I’ve been sitting in my chair and staring at a blank white box for about an hour. Now that this season is mercifully over, I can’t think of any new or original way to explain how bad the Bears’ defense was this season.

As strange and confusing as the Packers’ fumble-recovery-for-a-touchdown was, the defense has shown so little awareness and competence this year, I can’t say I was surprised. The final touchdown to a wide-open Randall Cobb on fourth-and-long was just the icing on the cake– there was no more appropriate way the season could have ended. The Bears were shockingly bad on defense this year. I have never seen so many missed tackles; I have never seen so many blown coverages; I have never seen the front seven gouged for so many rushing yards right up the middle.

For so long, the Bears have had a decent defense that just needed a few more points per game from the offense to get a title. And this year, the Bears got those few more points: they finally fixed the offensive line, finally got a receiving corps that other teams envy, and finally got Matt Forte some help. Unfortunately, they gave up the other side of the ball. They have no defensive line. They have no defensive backfield. They gave up almost thirty points a game, by far the worst in team history.

The Bears used to have a defense that QBs hated to go against; a defense that could bail out the offense and outscore the bad guys all by themselves. The hallmark of this team is not supposed to be a precision, high-octane West Coast offense– though that’s nice to have. It’s supposed to be a defense that you can’t run against, that you can’t throw against, and that’s probably going to murder your quarterback. And now that’s gone.

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I don’t remember using a monkey’s paw when I wished for a better offense.

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UPDATE: I didn’t know until this day that Chris Conte was… Barzini’s grandson all along. This explains much.