Sweetness, Da Coach, The Fridge and awful QBs just about sum up Da Bears

Back in May the NFL writers and editors at CBSSports.com gathered together to discuss the key figures and moments of every NFL franchise in the Super Bowl era. Before long we were discussing every team's best and worst moments, along with their most-hated players and coaches, as well as some of the more bizarre things each team has been involved in. That spirited discussion produced this series -- the Good, Bad, Ugly and, sometimes, Bizarre moments for every team. We continue with the Chicago Bears.

The Good

The '85 Bears

It's been more than 30 years since the 1985 Bears carried Buddy Ryan off the field in the aftermath of their 46-10 bludgeoning of the Patriots in Super Bowl XX, yet it's still the most iconic moment in the history of the Bears. It's still one of the most iconic moments in the history of the NFL. And that 1985 Bears defense might still be the best in the history of football. It's also one of the most influential.

When Ryan, the defensive coordinator of that '85 team, passed away on Tuesday, the response from those around the league -- from Bill Belichick to Ron Rivera -- said it all. And to think, Ryan nearly wasn't even around for that '85 season.

In January of 1982, the Bears fired head coach Neill Armstrong. Ryan could've followed Armstrong out the door if owner George Halas decided to clean house. He had every reason to. Under Armstrong and Ryan, the Bears went 30-34. Ryan's defense had just finished ranked 19th in yards surrendered and 14th in points allowed.

Halas hired Mike Ditka to replace Armstrong, but he retained Ryan. This letter, written by Ryan's players, might've had something to do with Halas' decision.

On December 9th 1981, #Bears players wrote George Halas a letter asking the team to keep Buddy Ryan.

Here it is. pic.twitter.com/a38tw7Qv79
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) June 28, 2016

The Bears entered 1985 fresh off a 10-6 season that ended in the NFC title game. They took their dominance a step further in '85, nearly running the table in the regular season.

While posting a 15-1 record, the Bears managed to hold opponents to 258.4 yards per game -- the lowest number in the league by a wide margin. The Bears actually gave up roughly 22 percent fewer yards than the average team in 1985.

They allowed 12.4 points per game, also the lowest figure in the league (43 percent fewer points than the average team), and forced 41 percent more turnovers than the average team in 1985. They totaled 54 takeaways in all.

That was just the regular season. In the playoffs, the Bears outscored their opponents 91-10. They didn't allow a touchdown until the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. They allowed 144.7 yards per game.

Bears players carry Buddy Ryan off the field after winning Super Bowl XX in New Orleans. Getty Images

After this past season, members of the Broncos' defense compared themselves to the Bears' defense. So, I ran the numbers. There is no comparison. For however much the Broncos' defense dominated during their run -- and they really did, just ask Tom Brady -- the Bears defense was so much better.

Numbers aside, there was just something about those '85 Bears. They were both charming (see: the Fridge) and confident (see: the Super Bowl shuffle). They were the bad boys (see: Ditka's DUI after a game) and the lovable stars (see: Walter Payton). Their quarterback actually mooned the media (we'll get to that in a bit). The relationship between the defensive coordinator and head coach went something like this:

"We hardly ever spoke," Ryan said, per the Chicago Tribune. "I'd just put the game plan on his secretary's desk and she'd put it on his desk. Not that he understood much of it."

It worked, though. In large part because of Ditka. The former Bears tight end, who won a championship with the team in 1963, a Super Bowl with the Cowboys after the 1971 season, and another Super Bowl with the Cowboys as an assistant coach, didn't just experience success in 1985 as the Bears' head coach. He sustained the team's success over the years. In his 11 years as Chicago's head coach, Ditka won 63 percent of his games.

There's something to be said, though, about their lack of another title -- then again, this is the franchise that wasted the great years of Dick Butkus. There's something strange that the Good side of the Bears' franchise is 1985, and not 1985, 1986, and 1987, which I guess, in a way, could be the ugly side of the Bears, but I like to think of it as an affirmation of the 1985 team.

The point being, it's really damn difficult -- in any sport, really -- to win a championship, no matter how much talent lies on a roster. The 73-win Warriors just fell a game short in the NBA finals. The 16-0 Patriots also blew their chance. The 116-win Mariners didn't even advance to the World Series. Ditka's failure to win another Super Bowl shouldn't be viewed as a failure, it should be used to appreciate everything the Bears accomplished during the 1985 season.

For one year, the Bears were as perfect of a team as we've ever seen in the era of the 16-game season. They didn't choke against the Patriots, they entered the game knowing they were going to trash them, and they did exactly that. Their failures in the years following that season represent just how much the odds were stacked against them going 15-1 in the regular season and perfect in the postseason.

We may never see another team like them again.

The Bad

All of the quarterbacks

For decades, Chicago tried its darnedest to live a quarterback-free lifestyle in a league where possessing a stellar quarterback means you always have a shot to play until February. But the NFL is a league where not having a franchise QB results in zero Super Bowls since 1985.

I'm not really sure where to even begin with the incompetence of the Bears. I could start by listing out all of the starting quarterbacks Chicago endured since the days of Sid Luckman, who last played in 1950, but that seems like too long of a list and involves too much unnecessary reading. Instead, I want to talk about the impact the list had on the city of Chicago.

Like a lactose-intolerant milk man or a gluten-intolerant baker, the Bears suffered from some devastating side effects from their quarterback-intolerant lifestyle.

After surviving the days of Cade McNown (not to be confused with Josh McCown, which is something some Bears fans have had trouble with), Shane Matthews, Erik Kramer, and Bobby Douglass -- the list really doesn't stop there, but I'm going to for the sake of my sanity -- the Bears finally landed a legitimate quarterback in Jay Cutler. Of course, just to acquire a good-not-great signal caller, all they had to do was surrender two first-round picks and a third-rounder. But finally, in 2009, the Bears got their guy at the expense of future drafts.

Bears fans didn't have a lot to cheer about during the Cade McNown era in Chicago. Getty Images

And they had no idea what to do with him. Former general manager Jerry Angelo failed to construct an offensive line that could, you know, actually block, and as a result Cutler nearly died every single game for three years. Wonder why Cutler always looks so grumpy? It's because his Sundays typically involved this:

Or maybe because his top receiver for so many years was a converted cornerback, return specialist.

The one time Cutler actually did die -- he tore his MCL in the 2010 NFC Championship Game -- half of the Bears fanbase decided that their quarterback was actually just too afraid to play in the second half so he made up the injury. Some burned his jersey and posted NSFW videos, because even losing to the Packers in the conference title game can be solved by an efficient jersey burning and some F-bombs, while others came up with a super clever nickname.

At one point during his tenure in Chicago, Cutler was the fourth-most disliked NFL player -- right behind Michael Vick (ran a dog-fighting ring), Plaxico Burress (accidentally shot himself), Ben Roethlisberger (accused of rape) and Albert Haynesworth (got paid a ton and stunk). And if you think this Cutler hate is something of the past, well, it's not.

In 2013, Bears fans actually wanted to sit him for JOSH MCCOWN (not to be confused with Cade McNown). In 2014, Marc Trestman scapegoated Cutler by benching him for JIMMY CLAUSEN -- this guy, who started two games in his Bears career, because even when they have a good quarterback on their roster, they just can't fully escape incompetence:

Time for #JimmyClausen to get another ring. #KeepPounding pic.twitter.com/xeLUjwoStq
— Leon The Baptist (@LeonBaptist) February 7, 2016

To paraphrase the Joker from "The Dark Knight," the Bears were a dog chasing a car, but they didn't know what to do with one once they finally caught one. They either treated Cutler like garbage or handed him a lucrative deal in 2014 when the franchise tag would've sufficed.

So now, by pretty much every statistic, Cutler is the Bears' best quarterback ever. Consider this, though: Luckman's record for passing touchdowns stood from 1950 until this past season. Luckman still ranks second in yards and fourth in completions. Reminder: Luckman hasn't played since 1950. I was negative 42 years old. Cutler was negative 33.

Jay Cutler is statistically the greatest Bears QB, which isn't saying a whole lot. USATSI

OK, I'm not going to make the entire list of quarterbacks who've started a game for the Bears since Luckman retired, so here are my top-five Bears quarterback moments in the past decade:

Jimmy Clausen gets 10 drives and leads the Bears to a punt on all 10 possessions.
Caleb Hanie spikes the ball to end the game.
Cutler's long-awaited Bears debut against the Packers begins with three first-half picks and ends with the fourth.
Todd Collins.
Cutler breaks Luckman's franchise record for career passing yards and on the very next play he throws a pick-six. Seriously.

Just kidding, here's the list of Bears starting quarterbacks since 1999:

Shane Matthews
Cade McNown
Jim Miller
Chris Chandler
Henry Burris
Kordell Stewart
Rex Grossman
Chad Hutchinson
Craig Krenzel
Jonathan Quinn
Kyle Orton
Brian Griese
Jay Cutler
Todd Collins
Caleb Hanie
Josh McCown
Jason Campbell
Jimmy Clausen

Here is the Packers' much shorter list, for the sake of comparison and to torture Bears fans:

Brett Favre
Aaron Rodgers
Matt Flynn
Scott Tolzien
Seneca Wallace

The saddest news: Cutler is 33 already, so the Bears will probably need to find another quarterback within a few years. The last time the Bears had a competent quarterback was Jim McMahon, who left Chicago in 1988. So, it took the Bears nearly 20 years to find another one in Cutler.

Winter is coming to Chicago and, based on the franchise's history, it might be a long one.

The Ugly

Fridge over Sweetness

OK, so I lied. The Bears' Super Bowl season wasn't perfect, it was nearly perfect. I'm not talking about their lone loss during that season, I'm talking about Ditka's decision to deny Walter Payton the chance to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

Let's rewind the clocks. In the third quarter of the Super Bowl, the Bears hold 37-3 advantage. Still, they're on the doorstep, looking to stretch their lead even further. With the ball on the 1-yard line, with Sweetness getting shut out to that point, with one of the greatest running backs in the history of the game on the roster, Ditka decided to let his defensive lineman, the Refrigerator, take the handoff. And that's how William Perry ended up with more Super Bowl rushing touchdowns than Walter Payton.

This touchdown should have gone to Walter Payton. Getty Images

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that the Bears' franchise has experienced uglier moments than one play in a Super Bowl season -- Sam Hurd's arrest comes to mind, so does Marc Trestman's second and final season -- but this is the ugly side of the Bears for three reasons: It made no sense, it was so necessary, and there's still no way to explain it.

Ditka can't even really explain it, as he told ESPN for its 30 for 30 on the '85 Bears

"It never crossed my mind" Ditka on Walter Payton #85Bears https://t.co/UA1hgZKKV8
— ✶ Sports Mockery ✶ (@sportsmockery) February 5, 2016

But hey, at least Ditka didn't decide to throw the ball on the 1-yard line in a one-score game against the Patriots in the Super Bowl. So, there's that.

Ditka's decision -- rather, Ditka's negligence -- forced Sweetness to break down immediately following the game, which author Jeff Pearlman wrote about in "Sweetness."You can read an excerpt, which really captures just how devastated he was, from that book over at Deadspin.

The Bizarre

Jim McMahon's mooning

Jim McMahon, the quarterback of the Bears, mooned the media before the Super Bowl. What else needs to be said?

Actually, there's a backstory (pun totally intended) and it relates to acupuncture (actually). As Michael Weinreb wrote for GQ back in 2011, McMahon "strode into the holy land of New Orleans and, over the course of a few short days, rendered the Super Bowl his own personal bacchanal, a montage of drinking and fighting and mooning replete with plot twists involving a rogue acupuncturist, Bob Hope, public urination, and a controversial radio interview that never actually took place." Sorry for the long quote, there just wasn't a better way for me to sum up McMahon and his actions prior to Super Bowl XX.

According to Weinreb's account, McMahon's crazy week began when Bears' management refused to allow his acupuncturist to accompany the team on the plane. Finally, days later, the Bears flew that acupuncturist out to New Orleans.

"I came here to make the Bears feel better so they can win the Super Bowl," said acupuncturist Hiroshi Shiriashi, per The New York Times. "I stick pins, we win."

The mooning happened during practice on Wednesday. I'll let Weinreb tell the story, as he did for GQ:

At Wednesday afternoon's practice, McMahon, not wanting to risk another fine from Commissioner Pete Rozelle for donning his Adidas headband (and having already scrawled the name "ROZELLE" on his headband the week before), wore one that read "ACUPUNCTURE." When a helicopter circled overhead, McMahon bent over, yanked down his pants, and "showed 'em where it hurt."

Got 'em.

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