Let’s start with this: No more Taylor Swift during a Chicago Bears football game.
Is that asking too much?
I think not.
When was the last time cameras cut from Swift in the middle of “Shake It Off” to, say, a live shot of former Bears defensive coordinator Alan Williams clearing out his desk and fleeing Halas Hall?
Now, I’d watch that.
I’d watch quick, midgame, archival cuts of Bears pass rushers DeMarcus Walker and Yannick Ngakoue being shown what a sack is, since it’s something they seem to be unfamiliar with. (Of course, you’d need a defensive coordinator for that. And, darn, the Bears don’t have one.)
I’d watch quarterback Justin Fields being shown what a quick read and throw for a completion are. I’d watch general manager Ryan Poles’ brainwave patterns as he attempted to figure out the best way to not-overtly tank the rest of the season but still do it, for premier draft position once more.
All fascinating stuff.
But when the TV announcers went to shots of Swift in her Arrowhead Stadium skybox early in the third quarter and began blabbering about the pop star and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — and Kelce’s attendant mom — you knew one of the teams was pitiful.
And that was the Bears.
They were down an astonishing 41-0 early in the second half, and I guess you could say: What else were Fox announcers Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olsen supposed to talk about?
Such are the questions we’re left with in this season of bizarre collapse.
What are the Bears doing well?
Nothing.
The cave-in is so complete at this point that I’m expecting another report that organization matriarch Virginia McCaskey, age 100, is, according to son George McCaskey, once again “pissed off.”
Oh, and did we mention coaching?
Think how bad it must be.
Entering Monday, the Bears’ defense is second-worst in the NFL in yards given up per play. It is last in sacks. It is second-to-last in points allowed. It is dead last in third-down conversions against, a critical category since it means the other team’s offense stays on the field.
And offense?
The Bears are 29th in passing offense, second-to-last in scoring. Individually, Fields is dead last among quarterbacks who have started three games this season.
We could go on. But why bother?
Well, here’s one more: Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes got to 25,000 yards passing faster than anybody else, at 83 games. Next closest is Matthew Stafford, who did it in 90 games, then Dan Marino, who needed 92. Then come Peyton Manning, Kurt Warner and Jared Goff at 97.
At his current pace, Fields will need 162 games to get to 25,000 yards. That will take him into his 10th year in the NFL at least, considering potential injuries. It’s doubtful he’ll be around at that point.
The Bears could have drafted Mahomes in 2017. We all know that. But overstated as it might be, it’s one of those mistakes from which a franchise just doesn’t recover.
Of course, it seems possible the Bears would have screwed up Mahomes had they gotten him — that they are death for any developing quarterback, ever and always. Could there be an anti-quarterback virus that infests Beardom, lingering in the air like asbestos fiber?
Swift has 272 million followers on Instagram. She recently told all “Swifties” they should vote in U.S. elections. What if this singing, dancing, observant star of the Chiefs-Bears annihilation told everybody the Bears have a systemic problem and that the American people need to demand a total fumigation?
It’s almost hilarious that the Bears next face the Broncos, the team that keeps them from being bottom-dwellers in several statistical categories. The Dolphins hung 70 points on the Broncos Sunday and won by 50, and that’ll screw up any team’s stats.
So this next one for the Bears is a battle not for dominance but for sanity.
If the Bears lose and decide to tank after that, at 0-4, and go for the No. 1 spot in the 2024 draft, they likely would take USC star quarterback Caleb Williams, the consensus best player out there. That would mean they’d given up on Fields and then, quite possibly, they would begin to ruin somebody else. Onward.
Bears coach Matt Eberflus said he saw “a couple good-execution plays” from the Bears in Sunday’s Arrowhead debacle. That’s great. But I’m reminded here of former Buccaneers coach John McKay, who, when asked what he thought of his team’s execution, replied, “I’m in favor of it.”
