Last week the Denver Broncos ended the Bears playoff chances as surely as Constantine ended the Diocletian Tetrarchy. As usual, quarterback and outspoken Christian Timothy Tebow gave all praise and glory to his jealous God. But Bears fans can only curse Tebow for removing the binding from their eyes. For now, Bears fans are like the Creator in Genesis chapter 2, observing Adam alone in the garden, naked and ignorant. We see the Bears, and it is not good.

Once we overlooked the flaws of the Bears. But now we see through a glass darkly, and put away the childish notion that a team that plays only two phases of the game can contend. It is futile to blame this loss on the injuries of Jay Cutler and Matt Forte. Far more troubling was the Bears lack of an answer – Caleb Hanie going 2 for 15 on third down, and Marion Barber undermining decent numbers with an astonishing lack of judgment at a crucial moment. Sam Hurd’s recent arrest on federal drug charges only enhances the emerging image of the Bears as leaderless.

But what about our leader? What of Lovie Smith? “Ecce Homo” – “Behold the man” Pilate said to the angry mob – he has committed no crime. But it was Lovie who blew off the man-to-man coverage that limited Tebow to three passes in the first 45 minutes. And it was Lovie who condoned the use of the Cover 2, not once, but three times, on Denver’s final drives. Once the check down passes began, it was if a voice had said, “Let my people throw”.

So now Bears fans, like the worried disciples, ask “What’s the buzz, tell me what’s a-happening?” A new coach? A new offensive co-coordinator? But as Tebow can tell us, “Put not your trust in Princes”. It is easy to mock Tebow’s simplicity, but without a conversion of our own, we may never walk the path that Timothy Tebow is walking toward the playoffs, and perhaps even, the Promised Land.

The Chicago Bears regular season schedule arouses a similar feeling of dread and the primal hatred of the unknown. A front-loaded nightmare featuring three playoff contenders and a road game in New Orleans could easily leave the Bears in an 0 and 3 hole before moving on to face a resurgent Detroit and the suddenly dangerous Vikings. How the Bears will compete with division favorite Green Bay is an open question, one which may well be decided long before a Christmas night showdown with the champs on their frozen tundra of Lambeau Field.

There is reason to be optimistic, as the Bears have gotten better on paper since their January beat down in the NFC title game. But much will depend on the play of the talented but erratic Jay Cutler and an aging defense only recently bolstered by the arrival of two-time Pro Bowler Brandon Meriweather. Early contract disputes with Lance Briggs and Matt Forte, and a jumbled receiver corps provide ample reason to fear that by the November bye week, the Bears will be in disarray, doomed to merely survive the remainder of the season like soulless automatons, existing only in a self-enclosed universe of joyless futility, praying for death.

Like many die hard Bears fans I will watch every game. As a man, and a Grabowski, I will search for inspiration and comfort from Lovie Smith and Mike Martz but as an artist and a filmmaker, I can only observe and record the carnage with unfeeling detachment, an eye witness to a tragedy in which I can play no part. The process by which we as human beings create and defeat our expectations defines our essential frailty. It serves to remind us of our insignificance like a collective atavistic drum-beat reaching us from our earliest desperate moments as a species across the millennia to our present state of helplessness in the face of forces that shape our destiny.

With luck and no injuries, the Bears could rack up nine wins and just miss the wild card. Hoping for more than that would be an exercise in self-delusion.

Love the podcast.  Keep up the good work.  I hope you guys keep the momentum going for the 2010 season.

Here’s my question:  Which Bears player do you think would win a hotdog eating contest?

I’m going for a shocker.  I think Johnny Knox wins this thing outright.  His speed and quickness give him the advantage over the guys with bigger frames.  Plus he seems like a smart guy who would research eating techniques before the big day.

Go Bears.

-Ben from New Mexico

We asked our Facebook Fans which Bear would win in a hot dog eating contest…

the results

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Hi. I really enjoy the podcast even though I’m 5k miles away in the UK and don’t follow the Bears or the NFL. I do watch the superbowl if I remember It’s on and can stay awake till 4am.

Aaaanyway, just wanted to kindly point out a gramatical mistake on your Meet The Crew page. It should be their, not there.

Much love! Paul

He writes again saying:

Hi again
Since you found my previous email to be so enigmatic and fascinating, I thought I’d put your collective minds at rest with some more information on your biggest non-fan fan.

I love comedy and listen to all sorts of podcasts and radio shows. My favourite episodes of Comedy Death Ray Radio have been the ones featuring Mr Matt Walsh. Last time he was on he mentioned Bear Down so I checked it out.

I do like the NFL but it’s not covered so much over here. Plus, if you don’t have a team to follow, it’s hard to care, you know? So I’ve kept listening ’cause I like you all and enjoy the fake ads and phone calls and so on. When the Bears are discussed in depth I kinda zone out but then prick up again if somebody does a funny. I have a feeling that if I keep on listening, I’ll become a big Bears fan one day. Fingers crossed.

Keep up the good work fellas, and who knows, just maybe you can convert apathetic foreigners like me to the Bears cause one joke at a time.

Much love, hugs, high fives and ass slaps!
Paul, Scotland

It’s your biggest fan in all of Iraq again. Just thought I’d say thanks for making this horrible season a little brighter with the podcast. The only thing I get to see about the games is the highlights they show on ESPN when I go to chow, assuming we’re not out on a mission. Usually I’ll find out the score sometime the day after the game from my wife, she emails it to me. Hopefully things turn around for da bears, but if not, at least I’ve got bear down to keep me upbeat about next season. As a small aside, my wife had our daughter on the 3rd of November. The only reason i mention it is her name, Addison Patricia Lunsmann. I know most of you are south side fans, but for the one of you that loves the cubbies like I do, you can appreciate her name. That was an uphill battle with the wife, but I got my way in the end. Of course most people don’t know the address to Wrigley field, so it’s just a cute name to them. Thanks again for the great podcast guys and happy veterans day.

Lucas

“A lot of fans were drawn to me because they knew that whatever the score was, I was going to run as hard as I could on every play. You don’t have that now, you have guys waiting for next week or even next year.”
-Walter Payton

“You cunts on offense are playing like a bunch of cocksuckers and you cocksuckers on defense are playing like a bunch of cunts”
-Papa Bear

“I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it.”
Gale Sayers

“If my mother put on a helmet and shoulder pads and a uniform that wasn’t the same as the one I was wearing, I’d run over her if she was in my way. And I love my mother.”
-Bo Jackson

“When it’s third and ten, you can take the milk drinkers and I’ll take the whiskey drinkers every time.”
-Max McGee, former Green Bay Packers receiver

“Football is a very short-term proposition. Football really prepares you for nothing. The only thing I got out of football was the ability to work hard, and that’s it.”
-Gale Sayers

As you know I own an amazing sports bar in Clearwater and people are like “you should be mayor of this town” and I’m like no comment. Anyway sorry if I seem a little bummed out today I was just remembering how I lost like 15 really good friends when the towers went down on 9/11.  Well after watching that terrible game against San Francisco every body in the bar was so depressed they wanted to kill themselves and they were like Tony “would you kill yourself” and I was like “hey guys be cool just be chill it’s gonna be ok” and they were like “Man Tony you’re the coolest, you should be the next Dr. Phil”.

Here’s my question why  does Chicago give Cutler a 40 million dollar contract extension in the middle of the season, we already had him for a couple of years. I would never do that and I have a lot of hot waitresses with nice tits.

Tony from Clearwater

I was raised in Buffalo where my dad is a big Bills fan and my mother was a Bears fan. I kind of like both teams. My question is, is being a Bears fan a matrilineal trait or a patrolineal trait?

Heather from Erie,PA

Heather, “the trait “Bears fan” is passed down thru the mother, much like being jewish. If you’re dad is a Bills fan it doesn’t matter, you’ll still love cased meats and tenacious linebackers for your whole life.”