Bear Digest

List of top 25 teams this century is void of Bears teams and logic

Analysis: Whether any Bears team should be regarded as one of the top 25 this century is open for debate but what isn't debatable is how worthless ESPN's "great teams" list is.
Gene Chamberlain|
Akiem Hicks and Co. maul Jared Goff, the quarterback for the 25th greatest team of this century, according to ESPN's list.
Akiem Hicks and Co. maul Jared Goff, the quarterback for the 25th greatest team of this century, according to ESPN's list. | Quinn Harris-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

The past 25 seasons for the Chicago Bears have included a Super Bowl-opening thrill followed by disappointment, a sudden rise quieted quickly by the thump of the ball on two metal posts, and three other teams that went nowhere in postseason.

Ranking any of those teams above teams who actually won Super Bowls would be completely wrong. when they couldn't get it done in the end during their own seasons.

Apparently winning means little in ESPN's eyes, though.

That's because the greatest team on the list made by ESPN's Bill Barnwell is the New England Patriots team that went into the Super Bowl unbeaten and then lost to the New York Giants 17-14.

This is a popular thing too, making that Patriots team No. 1 one on lists even though they were No. 2 that year in reality. To underscore the stupidity and lack of logic in compiling this list, that Giants team which beat those Patriots was not even ranked among the top 25 teams of this century's first quarter.

I guess we all just ignore that Lombardi Trophy presentation.

In fact, just take the trophy and give it to Robert Kraft. He doesn't have enough of them.

This all said, there is a link here to the Bears to make this list relevant to readers from Chicago and ultimately even more irrelevant because of its lack of logic.

Sitting at No. 8 in the last 25 years is none other than the 2010 Green Bay Packers.

That's right, the same team that wouldn't have even made the playoffs if Lovie Smith and his team had avoided taking their offensive foot off the gas pedal in the final game of the regular season.

A Bears win in that game let Green Bay into the playoffs and then Green Bay beat the Bears in Chicago to get to the Super Bowl when Jay Cutler was injured. That same Packers team had lost to the Bears earlier in Chicago. Then again, did winning the Super Bowl even mean anything for those Packers in making this list? It didn't mean anything for the 2007 Giants.

Does that Packers team belong on such a list after losing six games? Possibly, probably, but eighth? And on this list in eighth when the Giants from 2007 who beat an undefeated team for the Lombardi Trophy couldn't even get a sniff?

Wow. Give me my subscription money back from ESPN plus, and the Disney Channel while you're at it. Using Barnwell logic, John Fox's three-win Bears of 2016 and Matt Eberflus' 2022 team with three wins should get considered for the list.

Another atrocity involves a team Bears fans knew very well. That was the 2018 Los Angeles Rams. They're 25th greatest on this 25-team list from the first quarter century.

Remember them? They scored six points against Khalil Mack, Akiem Hicks and the boys in getting embarrassed 15-6 in December that season at Soldier Field. Then they made the Super Bowl because 1) the Bears got double-doinked out, 2) officials cheated for them on one play in the NFC Championship Game against the Saints. Finally, they scored one field goal against the Patriots in embarrassing fashion and lost the Super Bowl.

Yet, the Patriots team that manhandled those Rams easily for the trophy did not even get on the list. Hmmm.

With so poor of a team included on the list, perhaps that 2018 double-doinked Bears or the Brian Urlacher 2006 team that was "who we thought they were" belonged on this list.

Those Bears didn't win Super Bowls, and the 2018 Bears didn't even win a horribly disappointing game in the playoffs against the Eagles. However, Barnwell has other teams in the top 25 who not only failed to make or win the Super Bowl, but didn't even win a playoff game.

He had the Bills of 2022, who got routed by the Bengals in the playoffs on the list. The Broncos of 2013, who lost by 35 points in the Super Bowl, were at No. 15. Also, the 2007 Colts were on it—not the team to beat Devin Hester and the Bears in Miami but the next year's team that failed to win a playoff game.

Of course those 2006 Bears were not on the list. Neither were the 13-win 2001 Bears of Ted Washington/Keith Traylor nor the first Lovie Smith division winners of 2005.

Those teams really did not belong on a list of the top 25 teams this century.

Then again, plenty of teams no better than they were seemed to pop up on this pathetic ESPN offering. It's a wonder the 2008 Lions didn't make his list of 25 greatest teams of the century using his logic.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.