My First Night as a Bears Fan

To be entirely honest, the NFL has not ever really been my particular brand of excitement on how to spend a Sunday afternoon. For the most part, living in Iowa for my entire life, there was never really a team I felt connected to or even the need to support. Sure, I dipped my toe in the water once in a while. I tried to care about Dante Hall and those Chief teams. Yeah, there was the time I thought I could be a Favre guy (when he played for Minnesota, no less). Or when I really went on a limb and flirted with being a full time Patriots guy. But much like YouTube stars or Gene Chizik as a head coach, my NFL fan card never stuck around long.

That was until last night.

At around the seven minute mark of the second quarter in a preseason football game on a Thursday in August, my life changed quicker than that Witch’s when Dorothy mistimed the exit with her house.

Not only did I end up giving away an awesome House Montgomery shirt, but the bandwagon for Chicago pulled up outside my window, honked the horn and I heard Chris Farley screaming “Da Bears” as I grabbed some brats and hopped right on.

Yes, this is only a preseason game, and it also probably doesn’t mean much to lifelong Bears fans or people who really understand football, but, for me, this game helped me to find something I really cared about. I also now am 100% sure that David is the best rookie in the NFL and it isn’t even a question.

Beautiful stutter step and scamper for a touchdown aside, David also managed to look like a strong east coast breeze while spinning and catching and performing like he did on so many Saturdays in Ames for those three blessed years.

If Nagy can just figure out a way to keep the offense on the field and never have to play defense, by my estimation the Bears should win every game by 20 points and probably win the Super Bowl, which honestly sounds reasonable based on what Bears Nation saw last night.

Truth be told, I’m quite giddy to begin this walk down Lombardi Lane with all of Chicago and Bears fans across the world. I cannot possibly foresee anything bad happening to this team from the time we all spent watching and tweeting about it together.

I can only hope that Bears Nation welcomes me with wide open arms and allows me to be the best die hard fan I can possibly be. Being a Bears fan so far — 15/10 in my book.