Normally, this would be the space for the game preview, but holiday travel has struck a blow to my intended posting schedule. So instead, this! The following titles will be watched, by me, over the coming month.

At the end of that period, DBB will publish an updated ranking of the ten best Christmas movies ever made.

Note: If a Christmas film you like isn’t on this list (and does not involve the Grinch or Charlie Brown), send me an email (jeff@dabearsblog.com) and I’ll add it!

Today

Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)

Tomorrow

Mouse on the Mayflower (1968)

Friday

Home for the Holidays (1995)

December 1-25

Bad Moms Christmas (2017)

Bad Santa (2003)

The Bishop’s Wife (1942)

Black Christmas (1974)

A Christmas Carol (1951, Alistair Sim)

A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)

Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978)

Christmas in Connecticut (1942)

A Christmas Story (1983)

Christmas with the Kranks (2004)

Die Hard (1988)

Elf (2003)

Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977)

Ernest Saves Christmas (1988)

The Family Stone (2005)

Four Christmases (2008)

Frosty the Snowman (1969)

Gremlins (1984)

The Holdovers (2023)

The Holiday (2006)

Holiday Inn (1942)

Home Alone (1990)

Home Alone 2 (1992)

It Happened on 5th Avenue (1947)

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Jingle All the Way (1996)

Klaus (2019)

Love Actually (2003)

Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

Miracle on 34th Street (1994)

Mixed Nuts (1994)

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)

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It was Caleb, kids.

Three hundred and forty yards.

We have one, at last.

This defensive group.

What is it that they do well?

The answer? Not much.

Flus will coach Thursday.

Detroit will blow their doors off.

Then comes Black Friday?

Quarter One 

There were four stories to this quarter.

• The strip and recovery by Jonathan Owens stabilized the game for Chicago. There’s a different game script that plays out if the Vikings score easily there.
• The Bears don’t have a pass rush. Zero. Ryan Poles has so much work to do on both lines this off-season.
• The touchdown drive for the Bears was Caleb Williams’s best drive as a professional. That was superstar stuff from the kid, and continued evidence that Thomas Brown is not a coach to be thoughtlessly discarded after the season.
• Last thirty seconds of the quarter are everything wrong with Matt Eberflus as the head coach. Bad, undisciplined penalty. Inexcusable deep completion. Eberflus is the team’s primary vulnerability.

Quarter Two

• After the Keenan Allen overturn, Eberflus takes the ball out of his quarterback’s hands on fourth and short. Once again, Flus displays that he has no feel for the football game in front of him. But more importantly, it’s far more valuable long-term for Caleb TO FACE that situation. The team is going in multiple directions because the organization refuses to move on from Flus.
• If you lose a game on a blocked FG, and the next FG attempt is blocked, that is coaching, coaching, coaching. (The broadcast made this clear in their subsequent commentary.)
• Bears end up with a field goal on the final drive, after their sideline shows no urgency or command.

Vikings 14, Bears 10

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Today, I’m framing my prediction with Sidney Lumet’s offerings from the decade of the 1990s.

Q&A (1990). A strange, compelling film that Lumet co-authored. What do I find most strange about the 2024 Chicago Bears? Cole Kmet. Why does Kmet, a tight end that should be a vital component when it comes to making a rookie QB’s life easier, have only six catches over the last three weeks? Thomas Brown must get him more involved to unlocking this passing game.

A Stranger Among Us (1992). Will the real Montez Sweat please stand up? This is not the same player who arrived midseason in 2023, and the Bears needed him to be if they intended to mount a serious pass rush. Sam Darnold has a quick trigger under pressure. Sunday, they need Sweat to apply it.

Guilty as Sin (1993). What am I most guilty of this season? Underplaying the impact of the “Hail Maryland.” Seeing the Bears play Sunday against Green Bay, it’s clear that was not the same team that showed up the previous two weeks. The hangover was real, but it seems to have receded, sadly costing the club their 2024 campaign.

Night Falls on Manhattan (1996). One of the most underrated films of the decade, Night Falls is not perfect, but Lumet guides several brilliant performances, especially the late Ron Leibman. Minnesota features one of the best pass rushes in the league. Night is about to fall on Caleb Williams if the OL is not on high alert. (And I’m not sure their alertness will matter too much.)

Critical Care (1997). A subtle, if not entirely successful reminder that Lumet is the cinema’s greatest institutional critic. The Vikings offense is on a bit of life support. They have won their last three games, but it’s been mostly on the strength of their defense, as they’re allowing only 11 points per game over that stretch.

Gloria (1999). Lumet’s seriously misguided cinematic effort; a remake with no reason for existence. This is a perfect metaphor for Matt Eberflus’s continued role in the Chicago Bears. Still, I’m calling for the upset.

Chicago Bears 16, Minnesota Vikings 13

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I.

Always.

Like.

THE.

Chicago.

Bears.

Two Months of Thomas Brown

The Bears are 4-6. Their season is effectively over, barring a miraculous run through the most difficult part of their schedule. Their head coach is most likely going to be fired at the end of the season. So, it’s not in the best interest of my time to write expansive game previews of games that carry little material value, and it’s not in your best interest to be subjected to those useless paragraphs. (I’ll use some Lumet in tomorrow’s prediction column.)

What is at stake over these final few months of the 2024 season? I would argue one thing: Thomas Brown’s future with the Chicago Bears. Do I think Brown could potentially be the head coach of the Bears? No, I don’t think so. I would not 100% rule it out, but it seems an unlikely development. Do I think Brown turning this offense around down the stretch could provide Ryan Poles some flexibility when looking for the next head coach? Yea, I do. Think about it. While everybody is pining for the next offensive mind, a successful run here from Brown could allow Poles to sit down with the likes of Bill Belichick, Mike Vrabel and Brian Flores, proven entities that will provide the leadership this organization requires. Brown would not be forced on these coaches, by any means, but why would any of those three want to makes an offensive coordinator change if they can walk into continuity on the side of the ball that is not their expertise?

We know the quarterback is the guy. We know the head coach is not the guy. But this offensive coordinator is only 38 years old. He has a lot to prove, and his work for the remainder of the seasons makes these games inherently interesting. If Brown can display a rapport with Caleb Williams, and earn his trust, the Bears could be in a position to upgrade the sideline in 2025 without having to uproot the offensive system in year two for the quarterback.

Tomorrow: Prediction.

There once was a fella called Flus.

Whose coaching had minimal use.

Year after year,

Fans would show up to cheer,

But leave with their necks in a noose.

I don’t know George McCaskey, despite spending the last few years having to deny I am George McCaskey. Have we spoken? Yes. Several times. That’s it. We don’t have dinners together. But over the years I have become quite friendly with people deep inside the organization, several of whom can be described as being in George’s inner circle. And based on my communication with George, and my conversations with these individuals, there is an unequivocal truth to the following statement: George McCaskey is a very good man, and he very much wants the Chicago Bears to be successful.

Can George McCaskey engineer that success? So far, no.

First, something needs to be repeatedly stated. George is one of the most hands-off owners in the league. He hires a general manager, and that GM runs the entirety of football operations. (Ryan Pace was singularly responsible for millions spent on facilities in Lake Forest.) Kevin Warren was hired to take over the business end from Ted Phillips and get the new stadium sorted. The administrative aspects of this organization are a mess. The stadium issues are dramatically unresolved. Is Kevin Warren the worst hire of George’s tenure? No, not in a world where the football leadership was once Phil Emery and Marc Trestman. But Warren is pretty close.

Now, an argument that is constantly made is that George should hire a “football guy” to run the franchise from the ownership level. But that method has been proven time and time again to fail. Parcells flopped in Miami. Holmgren flopped in Cleveland. Coughlin flopped in his return to Jacksonville. These are three of the most impressive football minds in the modern game and they achieved nothing in those roles. Who would the Bears even hire? So, while many bark mad about the ownership of this club, I focus my attention on the football, and that means the GM.

The Bears could have Jim Harbaugh running their ballclub right now but that would have required firing Ryan Poles last off-season. Harbaugh is the alpha in an organization. He chooses the individual serving in the head personnel role, and he chose Joe Hortiz, his longtime friend, to lead the front office in Los Angeles. And, be honest with yourself, did Poles deserve to be fired in January? Poles tore down a decrepit roster for two seasons and rebuilt the team into what most of us believed should be a double-digit win unit this year, even with a rookie quarterback under center. They still need talent on both of their lines, but I dare you to find one preseason analyst who called this Bears roster anything other than seriously improved. If this 2024 season had happened a year ago, the move to Harbaugh would have been something of a no-brainer. But it did not.

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Two pigeons are resting atop a fictional statue of Richard Dent in his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia. They have just flown back to Georgia after spending Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field, watching Bears v. Packers. They are tired. They are hot. Their names are POODLE and PUDDLE, but neither of them knows the origins of those names.

POODLE: You know what I have noticed lately?

PUDDLE: What?

POODLE: Melancholy.

PUDDLE: Because of the election thing?

POODLE: Fuck the election.

PUDDLE: That’s what I say, but that’s just pigeon privilege.

POODLE: Pigeon privilege. What’s next?

PUDDLE: Something is always next.

POODLE: Melancholy. Deep, profound sadness.

PUDDLE: Like Hamlet?

POODLE: How do you know Hamlet?

PUDDLE: Guy with a beard and a scarf was walking through the park a few months back. He dropped a book and the blew it open. I walked over and gave it a perusal.

POODLE: Oh, you gave it a perusal, did you?

PUDDLE: I did. I gave it a perusal.

POODLE: What, my friend, did you peruse?

PUDDLE: I don’t know the story of the whole book, but I know there was a Hamlet and I know he was melancholy.

POODLE: How did you know he was melancholy?

PUDDLE: It said it in the play. That he had bad color, and this other character wanted him to shake off that color and be friendly.

POODLE: Good book?

PUDDLE: Wind blew it closed before I could get through that page, but it seemed like something you would like.

POODLE: I only ever read from two books. Both good!

PUDDLE: Which two?

POODLE: One was something about a salesman. Sad. The other was called Forum by an author called something Penthouse.

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