Still Gotta Come Through Chicago

Failing forward in the new year

Happy Friday Chicago!

And Happy New Year, Chicago. I hope yours is off to a good start.

My brother bought me a sharp cooking knife for Christmas, and told me three times after I opened the package that it was very sharp — and to be careful. Whether intended or not, I detected condescension.

I’m a grown ass man. Give me the knife and, if you want, you can join me for dinner and watch me make magic with it in the New Year. Until then, thank you for the present, and keep the safety warnings to yourself.

Ten days later, my thumb was spraying blood, my vision blurred. “It’s just your thumb, calm down” quickly spiraled into “you’re going to bleed out here and die.”

Submitting to the second scenario more than the first, I took a knee and then caught a glance of my unmade bed and thought, man, they can’t find me dead in here with an unmade bed.

I just imagined my parents finding their son — grown enough to be bald, adolescent enough to die from cutting vegetables — laying on the ground next to an unmade bed.

Not here, not now.

I survived. Fifteen minutes laters, I was licking egg yolk off of the same thumb that nearly came off.

And, a day later, I was choking back tears watching Derrick Rose Night.

I kicked off 2025 with a bandage around my thumb, a tear rolling down my cheek, and not a single reason to believe this was “my year.” But I kept the faith, humble enough to realize I did not know what the future held just yet.

I’m also in between jobs, and have two weeks off — probably the most freedom I’ll have over the next four decades — and I woke up miserably sick on the first day of that break. But this was no time for more woe-is-me.

In fact, this was when I cashed in on maintaining the faith.

This is where I realized my luck had turned. The Bears beat the Packers on Sunday, for the first time since 2018 and for the first time since 2015 at Lambeau Field. The next morning, I woke up ill.

The Bears win was the first positive sign, and the second was the influenza.

Do I want to be sick once I start work, and have to take PTO? I don’t even know what PTO stands for. I’m not going to be a drag on the American economy, on this week or the next one.

Some people were born to paint, and some people born to fight. I was born to make a net-positive contribution to my company and its stakeholders on a day-to-day basis, every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (and sometimes Saturday and Sunday) until I die.

And thus, I’m getting all the weakness out now. The blood was pain leaving my body, the tears were weakness. The sickness is next up, and I will conquer that too. And, by the time I get to Day 1 at the new company, I’ll have my sleeves up, wits about me, and be ready to make my mark for stakeholders and Uncle Sam yet again.

My body knows “free time” is not free, and that’s why it has offered me the opportunity to bleed, sneeze and cry during this two-week period. I am forever grateful to be programmed this way, in a way that when I am brought down by myself, I do not bring others — other Americans — down with me.

You get sick and think, “Why me?” I get sick and think, “Why anyone else?”

Retrospectively, I realized I could not have had a better start to the year. Mark Twain once said, if you have to swallow a live frog, do it first thing in the morning. I’m a week into 2025 and have bled from the knife, cried from the Rose, and sweat from the fever.

At this point, February is a quarterback rolling out for dear life, and I’m coming from its blindside, ready to pounce. Strip sack. Ball going the other way. First down.

February is proverbially laying down behind me as I’m throwing my first down hand signals the other way.

I may be fat, sick and nearly dead now. But next week, I’ll be healthy with a top hat on my head and a cane in my hand, singing Oliver Twist’s “I’d Do Anything” to Ben Johnson outside of his house.

For you, Ben, anything!

I may even pick up some new years resolutions — the Carnivore Diet, sauna, cold plunge — and tell everyone I see about those new habits, and shame them for not also abiding by them. Then, I’ll unceremoniously quit all of those a few weeks later and never mention a word about them again.

That’s what I call a start to the new year.

And, lest I forget, for all of you who have white-collar, remote jobs — remember to check those weather apps this month. Remember that this cold stretch is your time to shine, and no one else’s. After you DoorDash your groceries, log on from your heated apartment and see that negative wind chill, don’t be afraid to complain about “Chicago winters” on your social media. That is what keeps the world running.

Thanks for riding into a new year with me, Still Gotta Come Through Chicagoans. Hopefully this will be the best year for the newsletter yet. And if it’s not, just know I’m producing elsewhere — making sure that if the next generation is put in a stranglehold by our national debt, it won’t be because of your boy.

Let’s get into it.

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There’s a lot more gray in the world than there is black and white. Whether it be right versus wrong, success versus failure, or any other binary proposal, there’s a lot of space in the middle to consider.

That’s why, when we think about gender…

Just kidding.

But that can be one of the more frustrating parts of life, that gray area. The black and white is so much more satisfying, and that’s why sports are so appealing.

At the end of the day, it’s a zero-sum game (outside of a tie). A loss is a loss, and a win is a win, is a win.

Now, if you grew up getting relentlessly bullied and haven’t sought therapy to get over that, you may view things differently. You may say that they actually did lose, because they lost a spot or two in the 2025 draft. And if that’s how you feel, send me your number so I can start bullying you again.

The Bears, as mentioned above, hadn’t beaten the Packers in Green Bay in nearly ten years. They hadn’t beaten them at all since 2018. They hadn’t beaten Matt LaFleur once.

Caleb Williams, and the rest of the Bears, had lost 10 games straight.

One day, numbers may be able to quantify the human experience. As of right now, they still do not. And so I can say, definitively, that you cannot put a draft pick price on what it meant to get that win on Sunday.

The Bears are still a low-class organization, rife with disfunction. They need a new head coach, and likely won’t find a good one (more on that later). Like other Chicago organizations, and namely the Bulls, they’ve blown a massive lead on their competition. Their operations have been so poor that they’ve been outpaced by teams with worse cities, fanbases, legacies, and brands behind them.

They also did everything they could to lose the game Sunday. Terrible play calling. Scared play calling. A misuse of timeouts. More pre-snap penalties.

I actually heard a media member applaud the Bears for “getting to the ball and spiking it” prior the game-winning field goal, as if this were Freshmen B football.

But all of those realities were suspended on Sunday, after the Cairo Santos kick and for the hours that led into the night time. The Bears beat the Packers, led down the field by their rookie quarterback.

The Bears players that actually put the work in this year — especially Williams — needed to see a return on investment. They finally got one, right as the shot clock on this regular season ran out.

And we got a return, albeit a small one, on our investment too. At the end of the day, being a Bears fan is maddening, a poor choice, and not worth your time. But if you commit to it like we do, that moment of glee after seeing a kick go in makes you forget about it all, just for a few hours.

It’s okay to forget about it all for a little bit, too. Because it won’t be for long. Inevitably, they’ll remind you of all the bad that comes with being a fan in short order. You don’t have to seek it out.

Of course Sunday’s game wasn’t a must-win. But afterward, it sure felt like it was.

Perhaps it’s different in other sports, but in football, a win should almost always be welcomed. Especially under these circumstances. A rookie QB marching down the field to deliver us Packer Schadenfreude, that’s one thing you’ll never hear me complain about.

#BEARDOWN

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Remember, enjoy the wins. Because the Bears will immediately remind you why your fan existence is agonizing.

Let’s start with George McCaskey, who responded to a question about “Sell the Team” chants by saying he was more concerned with Detroit Lions fans taking over Soldier Field the week before.

The balls on this guy.

McCaskey wasn’t born on third base, he was born sliding into home. But he misses the plate and gets tagged out walking back to the dugout every single time. And then he blames the fans for not cheering.

If the Bears fans didn’t show up at all, it would be totally within reason. Despite almost zero success under McCaskey’s leadership, the Bears fans still are more engaged than most fanbases in the league. The Seahawks game looked like a playoff atmosphere at home, and the Bears had lost nine in a row headed into it.

Despite that absurdly snide remark, I think McCaskey means well. He’s just a delusional buffoon.

And that comes into the coaching search, too.

The Bears need to move fast to get a top candidate. They need to make concessions. There’s competition, and they aren’t exactly the belle of the ball.

But McCaskey doesn’t get that. He still thinks it’s a privilege to be the Bears coach, and that an offer is all it will take to get their man.

This became even clearer when McCaskey was asked what he would do if a coach asked if he could bring in his own GM.

"Well, I haven't ever experienced anyone saying that," McCaskey said. "Usually, they want the job."

The entire league has advanced over the last 25 years, and the Bears haven’t. That’s why George still thinks if they offer the job to someone, they’ll take it. He has no clue that most coaches likely look at the Bears as a clear mess, and probably one not worth touching.

It’s why the Bears end up with candidates like Matt Eberflus, who no other team was considering hiring.

“Usually, they want the job.”

I shouldn’t say that the Bears haven’t advanced at all.

Years too late, they’ve finally decided to stop flying coaching candidates in for interviews on Southwest Airlines. While other teams fly prospective coaches in on private jets or in first class, the Bears had been putting candidates in business class and hoping they liked window seats.

Now, the Bears are committed to flying coaches first class, a source told ESPN. Great news!

But, as written into law, good Bears news is always followed by bad Bears news.

The Bears have requested to interview 14 head coaching candidates. Yes, that’s ridiculous. The majority of those interviews have likely been requested as a favor to agents, a favor that is unlikely to be returned.

Is there some value to hearing what 14 good football minds have to say about how they’d fix the Bears? Maybe. But when time is of the essence, it makes far more sense to get a smaller group together and go to work. The majority of these candidates will not be in the running elsewhere.

Then we learned that all of these coaches will be interviewed virtually on their first round. A few people pointed out that this may be to keep things on a level playing field early on. The Lions coordinators can only interview virtually for now, as their team is still in contention.

If Poles wanted Johnson, for instance, he may not want other candidates impressing his bosses in person before Johnson can do so himself.

Though I am an eternal optimist in 2025, my pessimism is raised with this one. Is there a good reason for the first round being virtual — like a level playing field for all candidates — or is it something else?

I think it’s far more likely that, after the Bears requested to speak to 14 candidates, not long after they promised first class accommodations, someone — possible George — said, “There’s no way we’re flying 14 coaches in and out of here on first class.”

That’s speculation, but it makes more sense to me than any other reason. Maybe it’s a hell of coincidence.

Other teams will begin announcing their head coaches in the coming days, and the Bears are in Zoom meetings, which we all know to be super productive.

I can imagine Mike Vrabel arriving in a helicopter to Foxborough, spending all day with the Krafts eating five-star meals and talking about the future of the Patriots under him, only to hop on a Zoom with George McCaskey going, “Can anyone hear me? Honey, can you help me with this, I can’t see anyone. They’re saying they can see me, but I can’t see them. Oh, hi Mike.”

Here’s the deal with the future of the Bears. There’s reason for hope, but not because I believe in the organization one iota.

For one, I know everyone hates Ryan Poles right now, but if he’s actually in charge of this search (a big if), it’s a major positive.

That means that Kevin Warren and George are not leading the search. It’s also better for Poles to be running the search than a firm run by Bill Polian, who ran the last hiring cycle and has been out of football for over a decade.

Poles is undoubtedly hamstrung. But I’d rather have him running the search at this point than any other option.

With Poles, I believe the Bears can fail forward. It’s their only chance.

I have no confidence the Bears will do the right thing because of their processes, or because they’ve learned lessons. I do believe they can fumble and bumble their way into letting Poles make a hire, and I do believe Poles is capable of picking the right guy.

Organizations like the Bears don’t ever disrupt themselves positively from within. They need transcendent personalities to do that for them.

I’ve made this analogy many times, and I will do so again here. The only reason the Bulls have ever been successful is because they lucked into Michael Jordan and Derrick Rose. Outside of those instances of luck, they’ve showed their true colors.

If the Bears get the right coach, and pair him with the right QB (which I think we have), this can be a transcendent moment.

That is our only hope. It’s a conditional hope, almost a hopeless hope. But it’s a hope nonetheless.

As for candidates, I have made it clear my no. 1 candidate is Mike Vrabel. He, I believe, is the kind of coach that can uncover much of the organizational rot that the Bears have, and turn it the other way.

(To be fair, Pete Carroll could probably do the same. But he’s also 73 years old.)

It’s also clear to me that Vrabel won’t be the Bears head coach. He’s clearly looking for an organization standing on firm ground, and the Bears aren’t that. A Zoom call (that’s definitely accidentally capped for an hour only) will not quell any of his concerns there.

My second choice was always Ben Johnson. I think Johnson knows what makes a formerly decrepit organization hum (the Lions), and he’s obviously an offensive genius.

I think Vrabel would for sure be a culture-changer. The other assistant candidates, I don’t know if they will be. But Johnson is by far the best out of that bunch in terms of pure coaching and play calling talent. He’s been picky about jobs in the past, so it’s clear he has thought a lot about what he’ll need to succeed.

It won’t be just another guy who “wants the job.”

I am still relatively confident the Bears will be able to hire Johnson. He’s only agreed to a couple of interviews as of Thursday, one of which is with the Bears. Would it be a mistake for him to take the job? Probably. But I hope that’s a mistake he’ll make.

There have been so many rumors about Johnson being enamored by Williams and the Bears. We almost have to partially believe them at this point.

Basically, the goal is for the Bears to accidentally get this right. And for the right guy to mistakenly put his trust into the Bears.

At the end of the day, the Bears do have at least one chip to play. Coaches around the league know Williams is a special talent, and we know that he probably should have ended his rookie campaign with three to four game-winning drives.

He just may be our savior, in two ways. By being our quarterback and by being the symbol of hope that the right coaching candidate gets intoxicated by.

All we can do now is pray, wait, and watch highlights of the Bears-Packers game from January 5th.

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I watched Derrick Rose Night last week as any good Chicagoan would: on an illegal stream that I “casted” from my laptop to my television.

The Bulls got it right this time, after making Jerry Krause’s widow cry last year. How did they get it right? Give the microphone to Stacey King and Neil Funk and get the hell out of the way.

Funk hasn’t lost a step, and just listening to his voice during that game was a 3-hour blissful trip down memory lane. So many of my favorite basketball memories were brought into my world through his voice.

To find out through the night that Rose and Funk had a seriously meaningful relationship off the court made it all that more special.

The Bulls put it all together for one night: Joakim Noah, King, and Funk killed the halftime show, as did Derrick himself. The speeches were great. The interview with Rose during the game was great. The Bulls winning the game felt like a necessary cherry on top.

But it also did all feel a bit unsettling.

It didn’t feel like celebrating the past of something that still existed, but instead like celebrating something that had gone away a long time ago.

The first time I went back to my grandmother’s house after she passed away, I went down to the basement where my cousins and I all used to play games. The basement looked and smelled the same. But my grandma wasn’t upstairs, and therefore, it didn’t feel like the same basement.

That’s how Derrick Rose Night felt to me. Tear-jerking, yes. Beautiful in a lot of ways, yes. But also sad.

Not just sad because of the time that has gone by, but also sad because of the oomph that this franchise has willingly lost in the 15 years since those highlights they were showing.

Rose deserved his night, and he deserves to have his number retired (which it will be, next year). But you can’t help to also think that the Bulls are once again exploiting his image to cover up what they’ve done to their fans over the last decade.

There’s a reason why Sammy Sosa is being invited back into the Cubs good graces now. There’s a reason why Derrick Rose is getting two nights, one this year and one next year.

These teams know a little good PR, a little nostalgia can go a long way.

But Derrick Rose Night had the opposite effect on me. Even though the Bulls won, watching Patrick Williams play in his gold uniform that night made me realize how large the disparity is between how I felt about those Rose teams and how I feel about these teams now.

The Bulls were trying to compete the last two years. They were trying to tank this year. They’re better now than they were in the previous two seasons.

They’re a rudderless ship that, like the Bears, only succeeds when they luck into failing forward.

All I can hope now is that a desperate team helps us fail forward and trades something meaningful for Zach LaVine. And then, regrettably, we can start our uphill climb once again, not knowing when — or if — we’ll reach our destination.

But at least they did a good job with the Derrick Rose tribute videos. Alone in my apartment, at least I’ll have that.

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Happy New Year! And thank you so much for reading another edition of SGCTC. Tell a friend to subscribe in this new year, please! Please. And comment below.