I'm not one to get angry over a football game. But that changed Sunday afternoon.
Like so many of you, when I watched the Chicago Bears tease and tantalize us by driving down the field and nearly pulling off a huge Week 1 upset victory over the Atlanta Falcons --- only to lose in heartbreaking fashion, 23-17 on the final play --- it felt like someone took a dagger and slammed it right through my heart.
It was about as cold-blooded of an ending as you get in a regular season contest.
I tried my best to put it out of my mind, to understand how one game from a team few expect to go anywhere could get me so worked up. The more time passed, the more it became clear to me why I was so tormented by this loss.
"We are a good football team," Bears tight end Zach Miller said postgame. "We need to execute down to the wire. Nothing to hang your head about."
Trouble is, I'm not so sure I agree with the first part of his assessment. A mediocre team, perhaps. But calling a team that's coming off its worst season in franchise history "good" moments after getting what amounts to a moral victory at best doesn't exactly make me want to break out the pom pons and do a song and dance. Even if it was against a team that probably should have won the Super Bowl earlier this year.
Instead, Miller's words only remind me of what this team truly is. Average. Worse yet, it also reminds me how far they still have to go, and where the bar is set at.
That bar, right now, is quarterback Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers, who made quite a statement with their season opening victory at home over Seattle. The same Rodgers that threw for 4,428 yards and 40 touchdowns a year ago is the benchmark. As is their franchise, which seems to gobble up NFC North titles the way Pac-Man gobbles up digital dots on a TV screen.
The Bears need a game-changer. And folks, Mike Glennon, who did what was asked of him yesterday by going 26 of 40 for 213 yards and a TD, is not it. Nor will he be. We know what Glennon is. He's a game manager who executes short passing routes with decent precision and keeps you close in some football games.
But he's not a guy who can stretch the field with 20-30 yard lazers, he's not someone who steps up in the pocket to avoid a hefty pass rush, and he certainly isn't someone who will roll out of the pocket and scramble 10 yards for a first down. Or extend a play to find an open receiver by doing so.
In some ways I feel terrible for Glennon, who's been put in a no-win situation by the Bears' organization. Even he must know the sands of his hourglass here are perpetually sifting downward.
There are many on social media who immediately blamed running back Jordan Howard for the loss when he dropped a pass at the 1-yard line in the waning moments, then got blasted so badly on the ensuing hit, he was still being attended to by medical staff postgame.
And there are those who were upset Miller didn't catch Glennon's low throw on the same final drive. It doesn't help one bit that the Bears really don't have what I would consider a No. 1 or No. 2 wide receiver, and have a patchwork group at best to throw to.
Which begs the question: What, exactly, are the Bears doing here, with Mike Glennon? The fact the front office promised him a starting job before he'd even taken a snap speaks volumes about the desperation this team has faced for far too long, and continues to face.
What do the Bears have to gain by starting Glennon, if in fact, he is not your long-term solution at the position? Give Trubisky time to learn, to be groomed, you say? I beg to differ, and here's why.
I'm not suggesting anything Glennon did yesterday was the reason they lost. It wasn't. Period. But this team needs a spark. I don't care if Trubisky has to learn still. I don't care if he comes in and throws three picks in a game in his first start.
What I do care about is the fact this organization openly acknowledges Trubisky is the future, yet he sits on the bench behind someone they chose to pay $18.5 million to for the Bears to win 7 or 8 games --- if they are lucky --- at best.
During his rookie season, former Colts legend Peyton Manning threw 28 interceptions. At age 24, in his third year in the NFL, Brett Favre had 19 TDs, but was picked off 24 times. Former Bears QB Jay Cutler, you ask? He threw the ball to the wrong team a whopping 63 times in his first four seasons.
Rookie quarterbacks are going to have speed bumps in their progression and maturation, as a rule, more often than not. I am not suggesting Trubisky is going to come in right away and make the Bears a contender. But what I am suggesting is the Bears stop pacifying their fans.
For the first time in ages Sunday, I saw a glimmer of hope from the Chicago defense, which slowed down an offense that was a juggernaut for 19 games last fall and winter, to the point it almost allowed them to win a football game no one had them winning.
And when I see rookies like Tarik Cohen, a.k.a. the Human Joystick, breaking a team rookie record for all-purpose yardage in his first game, I can't help but wonder --- even if I'm wrong --- what MIGHT have happened if Trubisky had been in with ample time to roll out and find receivers downfield. Or how electrified Soldier Field might sounded if he scrambled out of the pocket, then bolted into the end zone on the final play when no one was open.
Trouble is, we will never know. And that, in of itself, is the Bears' organization in a nutshell. It's also why this team hasn't won a Super Bowl in 32 years, and counting.
I'm reminded of a time when I was just 23 years old --- a fresh-faced kid who was working as a newspaper reporter locally.
One afternoon, my boss approached me and told me he needed to speak with me in his office. I was stunned when he asked to make me the editor of six of his weekly suburban Chicago newspapers, even though I didn't have a journalism degree.
At first, I balked at the idea. Not because I lacked confidence, but because I felt there were others I'd worked with who had paid their dues for longer than I had. Ones who were in some cases twice my age.
Sure, I could've sat in the office all day studying what other editors were doing. Or watched over their shoulders, then read books about page formatting, journalism ethics, measuring columns, and so on.
But you know what helped me most, when nine months later I was winning awards for them for my work?
Actually doing the job.
I'd rather see Mitch Trubisky thrown to the wolves than stomach another finish like the one I saw Sunday. I don't care if he racks up a dozen delay of game penalties. Nor do I care if he misreads zone defenses all day and gets picked repeatedly, or has yet to learn the entire offense.
If those things happen, he can look at what he did wrong after the fact, learn from his mistakes, then correct them.
Every day that passes he's not in the starting lineup is nothing more than a day he's not learning firsthand. Even if Trubusky crashes and burns in spectacular fashion early, for my money, it beats another 15 games of knowing what we are getting with Glennon, whether that seems fair or not.
Winners don't play with fear, or worry in their hearts. They throw caution to the wind. They dream big. They go for it, no matter how many times they fail.
Perhaps it's time John Fox, Ryan Pace and the rest of the Bears' organization realizes this, too.
