Remember all the ugliness around the Vikings and their 1-5 start when the Bears were 5-1?
Now that the Bears are 5-5, ugly has landed firmly in Chicago.
Here's some of what was being said and written about the Bears following their 19-13 loss to the Vikings on Monday night.
In the Chicago Tribune, writer Dan Wiederer (who used to cover the Vikings for the Star Tribune), took a look into the future on his postgame report:
"Remember that cushion the Bears built up at 5-1? All of it is gone now. They've quickly stumbled, tripped and blundered to 5-5 and will remain stuck as charity-case invitees into all those 'NFC In the hunt' graphics on TV. Which, truthfully, is just a network and league trick to keep fan bases of below-average teams on the hook for the final month and a half of the season. Anyone who has watched the Bears' 10 games this season and the 16 from a year ago know this team isn't in the hunt for anything. Other than for a competent offense, a reliable starting quarterback and a dependable line and an offensive coaching group to do something about all the shortcomings. And if the Bears can't find a tonic for their widespread woes over the upcoming bye week, Bears Chairman George McCaskey might soon need to decide just how much he truly wants to be in the hunt for when 2021 arrives. A new general manager? A new head coach? A new team president?"
You can read his entire column here.
Then, stick around for the three-word reviews of the Bears' performance that the Tribune solicited for fans. One of them: "Can we forfeit?"
Guess who else was annoyed? The agent for Bears wide receiver Allan Robinson, who was treated like an afterthought by Nick Foles, although they had a lot to do with the subpar play of the Chicago offensive line.
Here's a trifecta of Brandon Parker's thoughts on Twitter:
Robinson is a free agent after this season. Bets on where he won't be playing in 2021?
On the Windy City Gridiron blog, writer Jason Infante had this critique of the offensive line:
"The Bears had yet another disappointing game come from their hog-mollies in the trenches. They allowed two sacks, but the more telling number is the 11 quarterback hits that Foles and Tyler Bray endured, the latter stepping in late in the fourth quarter after Foles got injured. The Bears allowed pressure from essentially every gap, with Minnesota winning off the edge, along the interior, and in the blitz game. Very little went right for the Bears offensively."
Read all of his thoughts here.
And here's the movie poster from the 1940s that went with the game thread on Da Bears blog.
Finally, if you have a few minutes, here's the postgame episode of the Chicago Sun-Times postgame podcast.
Here's the tease: Patrick Finley, Jason Lieser and Mark Potash pick through the disaster that was the Bears' 19-13 loss to the Vikings, and wonder when — or if — the team's losing streak will end.