Chicago Bears get first win hours after Dick Butkus dies

Let me take you again to November seventh, 1999.

I do know, nobody was alive then.

It was the Bears first sport since Walter Payton, the best Bear of all-time (although should you say Dick Butkus or Doug Buffone, I received’t argue) had handed. I had $7 to my title, residing in Boston throughout my freshman yr of faculty. I had no enterprise leaving my dorm room, a lot much less going wherever to observe an out-of-market Bears sport. Ought to have simply curled up with the leftover pizza, Budweiser within the dorm fridge, what I’m certain was a raging hangover, and listening to the radio by way of NFL.com.

However whenever you’re a homesick Chicago boy and Walter Payton has simply handed, and it’s the primary ever Bears-Packers sport you’re set to overlook, what are you able to do? I roped some buddy in to hitch me (I do know precisely which buddy it was, however I received’t title him as a result of he’s an upstanding citizen today) for causes neither of us will ever perceive, and made our method to Champions Sports activities Bar behind the Pru (sky level) on Huntington Ave. May I order a beer? No. Did the 2 of us mixed have sufficient for one appetizer? Barely. However generally, you do what you gotta.

And it was an terrible sport. Someway, the Bears of their first yr beneath Dick Jauron (HEY BUDDY THAT’S MY DICK JAURON!) and rotating Cade Goddamn McNown in at QB for a handful of collection per sport had been in a position to drag the Inexperienced Bay Packers (admittedly a middling model of them) to their degree for 4 quarters. I wasn’t totally conscious of the minimal that the bar had for anybody sitting at a desk, although I knew that the only real artichoke dip appetizer we ordered actually didn’t justify our existence on the poor server’s part. We tipped in addition to we may for it, however clearly, that was fairly skint. We had been clueless 18-year-olds. However once more, issues needed to be performed.

And we did that so we may watch 4 quarters and three hours of fairly turgid exercise of twenty-two guys hurling themselves at one another with no explicit plan or group in any respect. However lord solely is aware of I’m used to that as a lifelong Bears fan. It’s what we feature.

Someway, the Jim Miller-led Bears had monkey-humped their method to a 14-13 lead by a bumbling offense that noticed Curtis Enis run for 88 yards and their main receiver Marcus Robinson amass 66 yards, However, after all, that corn-fed, thieving mule Brett Favre drove the Packers right down to the Bears 10 with the final drive, establishing a chip shot for a sport winner. In fact. Similar because it ever was. That is simply the way in which issues had been, the way in which they’re, the way in which they are going to be. With out ever trying like they cared or tried, the Packers had been going to nick one other one away from us.

Each Bears fan is aware of by coronary heart now that Bryan Robinson jumped 12 toes within the air to dam that subject aim. I charged round that bar telling each Packers fan I may discover to suck it (it was the peak of the Angle Period) and hugging the one different Bears fan within the bar whereas screaming, “SWEETNESS!!!!” Our server simply glared at us, rightly. Possibly she’ll learn this and I could make it proper. We paid our invoice of like $18 for 3 hours of sitting there, no matter 1999 costs had been, and I bounced all the way in which again to the T.

The lesson, children, is rarely play the Bears on the day and even the week a staff legend dies. As quickly because it was introduced that Dick Butkus had handed, the Commanders had been toast. Justin Subject and DJ Moore had been going to show into Montanta-to-Rice-on-speed it doesn’t matter what they did. And that’s what occurred as Chicago torched Washington, 40-20, on Thursday evening.

At any time when Brian Urlacher dies of probably the most tremendous pressure of herpes the world has ever seen, the Bears are profitable the Tremendous Bowl.

You’ll be able to e book it.

Observe Sam on Twitter @felsgate and on Bluesky @felsgate.bsky.social