O'Donnell: Bears fans are missing the point after - 0-17 is history!
IF JEFF BEZOS REGULARLY delivered Amazon stinkeroos like tonight's Bears-Commanders game, he'd probably still be trying to sell books online out of a rented garage near Snohomish, Wash.
Instead, Prime Video will veer way down as Matt Eberflus and his roiling band of confusion tiptoe into FedExField (Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit, 7:15 p.m.; over-the-air in Chicago on WFLD-Fox 32).
The game is to Super Bowl 58 aspirations what Luke Getsy is to NFL quarterback tutorials.
To borrow from Kevin Warren, the exhibition should be a non-starter. Prime Video could do better with a director's cut of "Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey."
A CRITICAL PROBLEM NOW on the local low beam is that Bears followers are being induced to disregard the possibilities of historic futility.
An 0-17 season is far more preferable than 1-16. "0-17" resonates into the darkest of ages, which is a daily mindset at Halas Hall. "1-16," or 2-15 or 3-14, merely means that the long season and those rascally pixies of the NFL tossed a little feel-good toward the Bears. From a Jack Ruby Society point of view, that's probably most in the interest of money-line unpredictability.
The game line has been holding around WAS -6, which seems a little light. But the Commanders - despite their 2-2 record - are not exactly waking up the echoes of Joe Gibbs.
RON RIVERA'S STARTING QB is second-year brambler Sam Howell. The North Carolina 'heel was once MVP of the 2019 Military Bowl. He insists he's never eaten beef or seafood. Howell certainly has been more efficient than Justin Fields this season, but that's like saying he's having a better year than cryptocurrency.
The Thursday nighter will be hard-pressed to top the theatrical implosiveness of the Bears loss to Denver four days ago. That sort of ghastly turnabout would leave Bram Stoker reeling for days.
THE BEARS RETURN TO SOLDIER FIELD on Sunday, October 15, with a nooner vs. the Vikings.
If there is any Ditka-Ryan spirit and hard ChiTown football soul left in attendees, a simple chant will permeate the space saucer over and over again:
"Oh and 17 ...
"And then please sell the team!"
Anything less will be passively courting years of roil-banding stinkeroos.
STREET-BEATIN':
Sports Business Journal reported that White Sox regional TV ratings this past season dropped 41%, the most among all 30 MLB teams. A 61-101 record - in tandem with a pontifical chairman - can do that. Defused Jason Benetti and Steve Stone spent September sounding like greeters at a Bridgeport funeral parlor. ...
NBC's Peter King built a strong case that Colorado's Shedeur Sanders will make a better NFL QB than Caleb Williams of USC. Intriguing Chicago delivery would be Deion Sanders as new HC of the Bears with his star son in tow. Sanders would be the most high-wired local hire since Mike Ditka. Coach Prime would also be expected to help curb TSA times at O'Hare, upgrade Chicago Public School resources and get a major-chain grocery store back into Englewood. ...
Does David "Chatty" Kaplan of sports-talk doormat ESPN-AM (1000) spend too much on-air time texting while callers are prattling on? Chet Coppock pioneered the attention-deficit style during his pre-smartphone run at the old WMAQ-AM (670). (Key: The host snaps to and repeats the caller's final phrase or two before responding.) ...
Tim Carey of Hawthorne Race Course told the Illinois Racing Board that his declining Stickney spa will have a casino up and running by November 2024. The local thoroughbred game is beyond life support and current bottom harness purses at HAW touch a Catholic Charities-level $4,000. The full truth is that the southwest suburban oval would be a workable site for a new Bears stadium. ...
Strictly regional:
The Hersey-Prospect varsity showdown Friday night was what Bob Frisk-style prep athletics are all about. The Huskies (6-0), behind workhorse RB Nasir McKenzie, rolled, 28-3. Dick Quagliano reported "a packed homecoming crowd." Taylor Bell is suggesting Tom Nelson's current crew could be as good as Bruce Glover's 1987 state champs (12-2). A star of that HHS team was DT Frank Kmet, father of young Bears foxholer Cole Kmet. ...
And Mike Ryan, with a mid-February pop cultural dream scheme: "Why not the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce as the Super Bowl halftime show? If he's playing in the game, they can add 12 minutes to the intermission and 60 more minutes of commercials."
• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears each week on Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.