Lions 24, Bears 13
For most false start penalties.
The Bears' season is now, of course, toast. And after such a promising start, too. They're not going to finish either first or second on the NFC North, and hence will not make the playoffs. Maybe the Bears will wake up and get rid of Jerry Angelo after the season. Maybe. I won't count on it, though.
I can't say I begrudge Detroit the victory, though- for the same reason I'm rooting for the Tigers to somehow still win the World Series. I feel about Detroit kind of the way I felt about New Orleans during the Saints' Super Bowl year. It's a city that's taken some awfully hard knocks, and it deserves some good news.
Being a loyal Blackhawks fan, however, i want to make it clear that my sympathy does not extend to the Red Wings.
And there's another reason why I have a soft spot in my heart for the Lions. The Bears lost in the NFL championship game in 1956. The next year, when I was seven, was the first year I was really aware enough of them to be a fan. That's the year they began a long epoch of being the second-best team in the Western Division, behind first the Lions, and then the Colts, and then the Packers.
There were only two divisions in the NFL back then, just as there were only two leagues and no divisions in Major League baseball. Just as I (like every other fan whose team didn't make it) automatically had a rooting interest in the World Series even so- you rooted for the champion of your league- so I rooted for the Western Division champs in the NFL championship game.
I feel sorry for younger fans, who are prevented by the multiplicity of divisions and paths to the playoffs in both sports from having a stake in the World Series and the NFL championship game every year, no matter how bad their own teams are.
The Lions won our division in 1957, and I well remember rooting them home to a decisive 59-14 victory over the Browns in the title game. So I'm willing to forgive Detroit for yesterday's result.
Provided they beat the P___ers. Twice.
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