Here’s the horror, people: The Bears will be featured on ‘‘Monday Night Football’’ — against the 11-2 Vikings — next week.
The whole world will watch this embarrassing, death-spiral team. OK, not the whole world, but holiday loungers, NFL fans, Bears devotees and rubberneckers who watch car-wreck videos because they think they’re funny.
The Bears are 4-9 and have lost their last seven games, sometimes in ways that are almost incomprehensible. They were beaten so badly Sunday by the 49ers that you wished a peewee-league slaughter rule were in effect.
Four yards of offense in the first half? A defense that gave up 319 yards in the first half? A 38-13 final score? It was a failure on every level, like a Christmas pie gone bad and served to everybody in the organization.
After the game, safety Kevin Byard said: ‘‘There’s not really any type of hidden story.’’
Wide receiver DJ Moore said: ‘‘I don’t know what’s not clicking.’’
The clueless theme was echoed by just about everybody.
That’s the scary thing: The Bears are so broken that nobody even knows what to fix. Or, more appropriately, what not to fix. Quarterback Caleb Williams is a small ray of light in the gloom, but why does he keep getting sacked (seven times against the 49ers and 56 for the season)? Is the offensive line really that bad? Does he have to hold the ball for so long? Where are the quick plays? Who’s running the ship?
What happens in such blowout games is the announcers will start blabbering about all kinds of things other than what’s in front of them. Joe Buck and Troy Aikman will burble about charities and the weather (just fine in U.S. Bank Stadium), share old anecdotes, marvel at how it got this way, talk about George Halas and Virginia McCaskey, preview games to come, maybe joke about their golf games.
But the message will be simple and obvious: The Bears suck. They should not be on national TV. Sorry, folks, but we don’t have a decent game for you to watch.
The debut of Bears interim coach Thomas Brown had the potential to create a nice ongoing story. But, no. His opener at the helm was so lacking in fire that it could have served as an ice chest.
The Bears were flat, a pencil line of nothing. And don’t forget that the 49ers were without their two top running backs — including Christian McCaffrey, the Offensive Player of the Year last season — star pass rusher Nick Bosa and future Hall of Fame left tackle Trent Williams.
The Bears are an early seven-point underdog to the Vikings, which only shows the public continues to believe in them for historic — rather than real-time — reasons. ‘‘Monsters of the Midway’’? Hardly.
Why they’re not 14-point ’dogs is the mystery. Does anybody really think they have a chance up there with that infernal Viking horn blasting away?
I’ll tell you what I’m reminded of here: The ‘‘Monday Night Football’’ game back in 1985, when the Bears played the Dan Marino-led Dolphins on a warm, humid December night in the Orange Bowl.
Thirty-nine million people watched that game, the second most in ‘‘MNF’’ history. ‘‘The Super Bowl Shuffle’’ was in the can, and the Bears were soon to blow through the playoffs to the Super Bowl championship, outscoring foes 91-10 on the way.
But Marino was on fire, Walter Payton lost two fumbles, a tipped pass bounced to Dolphins wide receiver Mark Clayton for a 42 yard touchdown and the Bears played as though they had left their brains at O’Hare Airport.
They lost 38-24. Gone was the possibility of an undefeated season. Gone was the invulnerability of a team that could have been considered the greatest ever. It was humbling not just to the Bears but to the whole city of Chicago. Still, it might have woken up the cocky Bears, reminded them that the fight went to the end.
It was stunning, that game. The Bears were down 31-10 at the half, a rout. To come back behind sub quarterback Steve Fuller, starting for the ever-injured Jim McMahon? Nope. Impossible. A lot of people were watching the debacle.
So here come the Bears again, on the same stage, 39 years later. What they show the national audience matters. This time, you hope they realize it.