Windy City Gridiron
Let me tell you about magical thinking.
Let me tell you about our Chicago Bears.
“Magical thinking” is the act, or perhaps state, of believing that your internal life can alter your external life in ways they don’t actually connect. Sports fans are full of magical thinking. You could even say that sports fandom is magical thinking.
Thoughts like “Every time I go to a Cubs game they lose, so I passed up tickets for Game 6” — magical thinking.
The way our bodies tensed up as Kelvin Hayden crossed the goalline, yet still we clapped and said, “Comeback starts now!” — magical thinking.
My own brand of magical thinking adds a numerical trigger. For instance, in 2018, every game on the schedule was on the schedule in 2006. And until December of that year, we had only lost three games, to the Packers, Dolphins and Patriots, our only three losses in 2006. I called it the Prophecy. It brought me peace.
The Prophecy is nothing compared to The Year of 5. We are headed into what might just be the greatest anniversary season in Bears history. And I am going to use it to magical think my way to an incredible 2025 season.
We know the ‘85 Bears have an anniversary. But what else? Let’s go from least notable to most. (All newspaper clips pulled from Newspapers.com.)
Anniversary: 10th
Celebration date: Nov. 26
This is a relatively small anniversary, one that will fade with time. But in a social media era where everything that ever happens in sports gets honored with an “on this date” tweet, I always enjoy seeing the Bears D stuff Rodgers and the Packers Green Bay on a goalline stand, spoiling Brett Favre’s jersey retirement day on Thanksgiving.
This was doubly sweet because 21 years earlier, the Packers whipped our butts on Halloween the day that we retired the jerseys of Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers.
Anniversary: 50th
Celebration date: Nov. 16 (Walter’s first 100-yard game)
Unlike the rookie years of Sayers, Butkus, Grange, or even Rick Casares, Walter Payton’s rookie year wasn’t dominant. But it is historic, and the Bears play this year on the 50th anniversary of Walter’s first career 100-yard game, when he gained 105 yards against the 49ers.
1975 was also the first full season under GM Jim Finks, who would build most of the ‘85 Bears. Walter Payton was Finks’s first draft pick.
Anniversary: 70th
Celebration date: n/a
There is no singular anniversary here; after an 0-3 start, the Bears went 8-1 the rest of the way and lost the Western Division to the L.A. Rams by half a game, getting eliminated in the last week of the season, in which the Bears won but did not get the required Rams loss.
What makes 1955 relevant just to keep in mind is that if everything goes as it should...
