That Hopeful Twilight Feeling

Maybe it's because I'm listening to "The Warning," a Hot Chip album that I really like, and that I for some reason stopped listening to just as I was really starting to fall in love with it, and I was just at this part in "And I Was A Boy from School" that is particularly dreamy. Or maybe it's because I just got done watching last season's finale of The Office, which is an incredible little bit of television, especially the end, where Jim finally decides to go ahead and ask Pam out, and she gets all smiley and teary-eyed about it, and if you've been with the show for a little while I imagine you get a little teary-eyed about it, too. And maybe it's because it's just that time of the evening, that time when you you're tired but not too tired, and you're brain stops worrying about what it hasn't got done today and just runs away with all kinds of possibilities for the future, and you really feel like that time when you've finally arrived at a happy life is right there for you to touch it, and waiting patiently for you to make it there. Maybe, yeah, all of that is part of it, but I just this little article from the Tribune about Benson, and how he doesn't feel like he's really played his game since the last game of his college career, and how he's ready to finally turn the corner and get it going here, now, on the Bears (and, awkwardly, on the race track, because he wants to be a race car driver, too, which kind of doesn't fit into my whole mood with this...). And, oh, damn, I lost it... This "Over & Over" track by Hot Chip just makes me want to shake it, not be all nostalgic about something that hasn't happened yet.

Anyway, the main point of this is that I just kind of had this feeling, you know, one of those things that you kind of just know but not really for any reason, that Benson is going to pull something out this week against the Cowboys, and that this Bears offense is really going to start clicking only when Benson himself clicks, and that really becomes the face of the Bears offense. Thomas Jones was good and all, but he just never really became the face of the Bears offense, not in the way that the Bears are supposed to be about their running back. He never even reached Neal Anderson status. I do think that Benson could do it. At least, I fucking hope he can. Because, though Grossman still might be the best Bears quarterback since McMahon, the Bears offense just doesn't work when he's what we're counting on. He has to be a compliment to something. And if that something doesn't turn out to be Benson this year, I think, at least offensively, we're screwed. And it's back to being feeling kind of disappointed every time the offense is on the field because it seems like the defense is actually the half of the team more likely to score.

Here's what I want from Benson: consistent first downs. That's it. Touchdowns, sure, would be nice. But, frankly, kind of unnecessary. We need Benson to be a powerful enough running back that, when the Bears get the ball, you know there going to have the ball for a long time. Which is got with consistent first downs. The Bears offense holding on to the ball for significant portions of the game means that the defense gets to rest, and when the Bears defense is rested they're faster than just about any offense in the league. When the Bears defense is rested--for an entire game--I'd like to see somebody score more than 13 points against them.

So though my initial disappointment with the Bears offense as fully set in, I'm just going to start hoping for a clock-eating offense, instead. That's what we need most, at this point. With a clock-eating offense, as soon as the Bears reach 17 or 19 points, the game is out of reach for the other team. Here's hoping Benson's got what it takes.