Bad, Bad Bears: A Brief Bear Forty Niner History

The bad news for the Bears did not start with Jay Cutler's pitiful five pick night in San Francisco.

Lovie Smith bad bunch of Bears were beaten by the Niners but much better Bears squads and players have been whipped by the gold rush gang.

The Chicago Bears have always been jinxed by the San Francisco Forty Niners.

The Niners were, after all, the ones who first laid the great Gale Sayers low with a knee blow.

But the worse torments the Niners inflicted on the Monsters of the Midway was always given by the mind of Bill Walsh and the hands of Joe Montana.

In two NFC Championship Game appearances, in 1984 and 1988, the Niners beat the Bears and Da Coach Ditka by a combined score of 51-3.

Ouch.

After the 1984 game the Niners players taunted the Bears telling them to next time bring an offense.

In 1989 the Bears were shut out on Monday Night Football 26-0 by the Niners and a frustrated and fuming Coach Ditka was charged with angrily flinging his well chewed gum at a laughing fan in the San Fran stands. 

It was the Bears longest pass of the night

Ditka never had much luck with Walsh and his Niners.

During the Bears magical Super Bowl run they did beat the Niners in the regular season by a score of 26-10. Ditka, in revenge for the Niners using a guard as a back against the Bears the previous season, inserted William Perry in the backfield in that game and a legend was born.

Ditka celebrated this rare win by filling the team plane with flowing champagne. He promised to share with the players but somehow the champagne stayed with Ditka who began to sing Ukraine marching songs and Bear victory songs through the planes loudspeaker.

When the plane landed in Chicago Ditka drove off, still singing, into the night. Da Coach did not get far though as a cop collared him for driving under the influence and then the Bears players said they all beeped beeped their car horns as they drove by their handcuffed coach.

Even in victory the Niners always were bad juju for those Bears and Da Coach.

The 1988 Championship game was played at a frigid Soldier Field. Ditka said it was Bear weather and that the Niners would wilt in the deep freeze.

Bill Walsh said during warm ups several Bears defensive linemen stood in short sleeves and stared threateningly at the Niners as they warmed up.

Walsh said he and several Niners players broke out laughing at the sight of these guys, "with their guts hanging out" trying to intimidate the Niners.

It did not work.

The score was 28-3 and it could have been worse. The Bears forgot Montana was from Western Pennsylvania and Roger Craig played at Nebraska. 

Not exactly Caribbean locales. 

Those Bear losses to a legendary leftist city with a team built on a passing attack had to gall the ultra conservative Ditka who always believed in the right and in the run, run, run.

The Niners were not quite down with battering the Bears in playoff battles.

Many forget that the man with the mustache, Dave Wannstedt, once, somehow, staggered into the playoffs.

Staggered in and was viciously knocked out, by perhaps the most mercenary team in NFL history the 1994 San Francisco Forty Niners.

Wannstedt would not smell the playoffs in Chicago again.

Those Niners were Eddie Debartolo's last hurrah.

Eddie paid a bundle and bought a title by bringing in big money boys like Ken Norton, Ricky Jackson, Richard Dent, Charles Mann, Gary Plummer, Tim Harris, Tim McDonald, Ed McCaffery, and, of course, Deion Sanders to go along with Steve Young, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, Ricky Watters, Brent Jones and the gang.

Eddie really wanted to win one more and he drop a bunch on a hunch that gang gold could do it.

And the did and grabbed a Bear pelt along the way.

Last night was not the only night that the Niners gave Bear fans headaches and bad news Bears belly aches.

Its a tradition in the City by the Bay to take Bear pelts from the Second City.

And it does not look like Lovie and his bad, bad Bears are going to change that for quite awhile.

The Niners have not always been able to make the Bears dance they have also always been able to call the tune.