Don't Be a Vikings Fan!
As a Bears fan, I hear how die-hard we are. We are loyal. We can be intense; not quite as intense as Eagle fans, throwing unopened cans of beer at opposing fans, but intense. We are literally so iconic that we have our own skits on Saturday Night Live and Peyton's Places with the Super Fans! And of course, we love our '85 team as much as Cowboy fans love the 90s. I take pride in being a Bears fan for life.
While talking to a coworker yesterday, he mentioned a high school coach was being a real Vikings fan. I work in South Dakota so I'm surrounded by Viking fans, this coworker included. But he wasn't telling me the coach loved Dante Culpepper, he was using it as an adjective. He tells the coach "you're a true Vikes fan" in conversations all the time. But he doesn't say it while they're talking about the draft prospects or last season. He is using it to describe the man's personality.
The coach was looking at the talent pool for the upcoming season and complained. He says things like how he wants more studs (like every other coach), how this player is not as good as a former guy, and it goes on and on. Come season time, the instant something goes well and an athlete performs better than his pessimistic views, he's on top of the world, and now setting the bar way too high. Lots of "it's our years!" Sound familiar? Vikings fans had Adrian Peterson going off, falling eight yards short of Eric Dickerson's single-season record but they've also had a quarterback situation much like our own. But it's always either going to be "their year" or they can't put their own team down hard enough.
You don't see that with our fan base. Do we mock some of our players? Yes. Did we deal with double doink memes for a while? Yes. Have we had great seasons as of late? Nothing to write home about. Are we going to the Super Bowl this year? I mean, the Bengals made it so anyone has a shot right? There's always hope for us. We are going to have a good year each and every season. The worst season in Bears history was 1969 when they went 1-13-0. We had never been that dismal before and haven't been since. We have historical teams. We've been to two Super Bowls and multiple championships prior to Super Bowls including the first ever championship game. We hold the record for the biggest blowout in NFL history (1940 vs Redskins 73-0) and it was during a championship game!
The point is, don't be a bandwagon fan, an all-or-nothing fan, or a fair-weather fan. Just be a Bears fan!
