Last summer, I bought a new Bears t-shirt. I figured it was time to replace the old one because [A] I’d lost weight and it didn’t fit well anymore, and [B] wearing it during every game three seasons in a row clearly hadn’t helped. Those were three of the Bears’ worst defensive seasons ever; they gave up 478, 442, and 397 points. New laundry, I thought, would bring new karma.

Nope. They had their worst season in my lifetime.

Just three wins. Three. The last time the Bears won only three games was in the strike-shortened 1982 season that was only nine games long. Before that it was 1973.

I write a post every year about the Bears’ season. Remarkable how last year’s downside paragraph applies almost perfectly this year:

Blown leads left and right, including against the pathetic Jaguars? Check. Fourth-worst defensive season in their history? At 399 points, that’s a check, though there was some improvement in yards surrendered. The only difference is that this year’s first-rounder didn’t go down for the season. But last year’s first rounder, Kevin White, spent the last twelve weeks on injured reserve alongside half of the other starters.

And worst of all, the two losses to the Packers mean the all-time head-to-head record between them is now tied for the first time in decades. Appalling.

The upside: the rookies looked decent. The Bears got the third pick in the draft. And my sister gave me a small charcoal grill… just about the right size for a useless t-shirt.