The Don’t Care Bear Faces A New Threat
The Don’t Care Bear is back! It’s been so long. They pretty much have to rebuild Carealot every time it gets attacked because good ol’ Dont Care doesn’t help.
Honestly part of the reason I haven’t made a Dont Care bear comic or a Bears comic in general for a while now is because the Bears quietly became the league’s most uninteresting team. Last year I commented on the Vikings being such, but really the team I was looking for was in the same division, crying softly in the corner. Nobody thinks about the Bears. Nobody talks about the Bears. The Bears get zero press coverage. Part of it is because the team sucks, but Chicago is a longtime major market team with a lot of history. They aren’t the Titans, a bad team in a small market with little history. It’s weird to see them sort of vanish as they have.
So why have the Bears become irrelevant? Ignored? Forgotten? Lets break that shit down.
They are bad, but not historically so
The Bears are a largely terrible team. But they aren’t the 2008 Lions. Yet. They may end up as such and if they lose 5-6 more in a row people will begin to notice.
The Bears have no big or exciting names left on the roster
We’ve gotten used to Cutler. At this point Cutler is just Cutler. Dopey man who throws dumb picks, doesn’t care. He hasn’t improved or regressed enough to change perception. Matt Forte is gone, but he was already old. The defense is full of absolute no-names. Danny Trevathan? I’d wager 30% of fans know that name, and most of them would be Bronco fans. Alshon Jeffrey is the last big name on the Bears, but without B-Marsh opposite him he doesn’t seem quite as good.
The Bears have boring retread coaches
John Fox is as exciting as a baked potato with no sour cream filling. The man was literally fired from a Super Bowl contender for being too conservative, and goddamn GARY KUBIAK took his team to a championship win. Do people even remember the last coach, between Lovie and Fox? It was Mark Trestman. That’s a name you haven’t thought about recently. You forgot it already. The Bears can’t make exciting moves.
The Bears are on the downslide but haven’t hit the bottom
The Bears have been regressing as a team for several years, pretty much since the 2010 NFCCG. They haven’t quite hit bottom yet. Having a regressing team does no favors for your publicity. The press likes powerhouses, crazy weird teams, and teams on the rise. Teams slowly sliding into rebuilds are dull.
The Bears don’t play exciting football
I guess this goes hand in hand with the coaching but yeah. The last time the Bears were truly fun to watch was when Josh McCown was funslinging it around the field because he knew his time as a starter was short. Other bad teams have some excitement. Mariota is cool. Jameis is fun to root for and against. The Dolphins have….actually nah, the Dolphins are boring too.
So that’s what I think the Bears problem is. They are currently one of the most forgettable teams in the league. Maybe that will change, but it’s hard to think it will change this season.
We just Don’t Care about the Bears.
Watching John Fox flail about impotently without a massively stacked defense to carry his fetid dead weight is fantastic. I maintain the viewpoint I had *before* he was in Denver– John Fox is one of the 2 worst head coaches in the NFL, and the magnificence of his incompetence is horrifying to behold. He’s predictable, he’s refused to change or adapt after decades in the NFL, and he firmly believes in putting blame on his players, instead of letting them have the chance to exceed his myopic expectations. He shouldn’t be a figure in the NFL; he should be laughed out of the League. But too many GMs are afraid to take chances, and he has a reputation of being “safe” (even though the only time he ever had consecutive winning seasons was with a stacked offense he did nothing to load and everything to deplete, with Peyton freaking Manning leading the way). He’s bad, and Chicago should feel bad for hiring him. And because they didn’t learn that lesson, I take extraordinary schadenfreudenistic glee in watching them flail about like helpless children in the path of a tornado. I actively root for 0-16 (it won’t happen, but I can hope).
And I am so enormously glad that McDaniels traded Cutler away. So, so, SO glad. Watching him derp around for the last decade has warmed the cockles of my heart.
Also: Kubiak’s a fine coach. He did better in Texas than anyone before had, and better than anyone since, and he did it with a front office that gave him no offensive weapons. Sure, Watt’s an unreal monster, and he single handedly willed that under-talented team to wins, but Watt couldn’t do it all, always. Having a GM who is on the same page as him offensively (in Elway), and a DC who has recognized his talent as a DC and his lack of talent as a HC (Phillips), has left him free to really just assess his team’s play. He doesn’t need to worry (as much) about scouting talent, or even collaborating on the discussion as much, because his GM and he have been raised on– and sharpened each other with– the same philosophies for 30 years. He doesn’t need to worry about replacing his DC for a while, because Elway has a solid relationship with Phillips that dates back, also, nearly 30 years when Wade was DC and then HC in Denver while Elway played. The leadership in Denver is set to let all three major figures do what they do best without looking over their shoulder, and without worrying about conflicting ideologies. It’s one of the best admin situations in the NFL.
I guess that’s all to say– why are you shocked that Kubes won a Super Bowl with Elway? Swap a very good coach in a bad system, into a great system with a monumentally terrible coach, and if that team was already a contender *in spite of* the coach, they should be an instant contender. The biggest shock wasn’t that they won with Kubiak– it’s that, in spite having Peyton Manning, they won with the worst quarterback play of any team in the league. And that says more than enough about Fox (a supposed defensive mastermind).
Kubiak looks a lot better in retrospect as the Texans coach than he did when he was the coach. When he was the coach that team was jammed with Talent and consistently under-performed. He had a tendency to take his foot off the gas when they were winning and earned similar criticisms as a conservative coach like Fox.
Looking back now it’s clear he was and is a good coach. I don’t think Broncos fans were thrilled to get Kubes, more just happy to get rid of Fox.
I’m a Baltimore fan, and I can say that I was genuinely happy when we hired Kubiak as our OC – Caldwell was goddamn awful. Similarly, I was devastated when he left to take the HC job at Denver – he did such a great job with our offense and our not-quite-elite quarterback that it was just sad to see him leave – and worse, have Marc Trestman replacing him. God I hate Trestman.
As a Broncos fan, I was absolutely thrilled– I always thought Texas’ talent pool was over-rated (they lacked true depth, and while there were enormous super-stars, there was also a half-field of mediocre-to-bad starters). But I also remembered Kubiak from back in the day, and I’m a firm believer that a GM and a HC who are on the same philosophical page are a whole different beast from two different ideas. I desperately wanted Denver to bring in Kubes as OC, and was actively sad when Baltimore got him instead. I can see a lot of *other* teams not liking Kubiak as much as Denver fans did, but we knew the guy better than anyone else– he was basically Elway’s nerdy little brother for 15 years+ in Denver; how could we NOT love him?
I mean, don’t get me wrong– I was *also* thrilled to get rid of Fox, and literally did a dance of joy.
Press coverage as in the Media assholes or the Defensive playcall?
I’m kidding Dave
Bears, my Dolphins, Vikings, Titans, Texans (minus watt), and Falcons (minus Julio) are boring as fuck
I’d argue the Titans are way more irrelevant than the Chicago bears.
But they have interesting/exciting players.
Mariota is singlehandedly more interesting than the entire Bears roster, even if the Titans are garbage.
Don’t forget about Eagles legend DeMarco Murray in their backfield
The Don’t Care Bear might be replaced this offseason and what an apathetic day that will be.
It was
The Bears, Dolphins, Vikings, Titans, Texans (minus Watt), and the Falcons (minus Juilo) are the forgettable teams of the NFL.
It’s Marc Trestman, not Mark.
Cheer up Chicagoans, you have the Blackhawks and those red-hot Cubs.
It’s an even-numbered year. Giants win
Giants have to make it first. The Mets and Cardinals both own tiebreakers over them, so they only get one chance to play in if it ends up tied, and even then they’d have to play the wildcard game the next day before starting the divisional series on zero rest the day after that.
Also, Cubs-Indians WS. I’m calling it now. I don’t see anyone getting more than two from the Cubs and the Indians’ fourth-best starter, who now has to be their #2 starter unless/until Salazar comes back, would be at worst the #2 starter on 25 other clubs in the Majors. Also the two deepest bullpens in the league.
AND YOU HAVEN’T TALKED ABOUT OH MY GOD EDELMAN MIGHT PLAY QB?
But then who would he throw it to?
Himself. Like Jimmy G did
Jacoby Brisset or Bom Trady
That’s only interesting if it actually happens
The Browns would have Pryor run the triple option before the Pats would start Edelman at QB.
A flaming trainwreck like the Browns is also way more fun to watch than an aggressively mediocre team like the Bears.
Flaming trainwreck? Did you WATCH the first half last week? That looked like a team that could wind up with a winning record. The only trainwreck is the one that resulted in the injury of all of our QBs and all of our good promising young players.
Oh, and the second half. That was a trainwreck too.
Bears fan here. It’s interesting to think how just two years ago, the Bears were loaded with big-name talent. Cutler, Marshall, Forte, Bennett, Jeffery, Briggs, Tillman, Allen, Gould, and I’m probably missing some. Talk about huge roster turnover. The only one of those left is Cutler (who I believe actually does care), and I don’t think he’s long for this team. Personally, I think Cutler has done the best he could with an admittedly shitty hand most of the time he’s been here. At this point, he’s broken; our organization ruined a good prospect.
At this point, you go to any sporting goods store in the Chicago area and the only jerseys they have are Cutler (who everyone already has bought, fans to wear it or haters to burn it) and Jeffery (who may not even get a long term deal), plus a bunch of Forte jerseys on clearance. The team has no stars anymore.
That said, I have faith in this coaching staff. Fox may not win a Super Bowl, but he can turn a team around. He’s what the Bears need right now while they rebuild.
Good comic as always. Hopefully, we will be relevant besides the Don’t Care Bear in the not too distant future.
Alshon Jeffrey still there. You listed him 5th.
Unless you expect wide receivers to have -two- ankles, but that’s asking a lot.
John Fox couldn’t turn a merry go round. He was gifted enormous talent in Carolina, and couldn’t go 2 seasons in a row winning. He was gifted *more* talent in Denver, and was regularly embarrassed by teams that mattered. His reputation is far better than the actual quality of any of his body of production, and hopefully your team is the last one he tricks into thinking he’s anything approaching even mediocre. He’s bad, he’s worse than bad.
Bears fan here, born and raised in Chi-Town.
I blame everything on the McCaskeys. They are lame, cheap a** owners and it shows in their hirings.
A few years back we had the second highest scoring offense in the league, behind the Manning lead Broncos, and Ryan Pace traded/cut/released/took out back and shot this roster in the name of getting younger. That’s fine for the payroll and salary cap but the young kids he’s drafted have not shown up. To make matters worse, the team is STILL stuck in a horrid loop of injury hell. I can understand this while they had the oldest roster in the league but now they have one of the youngest and they’re still dropping like IR designated flies
I never liked the signing of Fox and still don’t.
I will still wear my Bears hat…but I might need to accessorize it with a bag over my head. 🙁
You can tell Ryan Pace wants Chicago to roll exactly like the Seahawks have. After years of mediocrity…a Super Bowl loss and some failed playoff runs…a brand new look team with real success and a bandwagon. Sans the uniform change.
IIRC the Seahawks were trying to find themselves for a couple years before becoming who they are today. I still believe there’s something to be found, even if nobody on the team has met Lovie Smith except for 3 guys.
John Fox and his players should stop looking at games as “You know, as long as we keep it close and safe…” and realize that “rebuilding” and “tanking” is lame.
If we were able to beat Green Bay last year, that means there is a formula to be found.
Also, I love the single sock on the dresser.
I’m not that far from your POV except that Seattle drafts heavy and picks up a ton of undrafted free agents that make the roster. All that is fine and dandy if your picks end up being productive but right now, Pace’s record is not much better than Emery’s. Emery drafted two stars in Long and Jeffrey but his greatest accompliahments were in his trades and free agent signings. Pace is just as good in signing free agents but his drafts have yet to yield a star, he does have some semi productive depth guys, but his trades have been complete disasters.
Dave, how dare you forget about Jarvis Landry for the Dolphins? Juice single-handedly almost makes them watchable which is a tall task for ANY player
I hate the Bears. I know delusional Bears fans who think Chicago will actually do something and Green Bay will fall apart. Help me.
don’t care bears might be my favorite cartoon thread on this site, maybe second only to cutler doesn’t care
Well, at least they’ll beat the Packers once this year.
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