(670 The Score) The dead cat bounced, but, alas, the cat remains dead.
Not so for the rest of us, who continue shambling like stunned and witless zombies in this godforsaken Bears nightmare awaiting whatever awfulness is over the next rise.
From the Hail Mary to that blocked field goal. Perfect bookends to bracket a collection of gothic novels replete with a menagerie of football terrors.
Packers 20, Bears 19.
As a wise person once said, you can take the Bears out of the Bears, but you can't take the Bears out of the Bears. Or something.
They're a contraption that sucks the very life from our bodies, like Count Rugen's device in the Pit of Despair, causing us collectively to make the Sound of Ultimate Suffering more times now than we care to consider. Will it ever end?
As another wise person said, "It'll take a miracle."
Of course, they were setting us up with all of this actual competence: renewed physical effort, offensive play-calling that made sense, success on third downs and aggressiveness on fourth, proper clock management to engineer a 10-point double dip around halftime.
If this is what newly installed offensive coordinator Thomas Brown can do with three practices, just make him the head coach already.
Matt Eberflus was sailing along — arguably even outcoaching his counterpart Matt LaFleur — until he became possessed by the demonic incarnation of 2013 Marc Trestman in Minnesota, deciding a 46-yard field-goal attempt by Cairo Santos was close enough for his liking rather than try to move the ball even a bit further downfield. Don't be surprised if Eberflus wakes up Monday with glasses on and a Bears ball cap barely covering newly unfortunate dark hair as he mutters about "growing the man."
If I were in a better mood, I'd note the real improvement of Caleb Williams, his downspiraling stopped by an understandably effective combination of quicker-developing plays, the use of his legs on both scrambles and called runs and better line discipline keeping the operation on schedule. He's all that matters now, so his 95.0 passer rating with no turnovers and fearlessness on the final drive may be more important than the eventual outcome.
But another seemingly impossible defeat just hits with too much of a thud to want to look for any mitigation at the moment. Bad teams find ways to lose games, even at home amid the hope of resurgence or perhaps in the Bears' case, especially so.
We'll hear plenty about their positive steps and their commendable proximity to winning a regular-season NFL game, even after it all pretty much ended for them weeks ago. They'll be on to the next one in no time, skilled as they are at talking their way through difficult times.
And yet it never ends for anyone who cares about this team. Add this one to the list of dubious Packers memories, this haunted house mirror version of the Bryan Robinson blocked field goal. Our minds find unearthly recollections of Chester Marcol, Chris Conte behind Randall Cobb and Phillip Epps beating Terry Schmidt.
Sometimes it feels like we deserve our ghosts.
Dan Bernstein is the co-host of the Bernstein & Harris Show on middays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. on 670 The Score. You can follow him on Twitter @Dan_Bernstein.