#GMCPlaybook: Which team is most similar to the Chicago Bears?

Earlier this week, Sam Householder surmised that the debacle that had recently become of the Chicago Bears could be considered very similar to Washington, Oakland, and New York (Jets)... hitting rock bottom in Lake Dysfunction.

This is just the latest story to come out that puts this franchise in the conversation with the perennial dumpster fires like Washington, Oakland and the New York Jets. Those teams have locker room fights, coach-player conflicts, practice brawls, lots of head coaching turnover and a new quarterback every couple of years.

Of course, Sam is referring to the recent stretch of chaos that our Beloved has been experiencing, from leaked stories about defensive coordinator Mel Tucker being fired after the season, to offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer throwing his quarterback under the bus and then crying in the locker room while apologizing... The Bears were only last week mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, but this season has been over for a while.

A look back at the first half of the schedule provided hints that this was not going to end well, but at this point, it's just a full-on mess.  But let's not pretend that the Bears are just now becoming dysfunctional... they've been that way for a while now. They're just generally a lot better at keeping it a secret.

Head Coach Marc Trestman appears to be getting one more year to get things straightened up (unless he completely poops the bed over the next three weeks), but how hard is it going to be to recruit a defensive coordinator or potentially another offensive coordinator if the candidates know their HC is already on the hot seat when 2015 kicks off?

It's a situation that the Bears have been in before, and not so long ago. Remember when Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith were trying to recruit a DC after Bob Babich was relegated back to linebackers? They ended up just promoting from within when they couldn't find anyone to come in for what was potentially a one-and-done if Lovie ended up losing his job after the season.

And the same thing on the offensive side of the ball-- we don't know how all of that went down, but we do know that at least one, and likely more, candidates turned down the OC job for the same reasons as stated above. So the Bears brought in a guy off the streets who was unemployed to run the offense-- and then promoted from within after that guy was let go.

This is not an unfamiliar place for the Chicago Bears-- it just looks different because there are new people involved this time. But it's much of the same of the last 5 years... and 10 years... and 15 and 20 years. These are our Chicago Bears.

The one things that's missing though is a 10-win season every few years to distract the fans from the real problem. If Marc Trestman makes it to 2015, he'll have one shot to do it. Because our teams "executives" can't have the fans start looking any closer than they already are...

So, to answer Marshall Faulk's question above, we won't look around the league for our answer. After all, he's talking about a mirror image. Well, we are who we thought we were. We are the Chicago Bears.

Join the #GMCPlaybook discussion at sbnation.com/sponsored-gmc-playbook and on Twitter by following @thisisgmc & @marshallfaulk.