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History not on Bears' side with passing game

Look, up in the sky, another promise that the Bears will have a modern passing game.

Caution: Believe at your own risk.

Somewhere on this website you can see that I guessed that the Bears will win the NFC North (see attachment).

Apparently I have bought into what the Halas Hall turnover is selling … except for this notion of a 21st century offense.

Death and taxes are not the only two certainties. They are joined by the Cubs never winning a World Series in my lifetime, and the Bears never having a space-age passing game.

And I plan to live forever, you know.

Earthlings will play video games on Mars, the Atlantic Ocean will swallow the Pacific and gas prices will dip below $2 again.

But new Bears head coach Marc Trestman developing a 21st century aerial attack here?

Sorry, ain't happening.

If I'm right about the Bears winning their division this season, it'll be with the same old formula of defense and running the ball.

The more that the buzz in Lake Forest centers on Trestman's offense, the more it sounds like the buzz in Wrigleyville surrounding Theo Epstein's rebuilding program.

Each is a work in progress, more than six decades old now for the Bears and more than a century old for the Cubs.

Wake me when the Bears throw for 400 yards to win the Super Bowl and Cubs phenom Javier Baez' home run wins the World Series.

Until then, nobody gets the benefit of doubt. If forever you never have seen something, how can you believe in it?

Trestman and Epstein are assigned to create something many of us can't even imagine: A Bears professional-football offense and a Cubs championship.

These men are trying to perform unnatural acts. If God meant for them to succeed, He wouldn't have created Billy goats and Walter Payton.

Look, believe if you want that the state's pension crisis will be resolved, some day Chicago's expressways won't be rush-hour parking lots and global warming will turn the Upper Midwest into Southern California.

But the Cubs winning a World Series? Uh, no. The Bears having a 21st century passing attack? Uh, no.

I lost hope over the Cubs a couple decades ago, so it's nothing against Epstein and his front office of Theocrats. My skepticism about the Bears' offense is nearly as yellowed and wrinkled, so it's nothing against Trestman and his Trestmaneers.

For a long time I believed in every promising new plan of the Cubs and Bears.

The Ernie-Billy-Fergie-Ronnie juggernaut … Dallas Green's supposed New Tradition … the arrival of golden boy Andy MacPhail …

Won't be fooled again.

Gary Crowton's razzle-dazzle offensive circus … Jay Cutler's arrival at quarterback … Mike Martz' track record as an innovator of offense …

Won't fall for that again.

The Bears have fed us quarterbacks like the weak-armed, weaker-minded Cade McNown, the bad-to-worse Rex Grossman, and the miscast Bobby Douglass.

McNown was to the Bears what the black cat was to the Cubs, Grossman was Leon Durham's Gatorade glove, and Douglass was the great collapse of '69.

The conclusion here must be that the Field Museum will grow ears before the Bears routinely are able to pass for a first down on third and 18, and sushi will surpass deep-dish pizza as our primary food group before the Cubs win a World Series.

On a planet where anything can happen, assume these can't until Marc Trestman and Theo Epstein prove otherwise.

mimrem@dailyherald.com

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