Welcome back to The Vault, a weekly series where I dust the THC cobwebs off my brain and try my best to remember how to spell player names, information that is surely replacing things like “how to change a flat tire” or “my home address” in my limited memory bank. Catch me on the shoulder of the Eisenhower at 5pm looking at a flat and mentally spelling out “Brandon Manumaleuna” over and over again whilst in tears.
Let’s set the scene for this throwback recap: it’s late 2009, the 11-3 Vikings arrive in Soldier Field for a Monday Night Football tilt against our beloved 5-9 squad. The Bears sucked that year. This was year one of the Jay Cutler experience, and the acid hadn’t kicked in yet. Their first pick was Jarron freaking Gilbert, a player I had to look up on Monday night when a friend and I were trying to remember the guy the Bears drafted because there was a Youtube video of him jumping out of a pool and landing on his feet. He had 1 career tackle, and is cousins with NBA ICON Javale McGee. That pool video is cool as fuck though, not gonna lie to you. You can’t coach those kind of pool-jumping skills.
I watched this game at a local restaurant/bar, which is rare for me. I hate going to bars to watch games, mainly because you can’t smoke pot there and food is way cheaper at home. This bar, however, had one of those free halftime buffet deals and I was going back to college, so I took my Rodney Dangerfield lookin-ass down to this bar in the dead of winter to watch the 2009 Chicago Bears. Woof.
The game itself was a classic: a 36-30 overtime shootout that found the local boys victorious. The Bears jumped out to a 16-0 halftime lead behind the leg of Robbie Gould and a Jay Cutler to Greg Olsen TD pass.The free halftime buffet was destroyed before I even got up there, but hey no big deal, as long as the game is good, right? (about here is when I started going outside to chainsmoke instead of paying for bar food)
Even with a two score lead, any Bears fan could’ve told you Brett Favre was going to make the game uncomfortable. He left his training crocs in the locker room (probably to creep out any female staff members), and mounted a comeback that turned the fourth quarter into a legendary shootout. Each team scored a touchdown in the final 5 minutes. Look at some of the names of the players that drew pistols in this duel: Favre. Cutler. Peterson. Shiancoe. Bennett.
Side Note: Earl Bennett never got the recognition he was due. Not only was he a starting-caliber punt returner that didn’t get to do it since Devin Hester was there, but he was the best Bears possession WR of the last 10 years. His stats don’t do him justice, and if Jay stayed healthy all those years he might have made a Pro Bowl as a slot WR.
…okay maybe Pro Bowl is a bit of a stretch.
Despite these heavy hitters, it was Devin Aromashodu that truly drew first blood, in the sense that he won the game in overtime after a clutch Adrian Peterson fumble gave the Bears the ball with a chance to win it. Win it, he did.
Being a Bears fan means holding permanent grudges towards people you’ll never meet, for things that happened so long ago that they don’t even matter anymore. Brett Favre is one of those people that I will ALWAYS, ALWAYS resent. Yes, he was a creep and was sending the most awkward dick pics to team staff when he was in New York. Acts like that are unequivocally gross and should condemn anyone’s reputation. Yet any Bears fan could’ve told you he was suspect as fuck judging by the way he always dismantled the local boys. It always seemed like he took perverse pleasure in ruining my childhood Sundays. Beating Brett that night was great, and gave me a completely unearned sense of smug self-satisfaction the entire solo walk home back to my apartment with a margarita buzz on.
Fuck Brett Favre.
