In the long history of Chicago sports teams tanking, most of it has been a waste of time. When the Bulls stripped down a six-time NBA championship team they ended up with the first overall pick once (1999 Elton Brand) when there wasn’t a franchise player to draft, second overall once (newly minted motorcycle enthusiast Jay Williams 2002) in a year when they missed out on Yao Ming by one spot, and the fourth pick twice (the immortal Marcus Fizer in 2000 and Eddy Curry in 2001). When the Cubs did it, it worked out only because the Astros somehow chose Mark Appel ahead of Kris Bryant in the 2013 draft.
Usually, Chicago teams half-ass their rebuilds. They don’t commit to losing enough, and they chicken out and start signing overpriced low impact free agents (Brian Cox, Kordell Stewart, etc., etc.)
As a great man once said, “Never half ass two things. Whole ass one thing.”
The 2022 Bears can not be accused of half assing anything. They set a franchise record longest losing streak (10 games) and they set a franchise record for losses with 14.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Pointless Exercise to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.