A Year in Review

The year began with the intention of writing one blog post for every day of the year. Well, that just didn't happen. Today's blog post will be the 323rd of the year. Not bad all things considered. I get to say not bad because it is my blog. I took a look back and this adventure began on December 7, 2011. The total number of blog posts for the three years prior to 2014 was 192. So more posts this year than in the past 2+. What does 2015 hold for this blog? Well it won't be one post every day. I'm going to take a page out of my buddy Mike's blog and shoot for every weekday. So a new post Monday through Friday. I'll give you weekends off and it will give me a chance to explore the news and determine if anything warrants your attention and a bit of ranting from me. Enough of the house cleaning or updating or whatever that was.

I grew up a Chicago Bears football fan. It was a combination of factors. First, that was the game that was on TV back in the days when you only got three in Western Illinois. It was 4 (WHBF), 6 (WOC) and 8 (WQAD) or you went outside to play or read a book. The 1963 Bears won the NFL championship. The "Super Bowl" wouldn't roll around for a few more years and back then no one took the AFL seriously. Dad was a Bears fan and so every Sunday we watched the game while he smoked Pall Mall cigarettes and cursed at the TV. Oh, those were the days. My youth couldn't have been better. 1963 I'm 9 years old and the Bears are champions. 1964 I'm 10 years old and the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series. Flash forward to this year. Everyone thinks they have a pretty good team during preseason. The Bears had made some trades which seemed to upgrade the defense. The offense had performed very well the year before and having learned the new coach's system better things seemed to lay ahead. The hopeful among Bears fans were predicting a trip to the playoffs and perhaps the Super Bowl. The harsh reality of the season left the Bears with a losing record and overall an embarrassing performance on the field. When you look back there are so many points where you think they may have reached bottom. The point where I knew the season was a complete disaster and a coaching change had to be made was the game against New England. Your team is losing by around 40 points and one of your defensive linemen sacks the opposing quarterback. He celebrates this accomplishment and tears his ACL. I don't care what you do when you are losing by 40 points, there is NOTHING to celebrate. NOTHING. Everyone on that defense. EVERYONE on that team needed to hang their head in shame. Dedicate the rest of the season to not being embarrassed on the field again. They didn't do that. They continued to be beaten easily. I have watched Bears teams that went 1-13 for the season. They were easier to watch than this group. Sure they lost 13 out of 14, but they weren't quitters. They had players with little talent but they played hard. They did their best. This group didn't do that. No leadership. No effort. No pride. It was and will be remembered as a team of no. The coach and general manager have been sent packing. I suspect when it is all done some players and all the assistant coaches will be looking for alternate employment. What will 2015 bring for the Bears? Anything will be better than this year.