The Bear Market

This past February was Chicago's coldest ever. Which is pretty amazing when you consider how overheated certain Chicago Tribune sportswriters were about the personnel employed by the local NFL franchise.

You'd think such frequent spontaneous human combustion would make weather records like these all but impossible.

In the world inhabited by David Haugh and Steve Rosenbloom, QB Jay Cutler and GM Phil Emery's continued employment ten-minutes after the conclusion of the regular season was a national crisis on par with Hillary's e-mail accounts, ISIS beheadings and Iran's nuclear program.

The Chicken Little twins advised us repeatedly that if Cutler and Emery weren't removed immediately, the earth would suffer a catastrophic shift of its axis, potentially placing next year's Chicago Bear schedule in jeopardy.

New threats to our collective well-being were exposed if head coach Marc Trestman and defensive coordinator Mel Tucker weren't disposed of with the urgency accorded spent uranium rods. 

Their warnings flowed like money at a Koch Brothers Super PAC.

Speaking as a reader, imagine enduring this kind of stress before you've even had time to sufficiently process Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez calling it quits.

Sigh.

With all but Cutler now gone, the twosome turned their attention to Brandon Marshall, a talented-but-outspoken wide receiver. They took strong exception to Marshall's remark that football was a platform, a means to an end, rather than an end in itself.

This as Haugh and several other Tribune sportswriters enjoy extra-curricular gigs on radio and TV in addition to their newspaper assignments. It's a shame Marshall didn't enjoy a similar bully pulpit from which to question their commitment.

The piling on was ugly. It was unfair. And it was pointless. Vince Lombardi couldn't have taken the 2014 Bears to the post-season.

In overreacting to unfulfilled expectations they themselves created by speaking breathlessly of last year's Bears as Super Bowl contenders, Haugh and Rosenbloom cease to be journalists and instead become their own sitcom, one best called Chasing My Tail.

Now the Bears have a new coach, John Fox. And a new GM, Ryan Pace. 

Welcome to Chicago, gentlemen. If you haven't won a Super Bowl by the Fourth of July, don't say you weren't warned.