Unbearable Sadness

Bears 24
Vikings 10

This season was not much fun. It was not that much fun even before this season-ending, spirit-smashing thud of a defeat. Even the wins were often more exhausting than exhilarating. The fanbase began the season angry and stayed there. The media was no help, as they repeatedly treated wins like losses. When the offense was at its best, the defense struggled. When the defense hit its stride, the offense was often shockingly unproductive.

Even today. Sure I got myself hyped up for the win and in. But I knew the win would mean another week of stressing about losing at our house of horrors, Soldier Field. And obviously then needing two more road wins to get to Atlanta. Even a win today could only have been enjoyed briefly.

Instead the Vikings just saved us all a week and gave us the playoff performance in front of their home fans(plus an absurd number of bandwagon Bears fans...where ya been the last decade?).

This was a tough one to take. To let a division rival, who themselves haven't been to the playoffs in 8 years, come into your house and basically dominate you start to finish, to end your season, when they didn't even need the win(the Rams were blowing out the 49ers wire to wire, so there was no chance at a bye), is a really devastating blow to the franchise.

All discussions of this game need to begin and end with the offensive line. The bane of this team all season. The unit that is far and away the weakest link. We knew we were in for a battle cause the Bears can excel at the very thing that can destroy a shaky OL. Nobody could have expected it could be THIS bad though. This was a horror show. From the very 1st drive it was the Bears pass rush absolutely abusing our line. This was like the scenes in Rudy where Rudy was going up against the varsity team and just repeatedly got thrown around like a rag doll. I've seen less penetration in orgies than this disgraceful performance by the men up front. I can't even blame Stefanski on this one. It's one thing to be able to call plays to work around a bad OL, which he did pretty well the last 2 games. But no coordinator can mask such a collectively disastrous performance as this. You simply can't run any kind of offense under these conditions.

Kirk Cousins never had a chance. He actually made a couple decent scrambles away from pressure, but he was hounded the whole game. The running game never did a thing aside from one big Latavius burst. It was just a disaster.

The defense was not at the dominant level they frankly had to be to survive this. The Bears didn't do a ton, but they did hit a few big plays in the 1st half, and that's all it took. It was 13-0 and things looked hopeless.

The Vikings were able to sneak out a field goal before halftime, but it seemed nothing more than a relief that we wouldn't get shut out. Then finally in the 3rd quarter we put together a drive. Yes, even THIS was like pulling teeth. We needed a couple big penalties to move down the field. We had a total clusterfuck of a situation where we had a 4th and 1, had Kirk do a quick sneak for the 1st  only to then see that Zimmer challenged the spot of the 3rd down play. It was probably the 1st time in NFL history a coach hurriedly threw the red flag to keep his OWN team from running a play. Ultimately it didn't matter that we lost the timeout on an obviously bad challenge(I love Zim, but he HAS to get better at avoiding bad challenges). We got the 1st down, then Kirk tossed a TD pass to Diggs, and somehow....I don't know how, but somehow this was a 13-10 ballgame.

At this point there was no reason not to think the Vikings were going to grind this thing out and get that wild card. Look at how this defense has played in the 2nd halves lately. Yeah we maybe were gonna need a couple drives to get the necessary score or scores to win, but we had time.

And then the Bears, to quote John Facenda, took the ball and turned out the lights.

9 minute drive. It seemed like a half hour in real time. 3rd down conversion after 3rd down conversion(one due to an atrocious penalty flag thrown AFTER Trubisky was already on the ground). Trubisky was allowed to run. He hit a couple big passes. The hopes of an entire season, an entire fanbase, were sucked out. The Bears even rubbed our noses in it with another gratuitous 2 point conversion. 21-10.

The Vikings offense never threatened again. That Diggs TD was the last moment of brightness on a dark day. I left the purple palace pretty morose.

This is going to be such a long, dark, difficult offseason. Through everything this year, at least we still had the hope that today offered. Yes, even if it meant a wild card weekend loss and another year without a super bowl, it would have been something. At least the hounds(media and fans both) that have been out for Kirk Cousins since the day he signed, and that are starting to turn on Zimmer and Spielman, would be held off a little bit. At least we could say we made the playoffs. And at least we could have the added satisfaction of denying the Eagles a playoff berth, and ending the Nick Foles narrative the media has a hard on for. At least we would have SOME kind of reward for this tumultuous season.

Nope. We get NOTHING. This season ends and we get NOTHING to feel good about. We don't even get to feel good about having that win in Philly. What do we get? Beating the Packers was cool. That Miami game was good. Jets game was fun. But honestly there is not a single game from this season that I will remember years from now as any kind of standout. Even non-playoff seasons like 2016 or 2010 had standouts. I'll never forget the 2010 win against Arizona with the big comeback. I'll always remember that Monday Night game against the Giants 2 years ago.

But the 2018 Vikings season ultimately gave us nothing. No division title. No playoffs. Certainly no miracles. Sadly my lasting memory of this season will be that long, slow, depressed walk out of US Bank Stadium this evening.