Paths Not Taken

There are 32 teams in the NFL, all with a single annual objective, to reach the Super Bowl.  One team in the NFL is tasked with a second objective, to beat the Packers.  That twice-tasked team is the Bears.

How to beat the Packers when it counts?  Well, the 49ers showed one way in their NFC Championship tilt with Green Bay—you run the ball and manage the game.  San Francisco’s Raheem Mostert rushed for 220 yards and four touchdowns while Jimmy Garoppolo threw all of eight times in four quarters of play.  The pride of Arlington Heights was a study in how not to get in the way or screw things up.  Oh, and some guy named Robbie Gould kicked a 54-yard field goal to go with 27- and 42-yarders.

The Bears showed time and again this season they lacked a running game along with a quarterback who knew what to do in crunch time (or any other time during sixty minutes of play, for that matter).  They could’ve tried to acquire Garoppolo from the Patriots, if only the Bears’ “brain trust” hadn’t set their sights on Mitch Trubisky in the 2017 draft.

And, by going with Trubisky, the Munsters lost their chance to draft Patrick Mahomes.  If the 49ers beat the Packers one way, Mahomes could have done it another, by throwing and scrambling to his heart’s delight, like he did in leading his Chiefs over the Titans 35-24 in the AFC Championship game.  Oh, this guy is scary good, but he lacks the humility the Bears expect of their players outside of Martellus Bennett and Brandon Marshall.  Garoppolo or Mahomes?

The Bears can watch the Super Bowl to see how two paths not taken do in fact lead to the same place.