Mhhmmm Free Agency's Got Me Feeling Good And I Know It's A Trap: It's Always A Trap
It’s free agency baby, simultaneously the greatest and saddest time of year. I’ve always loved it because you’re watching these moves happen, and all you can see is each piece performing to the best of its potential. You’re essentially watching a fantasy team being assembled, and nobody really truly ever thinks their team is getting worse as players are acquired or sent on their way. Take the Bears for instance: I see Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, and Trey Burton joining the squad, and all I can see is how dope they’re going to be. All I can think about is how much more fun this team is going to be with those guys on it. Sure there are still lots of holes left, but just think of how many have already been plugged!
You see, this is the problem. This is why it’s also the saddest time of year. It’s sad because every single fan of every single team is doing this, but when it comes down to it, all but eight of those teams are going to suck. Trust me, that’s how it goes. All you see right now is the best of each of these guys, but what you don’t see are the training camp injuries, the hold-outs after a season, the egos that break apart a locker room- trust me, I’m a Bears fan who was psyched to see Brandon Marshall and Martellus Bennett join the team, I’ve seen it all. The saddest part of this isn’t that the darkness is coming, because that’s just part of the way sports are, it’s that it's clear I’m basically giving up already.
That’s where I’m at. I know this high all too well, and I’ve seen the crash all too often. It’s not that I’m not excited, because I am. It’s just that while I used to see a free agent class and think “Super Bowl,” now I see a free agent class and I think, “maybe I’ll be able to watch a full NFL game without feeling like a piece of garbage afterwards.” It’s sad, and I miss the blind optimism that carried my fandom for years. Unfortunately my psyche’s taken too much of a battering to not lower the bar. Too many disappointments over the years. Far too many disappointments. My psyche belongs in a battered psyches' shelter. My psyche basically eats out of a straw at this point: if I tell it in March that the Bears are going to win a Super Bowl it’s going to fucking snap. I’ve at least got to wait for training camp to start to throw out that prediction.
