Juice's Lecture Notes wrote:
I wonder what changed in Dan's thinking that has created such a stark contrast between the insulting paternalism with which he discussed Derrick Rose, and the fawning patronization he uses to discuss Justin Fields?
Bernstein never would have tried to excuse or gloss over something like Derrick having to have the playbook dumbed down for him in his 3rd year, or calling out coaching/management for making him feel uncomfortable.
I've never once been asked to imagine being Justin Fields's boss.
I think Bears fandom is more racially charged than it's ever been in our lives, way more than it ever was when the coach himself was black. It starts with the stadium issue. You have a pretty vocal contingent of Bears fans who want the team in Arlington Heights not because it's easier to drive there from Glenview (considering Euclid Avenue, debatable) but because it hurts Chicago. It punishes Chicago for Lori Lightfoot and Brandon Johnson and "flash mobs" and feral "teens." They want to see the city suffer and then revel in that suffering: look what you made us get to do to you.
The media class, of course, has been all over the Fields cause to a pretty embarrassing extent, but I don't think we get here without elevated racial tension in general and specifically around the future of the whole franchise. When you get Jason Goff, Sam Fels, and Twitter supernumeraries trying to be noticed by Jason Goff and Sam Fels all going "I hope Justin Fields goes to another team and SHOVES IT DOWN YOUR FUCKING THROATS FOR NOT BELIEVING IN HIM," well, this is just their frustration that Fields was unable to shove anything down anyone's throats here: namely, the media's hope that the first great quarterback the Bears have had in ages would finally be a black guy, and every Bears fan from [insert suburb or Mount Greenwood], the very same ones who want the team to go to Arlington Heights, would have no choice but to Appreciate his Greatness. Unfortunately, Fields has spent every fourth quarter violently shitting all over himself, so there just hasn't been as much Greatness to Appreciate as anyone would like.
But this sort of loyalty to one person over the team has never existed in my recollection, not for Urlacher, not for Jay Cutler, not for Lovie, and not even for Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky, whom Parkins couldn't stop sucking off for years. No one has said they're going to be a Mitch (Pro Bowl QB) Trubisky fan no matter where life takes them. But that's what Twitter has decided, and Senor is too old and bored and tenuously employed not to just go with it.
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Molly Lambert wrote:
The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.