As 2012 rung in, the Bears had few wins and plenty of excuses for sucking this season. But leave it to the Bears to finally win after everyone (including me) gave up on them and there was nothing left to gain by winning. Yes, I did watch on Sunday – you didn’t think I was really going to boycott a Bears game now, did you?
Lining up in the “Midwest Used After-Market Auto Parts Losers Bowl”
Something Old
For the 26th straight season, the Bears came up short of the Super Bowl despite having the best team in the league. And despite them winning each of those 26 Super Bowls in my head, and as painful as it is for me to admit, I’m starting to think maybe we are headed for perennial Cubs-like colossal failure.
Atta girl, double-fisting in a Sweetness jersey – will you marry me?
Something New
With this after-thought victory, the Bears have now beaten the Vikings five straight times, their longest streak in 25 years. This leaves Minni with an 0-6 record in the NFC North – the first time in their 51 years they’ve failed to win a division game. The win also ended our season at an even .500 for the first time since 1983.
How dumb do you think this guy felt walking home after losing?
Something Borrowed
By the way, I’m a little tired of people saying our season ended because Cutler AND Forte got hurt. After starting 7-3 with the Butler, we started losing without him before Forte got hurt. I’d say it’s a good 95% Cutler and only 5% Forte. The dropoff from Cutler to Hanie/McCown was far greater than that of Forte to our other RB’s. So let’s just agree to sticking with Culter ruining our season, n-k?
Lovie flashes his 8-8 smile: no teeth, tight-lipped, not quite a smile but not quite a frown either
Something Blue
For the second time this year, a safety went over Urlacher’s back on a pass in the end zone and it ended badly. The first time Conte knocked the ball out of Urlacher’s hands into a KC receiver’s hands for what turned out to be the game winning TD. But this time Wright not only knocked the ball out of Urlacher’s hands, but he came crashing down on Urlacher, and helped him sprain his medial collateral ligament and partially sprain his posterior cruciate ligament. Good thing we don’t have any games left because if we lost our defensive QB, it would probably end our season. Wait, what?
Urlacher playing Twister: “Left medial collateral ligament – Green”
Offense
We amassed a whopping 209 total net yards, probably the all-time low for a dome/fair-weather win in NFL history (not counting Tebow, of course). We also turned the ball over 3 times. We fumbled twice in our first 7 plays (Kahlil “Yo Quiero Taco” Bell and “My Name Is” Earl Bennett), both of which gave Minni the ball in Bear territory, and both of which led to Minn scores. And then McCown threw a late pick, though it didn’t lead to any points. We were also sacked 7 times – after not getting sacked once in GB last week. Crazy, right?
Sack-Master Jared Allen was literally trying to get up McCown’s ass all game
In the second quarter we had -4 yards on 3 drives. And in the fourth quarter, we gained only 16 on 3. In the first half, we had only 1 drive of more than 3 plays, an 8-play 90-yarder that led to our only offensive TD. And in the second half, we had only 3; a 5-play 9-yarder, a 6-play 17-yarder, and a 15-play, 65-yard drive that led to our lone FG. Despite our lack of yardage and scoring, McCown finished a decent-off-the-bench 15 of 25 (60%) for 160 yards, 6.4 yards per attempt, 1 TD, 1 INT and a 75.4 QBR. His final pass of the game (and our season) was a pick, which brought his QBR down from a 95.8.
While tackling First Down Williams, a Viking defender tries to prevent him from signaling a first down
Despite our previously solid running game, we only had 92 net rushing yards. Bell ran 17 times for 54 yards (a meager 3.2 avg), and Armando “I’m Voting For” Allen “Keys” only had 8 yards on 4 carries (an avg of 2.0) despite having a 12-yard run. McCown scrambled 4 times for 30 yards, (a 7.5 avg), including a 28-yard scamper on a third-and-9 from our 11. But it was enough for the W against another back-up QB and a weak division rival.
In only his second Bear start, McCown led us to victory
Defense
We gave up 50% more yards than we gained to a rookie QB and his back-up after Idonije knocked Ponder out of the game. But we did limit them to 50% combined completions (21 of 42) and only 5.0 yards per pass play. We also got 2 sacks, and we held Minni to 301 net yards and 3 of 15 on third downs.
Ponder looked like he sat on a cactus after Idonije drove him into the turf
Additionally, Julius “Salt ‘N” Peppers blocked a punt. And we came up with 3 picks. Jennings got his second of the year, DJ “Less Is” Moore got his fourth, and Peanut Tillman got his second pick-6 of the year. It was the fifth of his career, making him the Bears all-time leader in pick-6’s.
Peanut is now the Bears all-time pick-sixer
Special Teams
Robbie “I Lost Track of Where I Rank Amongst Kickers In NFL History” Gould, who kicked a 27-yarder, finished with his 3rd best season in both FG’s (28) and FG percentage (87.5%). Devin “When Will I Be Good Again” Hester averaged just 2.0 yards on two punt returns and 11.0 yards on two kickoff returns. He finished the season with 3 return TD’s – the same as last year. And Adam “You May Have An iPod But I’m i” Podlesh punted 7 times for an average of 47.9 yards, giving him career-bests in average (43.9 yards) and total punts (89).
Robbie Gould and Frank Omiyale took their friendship to a new level Sunday
Season Stats
We scored 22.1 points per game (ranked 17th in the NFL), and gained 314 yards (23rd). Marion “The Agrarian” Barber led us with 6 TD’s. Johnny “Have You Seen My Back” Knoxville led us with 727 receiving yards. As a team we threw 20 picks (tied for 25th), and we only threw 18 TD’s (tied for 24th). And we were sacked 49 times (tied for 5th most), only 7 fewer than last year when we led the league, and 14 more than 2009.
Hanie tells his new girlfriend McCown to keep it real
We allowed 21.3 points and 350 yards per game, putting us in the middle of the pack in both categories. We got 20 INT’s (tying us for 6th) and 33 sacks (tying us for 19th). Urlacher finished the season with 102 tackles, the 9th time he’s gone over 100 in 10 full seasons, and Briggs led us with 105, his 7th time over 100 in 9 seasons. Peppers led us with 10.5 sacks, and Moore led us with 4 picks.
It’s my vagina! It hurts!
Hey Jiggs!
A final message to former-Bear Dan Jiggets who does post game analysis on Comcast. Drinking the “Bears Koolaid” after wins, which is clearly orange Gatorade with the label removed, was only slightly clever the first time you did it. The second time wasn’t nearly as funny, and to be honest, it’s now become completely played out. I’d even go as far as to call it annoying. So please stop.
Martz was kicked out of the locker room to “think about what he did” before Lovie handed out the game ball
So long 2011, and hello new GM, OC and back-up QB!
*Addendum: I wrote this the day before it was announced that Martz and Angelo would not be coming back. I’m not sayin, I’m just sayin.
© 2012
Bear Down Baffa 
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