Imrem: How about them Bears?

My goodness, I must be getting soft and sappy because I sort of like this bad Bears' team even in defeat.

What's next, eating tofu and buying an electric car and going to French movies?

The Bears are oddly impressive because they rejected the idea of tanking the season.

Many fans wanted the Bears to, by design, go 0-16 and ensure the first overall pick in the 2016 draft.

Why not? Because the idea of sports is to try to win every game and be entertaining along the way.

Sunday afternoon at Detroit, two bad football teams played a fun football game.

In the end, the Lions beat the Bears 37-34 in overtime for their first victory of the season.

Still, quarterback Jay Cutler could say of the 2-4 Bears, “I'm proud of the guys, They fought and fought all game long.”

Even while losing to a team that had been winless, the Bears were more interesting than some quality teams are while beating other quality teams.

OK, so the loss at Detroit was disappointing, frustrating and exasperating ... but at least it was interesting.

The Bears should be commended for being more physical, more enthusiastic and more organized than they were in recent seasons.

For what it's worth, this Bears' team just might be playing closer to the capacity of its talent than better Bears' teams have in the past.

Remember, Halas Hall has looked like a playground with different guys showing up every week for pickup games.

“In this league,” Bears' head coach John Fox said, “you have to overcome everything every week.”

In theory, world-class athletes should try to win regardless of their won-lost record, the standings and other circumstances.

In reality, that's how this game looked: Two NFC North rivals with a combined 3-9 record packaging 71 points into 72 minutes.

“We scored 34 points,” Fox said. “In this league that's usually enough. Today it wasn't.”

If this were the Super Bowl, it would have been one of the most dramatic. As is, it was pretty engaging anyway.

There were crazy plays, terrific plays, terrible plays, weird coaching calls, controversial officiating...

Local sports fans who aren't interested in discussing the Cubs this morning have the Bears.

The debate about Jay Cutler could rage on; the Lions' apparent lost interception that was ruled a touchdown could be reviewed again; the Bears' progress could be evaluated.

It's easy to say none of it matters because neither the Bears nor the Lions figure to make the playoffs.

But don't tell that to the Bears. A victory would have given them a 3-3 record and .500 at this point — actually going into December — is good enough for playoff contention.

That's reason enough for them not to tank the present in favor of the future.

Let's face it: The Bears are going to lose enough games by accident so they might as well try to win them.

What's really the difference if the Bears have the first overall pick or a pick somewhere else in the Top 10?

It's a gamble either way. Any team can pick the wrong player or make the right pick and watch it turn out wrong.

Hopefully, sports aren't at the point where the only way to rebuild is to first squander a few seasons on purpose.

After this week's bye, fans who paid a lot of money for season tickets deserve a good show in Soldier Field.

Mission accomplished if the next game against Minnesota is as entertaining as Sunday's was at Detroit.

If saying so sounds soft and sappy, so be it.

mimrem@dailyherald.com