The Bears' Fourth Quarter: Collapse Complete

The photo for this final quarterly graphic was taken from this Tribune gallery, although this picture really would have been appropriate since it ended up being Minnesota that's playoff-bound instead of the Bears. In the end, a Chicago team that won seven of its first eight games ended up somehow missing out on the NFL postseason. Even though the Bears won 10 games, it was not enough to save Lovie Smith's job, as the coach quickly got the axe the following day. I'm sure there will be many more comments about this in the "Final Thoughts" post, which may go up after a replacement has been named.

Or it might come when we have home internet service again. At the moment, I'm posting this quickly during my lunch break at work while the wife tries to figure out how AT&T will next attempt to rape us. Who knows how I'll get the playoff picks up in time before tomorrow, let alone watch them, since our cable is also out. It's been a pretty rough week around our house. 

Midway through this season, I was feeling pretty good about that Bears-Texans Super Bowl pick. Eight games later, Houston has stumbled into the playoffs while Chicago missed them entirely. My belief all year was that Lovie Smith would get his players to earn him an extension on that contract, but the high-powered offense we had been told to expect this year never really materialized. If the Bears and the Texans had one thing in common this year, it was their ability to beat bad teams but always lose to the actual contenders.

For the time being, I'll act as though the Bears missing out on the playoffs spared fans further national embarrassment. Better to keep this disappointment out of the spotlight and wait until we can enthusiastically rave about how much better the team is going to be next year when a new head coach is named.