Looking pretty good so far, Bears; please keep it going until this awful year ends

In Chicago sports, this has been the Year of Living Semi-Dangerously.

It was the case with the White Sox, who were menacing enough to throw real scares into most opponents — until the time came to fade down the stretch, as young teams often do, and then to be bounced from the playoffs by the grittier, more experienced Athletics.

We saw it with the Cubs, too, who were good enough to lead their division essentially wire to wire — even though it eventually became as unignorable as a mischief of skittering rats that their offense was fatally flawed.

We even caught a whiff of it with the Blackhawks, who — though history might remember it as thoroughly undeserved — reached the expanded Stanley Cup playoffs as the Western Conference’s No. 12 seed and even upset the Oilers in a best-of-five.

The Sox, Cubs and Hawks weren’t good enough to make serious runs at ultimate glory. We know this because the teams that ended their seasons — the A’s, Marlins and Golden Knights, respectively — were knocked out themselves by superior opponents. But at least our guys made it interesting, didn’t they? A little? Maybe even more than a little.

In a year far crummier than most — perhaps you’ve noticed — sports has been, for many of us, at least somewhat of a respite. And the city’s baseball and hockey teams did their parts to make it so.

Our football team is doing it, too, and that’s really the point here. In a word or six: How ’bout those semi-dangerous Bears? Talk about a slogan worthy of T-shirts and bumper stickers.

The Bears are 4-1 after Thursday’s 20-19 victory against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers at Soldier Field, and we’re delighted to be able to say it: They don’t stink. Heck, we’re all but shouting from the rooftops: We’re No. 10 or so!

You think this is some kind of a joke? It’s not. The season will go on, the playoffs will come around and, just like in those other sports, the better, more dangerous teams will separate themselves from the rest. But it’s looking pretty good that, by then, the Bears will have performed the useful, wonderful task of giving many of us some respite from our concerns and our troubles until the clock has run out on, again, a crummy year.

And that’s pretty semi-great.

You know what’s fun? Losing the rushing battle, losing the passing battle, losing the time-of-possession battle and winning anyway. That’s what the Bears did against the impressive Bucs, whose ceiling might be a tad higher given the whole best-quarterback-ever-to-walk-the-planet factor.

Four days after the Bears were knocked around in a lopsided loss to the Colts, vulnerability hung all around them. To lose again wouldn’t merely be to fall to 3-2, still a decent record. But — after the Bears barely beat three awful teams to open the season — it would’ve been a reality check. It could’ve swayed public sentiment against coach Matt Nagy, the team’s supposedly playoff-caliber defense and new starting quarterback Nick Foles. It probably would’ve felt a lot like the beginning of the end.

There was a moment — a shocker, really — in the second quarter when the Bucs, leading 10-0, went for it on fourth-and-one from their 19-yard line. Was that declaring their utter lack of respect for the Bears’ defense or the Bears’ offense? Probably both. Brady picked up the first down, and, yep, it felt a bit like the game was over right then and there. But the Bears picked up the pieces and delivered a mighty response.

Brady apparently didn’t think enough of Foles to shake his hand after the game. It wasn’t the first time. Brady has had Foles on the pay-no-mind list since the journeyman beat him in the Super Bowl a few years back. That’s OK. The Bears will play on.

So let’s stretch this thing out and see how far it goes. The end of the year is right over yonder. If the Bears can get us there, it’ll be just what the doctor ordered.