landslide and easily push through a bill that legalized murder. This is a group of fans that let Mike Ditka become the eternal face of the team. Ditka is nothing more than Donald Trump, Sports Edition. But wait, there’s more! Bears fans wildly insist that Chicago exists in some sort of cold-weather bubble which only the Bears could ever possibly play in. They seem oblivious to other cold-weather teams like the Packers, Patriots, and Steelers, who have all managed to excel in the naked elements while the Bears have been playing mediocre to average football ever since the ‘85ers gutted the likable version of the Pats. (Even the ‘06 team was little more than a good team that hit its stride during a time when the NFC was bad.). Bears fans, bless their tiny dino brains, still believed Chicago is the only American city with winter weather resembling an Antarctic outpost. Perhaps Bear Weather is something that by definition could only exist in Chicago, but that still doesn’t explain why the Bears themselves win so few games in it.


Ethan:

Two years ago, the NFL offered us cord cutters the ability to watch one team (OUR TEAM!) all year long for around $30. I have a family and a busy job and I only have time to watch one game a week. Last year, they got rid of the single team package so now, in order to watch my Bears, I’d have to pony up $100. I declined. No fucking way am I spending 3 figures to watch those assholes.


Brian:

Fuck Rex Grossman for wasting Urlacher, Briggs, Peanut Tillman and Devin Hester’s one chance at a well-deserved Super Bowl title. Yeah, I am still bitter.


Alec:

Our biggest game in the last five seasons was spoiling the number retirement for a drug-addled redneck/Wisconsin Jesus during a 6-10 season.


Joshua:

God, Fuck Phil Emery, man.

Terry:

The fan base is projecting Leonard Floyd, our top draft pick, as some ungodly mix of Aldon Smith (but not the drinking part, said in a quiet, serious tone) and Von Miller. This despite the fact that Leonard Floyd weighs 210 pounds soaking wet and in minicamps probably first lined up with the WRs, because those are the guys on the roster he looks most similar to. But I’m sure Vic Fangio’s gonna coach up a guy that only got four sacks his last year of college. For the entirety of my life as a football life, our biggest rival has been quarterbacked by a Hall of Famer, first Favre and now Rodgers. It’s like I’m in the Harry Potter universe, but instead of casting bad-ass Crucio spells I’m one of the muggles who doesn’t even know magic exists. Over the roughly twenty years of Bears fandom I can remember, we have had more offensive coordinators (eleven) than I’ve had sexual partners.


Antwan:

I can’t even make this team good in Madden 12.

Jeff:

The Bears are so perennially hopeless that I sometimes go to the Packers bar in Chicago wearing a Cutler jersey on game day, and none of the Packers fans even bother trying to give me a hard time anymore.


Jerry:

Here’s to hoping Jay Cutler gets polio from one of his brood before the season starts.


Jordan:

Jay Cutler has taken calls from approximately six thousand different offensive coordinators since the Bears traded for him, yet the front office continues to wonder why he can’t stay consistent. We let every single halfway decent player walk or we trade them away the instant they don’t seem happy with the team’s shittiness. I seriously just had to Google whether Alshon Jeffery was still on the team. Nobody will ever shut the fuck up about 1985. The only thing that brings me joy in football anymore is seeing the Packers lose.


Kyle:

The greatest Bears Player of my generation is now a shill for a hair restoration place.


Mike:

The single high-point of my fandom occurred when I was 7 years old. It’s all been downhill ever since with even the occasional glimmer of hope (2006, 2010) always revealed to be covered in shit.


Brody:



The three most memorable games for me as a Bears fan are all losses to the Packers.


Michael:

Jay Cutler is Bad Luck Schleprock with a cannon arm.

Dan:

Look at the picture that accompanies this (terrible) article. Why would any human being go through life with a hand that looks like that? Who in the hell is holding that beer? Why are they wearing a jersey with no. 69?


Steve:

They’re trying to get fans excited about the team again and they can go fuck themselves for that. Predict 8-8 and 3rd in the division.


Justin:

A few years ago, my wife and I drove 6 hours from Indy to Green Bay to see the Packers play our beloved Bears. The Bears lost 55 – 14. The highlight of our trip was this picture. I’m the one on the left, not smiling.


Matt:

The only thing that kept Jay Cutler from not being a dysfunctional turd in shoulder pads got hired away by the Miami fuckin Dolphins. Fuck Miami and fuck Jay Cutler with a pine cone.


Max:

Charles “Peanut” Tillman retired, and his retirement announcement video will somehow be the highlight of the whole season when all is said and done. The only thing to do as a Bears fan is enjoy not being a Lions fan.

Patrick:

We depict the most prolific quarterback our storied franchise has ever known as a chain-smoking malcontent stuck in perpetual ennui in an effort to make him MORE likable.


Barry:

We can’t find a QB for most of my life, when we finally land one, he has no one to throw to. We finally bring in Marshall, he puts up some big numbers, and then ship him out of town since we have Jeffery and White. Now we are so enamored with White, a kid who hasn’t even stepped onto the field in a Bearsuniform, that it looks like Jeffery will play out his franchise tagged year and then we’ll let him walk as well. And it’s a problem that’s not limited to receivers either! Every team in the league can luck into a decent TE, we draft one of the best and then trade him cause our OC (FUCK YOU MARTZ) doesn’t know what to do with TEs or we sign one in free agency, watch him put up good numbers and then trade him because of ... why did we trade Bennett again? We’ll be better than last year, which is still only good enough to miss the playoffs and earns us a worse draft pick.


Chris:

Deep down I just know my optimism is going to get violently knuckle fucked and come January we’ll be back in therapy pointing to the spot on the doll where the Packers touched us.


Noah:

Fuck Ditka, fuck the Bears, and fuck sports. I’m going back to Mario Kart.

Robert:

Jay Cutler is the best QB we have had in my lifetime (born in 1990, be jealous), and most Bears fans seem to be finally gripping that fact. The sad part was this wasn’t figured out due to any brilliant plays he made (though he did do well last season) it was because we watched this shitheap of a team without him. Holy shit. Watching Jimmy Clausen attempt to play QB against the Seahawks was downright pathetic. We punted so many times, our punter hurt his knee. Our offensive line are the Deadited to Jay Cutler’s Ash. They start as his friends, but at some point the become intent on murdering Jay. I’d send him a chainsaw and boomstick, but his wife would throw them away for being made by someone who was vaccinated. My friends and I have often wondered how much different Jay’s life would be if he had stayed in Denver and not had to have deal with Josh McDaniels. He’d probably have a couple Super Bowl rings and the respect of millions for being a “quiet leader” as opposed to being seen as a moody princess. I look forward to our 4-2 start, only to wind up 8-8 after winning our meaningless week 17 game.


Alex:

I’ve defended my team after seeing a fan barf on his steak sandwich and eat it during the first 5 minutes of the game. Watching a father (I assume) call his son an “ass suckin sally” for not standing up in the top row at a below freezing game. I’ve also seen a woman come out of the bathroom with yellow poop covered toilet paper stuck to her over ballasted yoga pants. None of this swayed me until I watched a dude clip his nails for 5 minutes during the middle of a Vikes game 3 years ago. He just pulled them out of that small right pocket of his Lee jeans and started clipping. Some went on the ground, some went onto the person in front of him. That was when I realized that Chicago fans really are serious pieces of shit as I flicked a booger onto his head. Packers fans can still ass funnel as much cheese as they want, but they really are better than us.


Ray:

Most global city rankings put Chicago somewhere in the top 10 as a significant global city in the world, and yet the entire metro area turns into fucking Dillon, Texas every Sunday to jack off to a team that has missed the playoffs in 8 out of the last 9 years.


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