Baffoe: The Chicago Bears, The Joke That Doesn't Quit
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Thank you, Chicago Bears. We're so proud of you.
You could have just coasted through the rest of this playoff-less season, ho-humming with an "it is what it is" attitude about being part of the NFL blob that oozes out the year somewhere between 5-11 and 8-8.
Not you, though. You didn't quit on us, and we greatly appreciate that.
The veterans have largely packed it in. Some borderline guys are maybe playing for their jobs. A coordinator is going to be fed to the lions after being fed to the Lions. It was very easy to slink your way out of this bad year and into the next NFL Draft, where hope springs eternal that the guy Phil Emery takes in the first round who we've never heard of is more Long for the league than destined to be ca-Shea'd to free agency. And then Baffoe will run out of pun material.
No. Instead, you said, "There has to be a way to inject some krokodil into the arm of this debacle of a variety show we've created."
Look at offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer stepping up and representing that never-say-die attitude of this blue-collar city and its team. 670 The Score contributor and Chicago Tribune ace reporter Brad Biggs wrote Thursday night that, "Kromer made an emotional and tearful apology for criticizing (Bears quarterback Jay Cutler) in a private conversation at Soldier Field with an NFL Network reporter last week.
"Four sources told the Tribune that Kromer adamantly denied he said anything about the franchise having buyer's remorse for Cutler's blockbuster contract and assured players that portion of Sunday's report on NFL Network did not come from him. With Cutler in the room, Kromer did admit however to being frustrated with the quarterback's play management and expressing that to Ian Rapoport as he left Soldier Field on Dec. 4 after the fifth loss in seven games."
Some guys just throw grenades. This Bears coach jumped on one. Took one for the team. Stepped up and basically said, "Hey, I am willing to likely now get fired for the sake of not letting this team be a network TV joke. Hell no. We need to be an HBO-worthy laughingstock."
You gotta admire that moxie, ladies and gents. We need to ask ourselves if any of us would be willing, after months of public embarrassment, to not quit. To not rest on our laurels of suckage but instead go hard and not go home. Not our Bears. Nuh uh. They looked around and thought, "Been there, Jaguared that."
Now head coach Marc Trestman will step up to a podium and tell the class to quiet down because every catastrophic comedy needs its uptight straight man authority figure. But he's square like a fox. It's some next-level brand comedy he's doing that most just can't wrap their brains around right now. Could you stand in front of assembled media and Bears Nation on Friday and with a straight face spread this constantly mutating turd like creamy peanut butter? I know I couldn't.
Hats off to you, Marc. But, please, keep yours on.
"I'm still kind of trying to sort my way through this to be honest," one player who obviously isn't as fun as Kromer and doesn't appreciate going on the record with his gasoline told Biggs. "It's one of the most (messed) up things I have ever seen."
"It's a (messed) up situation," another player without a sense of humor said.
Expletived-up, sure. But the Bears were FUBAR months ago. They could have chosen to be that same joke your uncle tells at every family get-together. You know, like the New York Jets. This team took the joke less traveled by, though, and that has really made a difference in the level of respect they've garnered.
They are now that cousin who was a few years older than you who went away to art school and showed up for the holidays all in everybody's face with how liberated she became and how you Midwestern prudes had never looked at the absurdity of the real world. She opened your eyes about just how sick and twisted society or a professional football team can be. She told you the joke called "The Aristocrats."
That's what the Bears have become. Comedy for comedians. Postmodern comedy that your parents furrow their brows at and your grandparents would call the police about. Something truly appreciated by only those who understand that an envelope has to continuously be pushed, even if it's already past the toilet and somewhere in the septic tank. The kind of important work that got Lenny Bruce thrown in jail years ago only to have comedic history prove the haters fools. The Bears know that one day years down the road people will look back and see the Cutler contract as comedic genius that never got its due in its day.
The 2004 Chicago Cubs tried to be that, but they were too early. We weren't ready and didn't appreciate that their contempt for the audience was really affection for it.
These Bears, though, are brilliant. They get it. Make the crowd more and more uncomfortable until they have no choice but to laugh, even if out of pure frustration or insanity. George Carlin, Bill Hicks, Paul Mooney — it's doubtful that they could have ever achieved this level of anti-comedy.
A lot of huffy national media types will probably treat this team as a menace to the sanctity of good-natured concussive NFL humor. "Why can't they be more clean like Louie Anderson or the Buccaneers?"
This is Chicago, damn it, and we don't appreciate clean or easy or comfortable. And that's why these Bears deserve so much credit for never stopping the joke and working so hard to become the surreal profanity we call our own.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @TimBaffoe.
