Phil Rosenthal at the Chicago Tribune quotes NBC announcer Mike Tirico, who will be calling the game on Sunday night, on televising the Bears-Packers rivalry in prime time:
“It’s the Bears and the Packers. I know I’m going to get a good, tough game. It’s going to be cold. Fingers crossed, it snows at Lambeau. It’s a chance for 3½ hours to get yourself out of the malaise that has been this year … and just kind of escape. You almost feel like the world’s normal again.”
Let me tell you something, Mike. If you are looking to shake yourself out of a malaise, watching the Bears offense is only going to make things worse.
A lot worse.
I have this vision of television executives sitting around board room table and cackling while raking in cash generated by Bears fans. Meanwhile young, potential football fans all around the rest country blow rasberries as they turn their TV off.
Honestly, at what point does the league finally step in and say, “Look, you can’t do this. We’ve got the future of the game to think about and watching the Bears makes the baby Jesus cry”?
Like most of the rest of the country, Bears fans are wondering just how bad the team has to be to be flexed out of prime time. Why can’t they just be saved the additional embarrassment and have their team stink in anonymity at noon?
It’s bad enough that all over Chicago, our own eyes are being forced to bleed. Must we blind the rest of the country, as well?