There are certain things we can look past. Todd chumming it with some Packer fans at a tailgate to score some tasty Bratwurst and some Spotted Cow beer is acceptable. They share their tasty eats with us, we allow them some Goose Island 312 and some Polish Sausage in exchange.
It's a beneficial, and temporary truce for the betterment of all our stomachs.
Plus, we're not Monsters. We have a certain level respect for the fans in green and gold, we may not particularly agree with them, and they take the whole "ownership" thing way too far, but they are a loyal fanbase that stood by their team when we were kicking the crap out of them back in the day, much like we stick by our team these last few decades when they've been getting the better of us.
And of course, our Beloved Chicago Bears still hold the all time edge 93-92-6. So suck it Green Bay!
But we're having a very hard time with the video above.
The shock alone has already put my brother Bob, and fellow Superfans Pat and Todd in intensive care with heart attack numbers 3, 2 and 7 respectively.
When the following video leaked on the Twitter;
Ditka’s a Packers fan??? Can’t believe it’s Ditka. For real though, #IsThatReallyDitka? pic.twitter.com/BHnFkLdXpc
— Jerry Rice (@JerryRice) October 21, 2015
We could pass it off as an impostor, just trying to besmirch the great Ditka legacy, but now, it's clear that Mike... oh my God... I'm having a hard time typing this... But Mike Ditka, IRON Mike Ditka, the Chicago Icon himself, is wearing a Packers sweater shilling for McDonalds.
We just have no words for the level of hurt he placed upon us.
At this time we're just too emotionally charged to go into detail, but thankfully we have a slew of other WCG contributors that aren't as at-a-loss-for-words as us Superfans.
Kev H
"I, for one, have been pretty over Mike Ditka for a long time. I was just a tiny kid in the 80s, but looking back it's clear that his clash of ego with Ryan kept that team from being something really special. Meathead Bears fans over the years have allowed him to turn into a cartoon, and it continued to feed that same ego, despite having nothing particularly successful in the sport to point to over the last 25 years.
I think at it's base, it shows that we're so starved for success as fans that just because the Bears won 30 years ago, this guy gets a pass. I mean, he rounds around playing the stubborn, out-of-touch grandpa who basically yells opinions that don't make sense, doesn't seem to put in the tape work, and for heaven's sake, farted at one of his co-workers during a NATIONAL TELEVISION BROADCAST."
Steven Schweickert
"My immediate thoughts on Da Coach and this:
(Pfffffrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrtttt)"
David Taylor
"Dead to me."
Jeff Berckes
"To be fair, I was born in '82 so I don't identify with Ditka all that much. In watching a lot of NFL films and reading a lot of books on the Bears, most recently Monsters by Rich Cohen, I think he wasted a generational defense with his lack of offensive creativity. He's a fun caricature of a time gone by but he's always been a sell out.
He's basically Krusty the Klown, a tired hack who lives to be a shill for whoever can write the check. For someone who makes a lot of money off his one championship, I honestly think this will piss a lot of people off. This isn't cool or funny.
Boo this man!"
Lester A. Wiltfong Jr.
"Part of me understands Ditka is a brand now, and he has been for some time, but he's also a Chicago Bear. To many fans he is "The" Chicago Bear.
I don't think he needs the money at this point in his post football career, and he could have made up the loss of the McDonalds money by selling some other product or two.
Wearing Packers garb for money while constantly picking the Bears to win in his job as a football analyst sends mixed messages to his fans. If he has any credibility left, I think it just faded away."
Josh Sunderbruch
"There are two Ditkas. One is a perfect blend of football savvy and old school tradition who represented greatness. The Ditka who somehow mystically granted a whole team his aura of toughness. He only exists in the minds of some fans.
The other Ditka got lucky with having an amazing defensive coach, one of the greatest running backs of all time as part of a stacked roster, and the right kind of charisma to cash in. That is the Ditka who drove away Buddy Ryan, who went to New Orleans, and who now trades his fame to sell cheeseburgers and cash checks."
Sam Householder
"He is a walking, talking brand at this point. He will shill anything so long as he can get the money. There's the anecdote out there that Ditka asked the players post-85 to cool it on the endorsements but kept going out and doing all his own. He is, for all intents and purposes a meme, he is a mustache and aviators with slicked back hair and a cigar that sells Italian Beef, pizza, cigars, wine, tequila, bloody Mary mix, salsa and pretty much anything else that he can mug next to.
He is the face of the Old NFL on TV, surrounded by players explaining a game that passed him by years ago. If you ever catch part of his radio show, it's mostly him trying not to second guess anybody or call anybody out. He offers little in the way of analysis other than being a crotchety old man."
Jack M Silverstein
"My first loss-of-innocence moment came in 1994 when Mongo McMichael signed a one-year deal with Green Bay. My second came in 1998 when Wayne Larrivee took the Packers play-by-play gig.
In time, I accepted the former. The latter still bothers me. But DITKA SUITING UP IN A PACK SWEATER FOR A FRIGGIN' MCDONALDS COMMERCIAL would have shattered 15-year-old Jack's spirit and left him in an unbreakable rage.
Now, if there is another commercial where Brett Favre or LeRoy Butler or Vince Lombardi's skeleton dons Bears gear, then we're okay. Failing that, this is disgusting and unnecessary.
We are now at two commercials and counting where Bears icons degrade themselves in Packerdom. The first was the Superfans/Aaron Rodgers State Firm commercial, which at least allowed Wendt & Smigel to wear their regular garb.
This one is inexcusable, and brings to mind my brother's complaint when we were boys after the latest in a horrific string of brutality cases imposed by the Pack against our boys in blue.
Mike astutely observed that perhaps part of the problem was that Illinois had a "Green Bay Road" but Wisconsin, as far as we knew, had no "Chicago Road." It turns out the state up north has a few Chicago-named roads, but that misses the point. The point is: Infiltration.
This aggression cannot stand."
Dane Noble
"Mike Ditka has always made money playing a caricature, including when he was coaching. He's an entertainer, at best."
It is a sad, sad day to be a Bears fan...
EDIT: This isn't the first time Mike Ditka broke the Superfans' hearts. They wrote this back in 2012, Mike Ditka said "I'm a Packer fan", and I died a little inside...