Chicago Bears: Bears-Patriots trip down misery lane

Their first meeting after Super Bowl XX. It apparently was something they were waiting for.

As I’ve mentioned before, say the name “Doug Flutie” to any Bears fan over the age of 40 and you’ll get a treatise on how Mike Ditka‘s treatment of him torpedoed the Bears’ chance at a repeat in the season of 1986. You’ll need a chair and a pillow. Needless to say, he wasn’t exactly popular around these parts, though someone had to play while Jim McMahon was trying to locate whatever fell off of him that week.

This was before Flutie had moved on to become a legend in Canada, and was staying barely ahead of Steve Grogan and Tony Eason to maintain the starter’s job in Foxboro. Boy, there are some names for you. And it wasn’t going well, as they came into this 3-5.

The Bears meanwhile rolled into this one at 7-1, the only black mark a Week 3 loss to the Vikings. They had just beaten peak San Francisco 49ers 10-9 at home, and clearly were feeling themselves a bit. In the five games leading up to this, the Bears’ defense — the last version of the best defense ever to live — had given up 32 points combined.

They gave up 30 to Flutie.

Flutie completed six passes all game. Four of them were four touchdowns. Bears quarterbacks, of which there were three that day, completed seven passes all game. SEVEN! McMahon got hurt, as was his thing, Mike Tomczak went 5-for-13, and Jim Harbaugh also got a look to go 0-for-5. What was this sport back then?

Six completions. Four touchdowns.

The kicker to this was my older brother was attending his freshman year of college in Vermont during this season and met up with an old high school friend for this one (you may remember Josh Mora from his time at NBCSN). They sat on those cold, dank benches in the old Foxboro and watched Flutie throw 66% of his completions for touchdowns. They never stopped complaining about it. And I don’t blame them.