Today was more than just one of those @EmptySeatPics kind of days at Soldier Field. It was a people will break into your house in order to leave you Chicago Bears tickets kind of days. The lakefront stadium had a “oh, what time is the game?”
“Well, what time can you get here” kind of Sundays. I guess people in Chicago were still focused on Black Friday sales. Here take a look:
This is what happens when your franchise is dysfunctional… #Bears pic.twitter.com/JrM5XtqetZ
— Windy City Pick 6 (@WindyCityPick6) November 27, 2016
Plenty of seats available at Soldier Field. pic.twitter.com/s92ylHRrgr
— Chris Emma (@CEmma670) November 27, 2016
Can’t say I blame them though, as the Bears fell to 2-9 on the season, dropping a 27-21 decision to the Tennessee Titans. Chicago could have won, they got a nice effort from new starting quarterback Matt Barkley, but his receivers literally and figuratively let the game slip right though their finger tips.
The receiving corps was absolutely atrocious today and their drops cost them a W, but hey have helped the team in the long run.
The Chicago Bears are looking like a good bet to get the #3 overall pick in the NFL Draft come April. You can’t blame the atrocious attendance on the weather. Although it was gloomy and overcast, there was no rain or snow, and the temperature was right about average for this time of year.
Most of the time, the Chicago Bears and the Chicago Cubs are your 1A and 1B in this town when it comes to sports. After all, both sports talk radio stations spend a dysfunctional amount of time focused on the Bears, to the extent that both stations have become unlistenable. So obviously people care a lot about the Bears, given the attention talk radio gives them.
You would think that, but you see the poor attendance right in front of you. I can tell you that page view numbers aren’t much better. It’s hard to recall a time that Chicago Bears material has done as poorly for us as it has this season. (I’m not sure I should have even taken the time to write this very piece because I don’t know what kind of return I’ll get on the time invested in it).
When it comes to ratings, well that’s been one of the major storylines of this NFL season- ratings being so drastically down. Obviously, the team being so bad is the major culprit, but it’s still astonishing that interest has fallen this low. When Cubs Chairman Tom Ricketts showed up today at the game with the World Series trophy, it was an in-your-face reminder of just how much higher up the Cubs right now than the Bears.
After all your November total victories reads as follows Chicago Cubs 2, Chicago Bears 0.
It’s clear that the Monsters of the Midway really need to shake things up this off-season, in a dramatic way. The status quo is only bringing regression.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.