Eventually, you just feel sorry for the Chicago Bears. If the initial stages of Bears fandom are delusion ("With Caleb Williams, we could be a Super Bowl contender!"), enlightenment ("Gee, Caleb plays like a rookie sometimes") and disillusionment and self-loathing ("Why do I let them do this to me every year? Why?"), then surely the final stage is pity.
Garnished generously with sad laughter, naturally, and an occasional Tourette's burst of "&%$# McCaskeys!"
This brings us to yesterday in Soldier Field, where the 13-1 Detroit Lions embarrassed Da Bearz 34-17 with the greatest of ease. Jared Goff stitched them for 336 yards and three touchdowns through the air, and Jahmyr Gibbs gashed them for 109 yards and a score on the ground.
That wasn't the most embarrassing part, however.
The most embarrassing part happened three minutes into the third quarter, when Goff, Gibbs and the Lions offense made the Bears look like the Washington Generals with a trick play straight out of the Harlem Globetrotters playbook.
What happened was, Goff took the snap and pretended to stumble as he dropped back. At the same time, Gibbs pretended to fall down.
And then?
Then Goff abruptly straightened up and threw a 21-yard touchdown ball to tight end Sam LaPorta, wide open behind the thoroughly suckered Bears D.
Shortly thereafter, the cameras caught Goff and the rest of the Lions yukking it up on the sideline, amused and perhaps a little astonished that their epic goof actually worked. And there you had it: This lost Bears season summed up in one image.
Their opponents aren't just beating them, you see. They're laughing at them.
That fits, because the season has been one long standup routine for the Bears, who fired a head coach mid-season for the first time in franchise history and still can't get out of their own way. Their defense can't defend. Their offense can't, um, offend. And their O-line can't protect Williams, who's spent a good chunk of the season running for his life like Dr. Richard Kimble in "The Fugitive."
Through 15 games, Williams has been sacked a league-high 60 times, a Bears franchise record and just 13 adrift of David Carr's NFL season record of 73. That's a big reason, though hardly the only one, why the Bears are now 4-11 and have lost nine straight games.
What's bizarre about that is, very quietly, Williams is also having an historic season for a Bears rookie QB.
In Sunday's loss, for instance, he completed 26-of-40 throws for 334 yards and two touchdowns, and tucked it and ran six times for 34 more yards. It was his fourth 300-yard passing game this season, and his ninth straight game without an interception.
On the season, he's thrown for 3,271 yards on 62.2 percent accuracy, with 19 touchdowns and just five picks. Nothing to laugh at there, certainly.
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