During the long hot Chicago summers, the city is a house divided against itself(and contrary to Honest Abe, it actually stands quite well), divided in loyalties between the Cubs and the Sox. But once baseball is over with(or just once both teams are too bad to watch), we as Chicagoans become one and shift our gaze to the lakefront to cheer on the Monsters of the Midway. No, not the Chicago Maroons, the Chicago Bears!
The franchise started out in 1919, when the A.E. Staley startch company out of Decatur fielded a company team. The team was put into the capable hands of George Halas(who was just 4 years removed from a near-miss on the Eastland) who moved the team to Chicago in 1921, buying out the rights to the team for a mere $100. The next year, Halas changed the team's name to "Bears" from "Staleys" and moved the team into Wrigley Field, where they would play for the next 50 years. Almost immediately, the Bears enjoyed success, becoming an instant league powerhouse. In 1924, the team initiated its rivalry with the Green Bay Packers when the Bears actually moved to expel the team from the league so that they could sign a prospect unfettered by the Packers(of course, once the contract was finalized, the Packers were allowed back into the league).
The next year, the team took a huge step forward when Halas signed Red Grange to a contract after his collegiate career at the University of Illinois. Grange immediately became a hit with the team, and both shored up the Bears' finances and increased the legitimacy of the young NFL. In the 30s and 40s, the Bears continued their unparalled streak of dominance over the rest of the NFL. There was a slight downturn in the 1950s, before the team surged back and won another NFL title in 1963. After that, the team once agian started to struggle, finally thudding into their worst season ever in 1969, scraping out a 1-13 record.
After several more seasons of futility, the team managed to draft Walter Payton in 1975, which ushered in a new period of success. It goes without saying what the end result of this period of success was, but I'll say it anyway. '85 Bears. 15-1. Super Bowl Champions. The Super Bowl Shuffle. Enough said. Afterwards, the team stayed competitive through the '80s, but never re-attained their prior level of success. The '90s continued the downward cycle, and the bears made the playoffs only twice in the whole decade. In 2001, the team had a surprising season where they surged to a 13-3 record only to be knocked out in the first round of the playoffs.
In 2004, the Bears hired Lovie Smith as their new head coach, who saw initial success. After a 5-11 record in '04, the team flip-flopped and made it to 11-5 the next season, which saw another first-round exit. In 2006 the team got back to a level of dominance that generally inspired this reaction from opposing teams. The team made the Super Bowl, but lost to the Indianapolis Colts. After that, the team only made the playoffs one more time under Smith, in 2010. 2 years of disappointments followed, by which point Smith was fired on December 31, 2012. 3 months later, Marc Trestman was hired as head coach. This past Sunday, the Bears defeated the Bengals 24-21, making Trestman only the 4th head coach in Bears history to win their debut.
No comments:
Post a Comment