By: Alex Patt
“I still own you.”
That quote is being shared by so many people and sports outlets. Within 20 minutes of this happening, I saw so many sports pages on Social Media sharing the clip or screencap of Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers yelling at the fans at Soldier Field.
I was furious. I was tired. I was demoralized. I was numb.
Going to be real for a second, this shit just flat hurts. Just when I thought this rivalry could not get more lopsided, it did. Not just because Rodgers taunted the fans, but because of the fact that the Bears being 5-22 against him and have three *bleeping* wins against the Packers since 2011 is now under the prime spotlight of the sports world. Everyone outside the two fanbases now gets to laugh and joke about how Rodgers owns the Bears. You NEVER want to be the fan of the team that is on the wrong side of this sort of thing. It flat out sucks.
I wanted Justin Fields and the Bears to surprise us all SO bad on Sunday afternoon. I had hoped that we could get another positive glimpse at the future with an upset win and really give the Bears faithful something to be happy about. But like virtually every year, Aaron Rodgers has to ruin it. And you know what? He is not wrong. It looks like he was responding to what fans were doing in the stands, and it was the heat of the moment. This is based on his postgame response.
What hurts most about this is at the end of the day, the Bears and Bears fans have zero response to this. Rodgers wins this battle like he has every other battle against us. I am just so sick of it.
Every time this happens and I say how sick of it I am, I often get Packers fans say, “Just join us and become a Packers fan!” I have thought about leaving Bears fandom MANY times in my life, but they are a part of me and I cannot do that. So stop saying that to me.
Being a Bears fan has been more difficult than being a fan of any other of my primary sports teams. I have seen championships from the Blackhawks and Cubs. The Bulls are on the rise and watching the in-prime D-Rose years was fun. Sure, the Bears made the Super Bowl in 2006, but that is about it. So many painful losses, getting destroyed by our rival ever year, false hopes…not fun. Yet I stay around. Ugh.
What I hope is that this quote by Rodgers sparks a fire in this Bears team. Use this as motivation, not deprivation. Listen to those quotes every damn day. Post a picture of it on the walls at Halas Hall. Take it personally, just like Michael Jordan would!
That or just be thankful we will not have to put up with this much more.
I feel like I say, “I just want my team to be good and win” every dang year. I hold out hope like a pre-2016 Cubs fan talking about “next year” and yet nothing ever changes. Same old song and dance. The one taste of success we had against Rodgers in 2018 when they beat him to win the NFC North was something I cherished so dearly, but it did not last. I thought they had bit the head off the snake, but they did not.
Not much more to say.
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