After having a few days to digest and contemplate Sunday's Conference Championships, I figure another step in the healing process will be to write about it.

I've been a Bears fan since I started following football, which has probably been since Tecmo Bowl came out on the NES. I live in Massachusetts, so Chicago isn't really the natural choice to root for, and when I think about why I root for them, it's hard to come up with a clear answer. When I started watching football, the Bears had players and a coach who were larger than life. With Ditka, McMahon, Singletary, Fridge, Payton, etc., this was a team that had personality. It may have also had something to do with Tecmo Bowl. I still remember the play were you could throw a short outlet to Payton, and it was one of the few passes in the game(if not the only one?) that wasn't a lob to the receiver. It just zipped along a straight line to him, and obviously Payton was great after he got the ball.

Anyway,...