At their introductory press conference on Monday, new Bears GM Ryan Pace Poles and new Bears head coach Matt Nagy Eberflus were asked a lot of questions and at least twice were asked if they could replicate the success of this year’s Bengals.

Last year the Cincinnati Bengals went 4-11-1, their offense ranked 29th in the NFL in yards gained and 29th in points scored. They had a first round draft pick at quarterback who started only 10 games because of a season ending knee injury, which seemed inevitable because 32 times in 404 attempts which works out to seven percent of the time.

This past season the Chicago Bears went 6-11, their offense ranked 24th in yards gained, 27th in points scored. They had a first round pick at quarterback who started only 10 games because his head coach was too dumb to make him the starter right away and then he suffered a series of injuries, which seemed inevitable given that he was sacked 36 times in 270 attempts which works out to 11.8 percent of the time.

The Bengals used free agency to fix their leaky defense which went from 26th in yards allowed to 18th. They used a first round draft pick on Ja’Marr Chase to give their second-year quarterback Joe Burrow an elite target (it didn’t hurt that they were college teammates at LSU) even though most draft geniuses thought they needed to take guard Penei Sewell instead. Their offense surged to seventh in points scored and 13th in yards gained.

Did they fix their awful offensive line? Not really. Burrow actually got sacked a league high 51 times and at an even higher rate than he did in 2020 (8.9% of dropbacks). Hell, Joe got sacked NINE times in a playoff win in Tennessee.

But, despite getting thrown on his hiney every 11 pass attempts, Burrow threw for 4611 yards (no Bear has ever thrown for 4,000 yards in a season) and 34 touchdowns.

The Bengals, you may have heard won the AFC Championship Game on Sunday. Odds indicate that they are +145 to win the Super Bowl.

So, how did the Bengals do it? Did they fire their coaches and their general manager after their lousy season in 2021? Actually, they didn’t. Mostly, Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase are just more awesome than their coach, Zach Taylor, is dumb.

How can the Bears emulate the Bengals success?

I sat down with Matt Eberflus and since he loves pneumonics we came up with a fool-proof acronym for the Bears to make the Bengals and head to the Super Bowl in the second year of their hot shot young quarterback’s career.

L is for LEAP. Justin Fields just needs to improve as much from year one to two as Burrow. Since Burrow transferred from Ohio State to avoid the kind of QB competition that Fields transferred in to Ohio State for. This seems super easy.

P is for PLAYMAKER. The Bears need to use their first round draft pick to get a playmaker like Chase. Now, the fact that they don’t have a first round pick makes this seem hard to do, but hey, what the hell did they hire Ryan Poles for? Figure it out. Maybe trade for one. Anybody but the Bears three superstars should be on the table. Those stars are, of course, Justin Fields, Roquan Smith and Cairo Santos.

I is for INTERCEPTIONS. OK, sure this seems counterintuitive, but Flus and I talked about this at length and agreed that since Burrow threw three picks on three straight attempts against in an explicable loss to a crap team in September this season and ended up in the Super Bowl, that Justin should do the same thing.

R is for RUN the ball. Yeah, the Bengals throw it all over the field with Chase and Higgins both racking up over 1,000 receiving yards and Tyler Boyd nearly 900 and TJ Uzomah almost 500 at tight end. But Joe Mixon ran for 1200 yards, too.

T is for TURNOVERS. The Bengals ranked 17th in the league in taking the ball away and 11th in having the ball taken away. So that’s good. Not great, but good. Honestly, coach just really wanted a T in this thing.

U is for UNIFORMS. The Bengals improved their uniforms this season and that might have helped, I guess. The Bears already have cool uniforms, and frankly we needed something easy other than throwing three picks and this seemed to fit.

K is for KICKER. Cincinnati has a cocky rookie kicker who says stuff like, “We’re going to the AFC Championship game” to his holder BEFORE he makes the kick that actually sends them there. I like it. Plus, the Bears already have the best kicker in the league, so this one’s also done.

N is for NEPOTISM. The Bengals are run by the idiot offspring of Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown. Mike Brown is his son and probably still drives a Ford Grenada. Nobody thinks Mike Brown knows shit about football. And yet, his team has been to more Super Bowls than the Bears, though they haven’t ever won one, mostly because they ran into Joe Montana the first two times.

(One thing to note about the highlights in that video. The stripes on his sleeves and the font on the nameplate on Joe’s jersey don’t match the rest of the team. That’s because his wife packed his jersey from the Super Bowl win over the Dolphins with his stuff and told him to wear it for luck.)

OK, so what do we have for an acronym out of all that?

L – Leap
P – Playmaker
I – Interceptions
R – Run
T – Turnovers
U – Uniforms
K – Kicker
N – Nepotism

LPIRTUKN – Ahh, it rolls off the tongue.

Let’s reorder them into something we can remember.

How about LIPTURKN. Lip turkin’! Who could possibly forget that?

So there you have it. The Bears are just a Lip turkin away from a return to glory.

Mike Pusateri and I followed along with the introductory presser. You will be amused.