With a few days to recover and let the events of Sunday afternoon sink in, I’ve come to a few conclusions about the Chicago Bears’ 21-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

As an unabashed Bears fan, I realize now that:

A) I, along with millions of other people — NFL players included — overreacted to Jay Cutler not finishing the game.

B) The impact of Twitter on professional sports is incredible,

C) Caleb Hanie should never have been the third-string quarterback on that roster, and

D) watching the Packers win the George S. Halas Trophy at Soldier Field is more painful than I thought it was going to be.

During the course of those 60 minutes of football, Bears fans ran a gamut of emotions: from frustration to disgust to anger to hope to encouragement bordering on confidence and finally to despair. Honestly, when you’re a super-fan of a team like some Bears fans are, watching a high-stakes game like the one Sunday can be hazardous to your health.

Watching the Packers win was just the cherry on top of an awful day for Bears fans. While the Bears and Packers have the longest-running rivalry in NFL history, that also carries with it having the most respect for one another.

That doesn’t make watching them win any easier. Especially when Aaron Rodgers barely outplayed — arguably he actually outplayed himself — a third-string quarterback in the second half, whom we will get to in a second. Smug Packer fans getting to celebrate their team’s victory was like salt on an open wound.

As for the reserve Hanie, I think every person in the world watching the game wondered how on earth Todd Collins was ahead of him on the depth chart. 

Sure, he threw two interceptions — and yes, the one to B.J. Raji was cringe-worthy — but he played with marked intestinal fortitude on the biggest stage he’ll likely ever see. He earned a ton of respect in the Bears locker room and across the league no matter how that game ended.

Hanie was one of six current or former Bears players who were trending topics on Twitter during and after the game. Twitter has become the platform most people go to these days to find news, sports information, and to air their thoughts.

For a lot of people, myself included, their thoughts on Jay Cutler were expressed loudly and with a lot of ignorance.

I’ll admit I tweeted at Cutler in the third quarter, wanting him to “man up” and go back in the game. By now you probably — unless you live under a rock and don’t watch ESPN — have seen what several fellow NFL players got to say on Twitter. 

What we fans and those NFL players did was what people have accused media of doing for years: spouting off without all the information. I’m particularly embarrassed to admit I went off without information, because I’m being taught every day at this university to think before speaking.

Knowing now that Cutler had a grade two tear of his left MCL, frankly, makes me feel like a jackass for condemning him. What it comes to is the perception that fans have of Cutler and how it looked to see him on the sideline without crutches or ice on his knee. The Bears only ruling him “questionable” to finish the game was a public relations gaffe. 

Like it or not, perception is reality in the moment, and taking back what we said won’t change anything now. Twitter will likely either be the reason our generation flourishes or the reason we destroy ourselves. That kind of unfiltered thought can be really good or really bad, and that was evidenced with the Cutler situation.

Ultimately, no matter how you see Cutler and what happened Sunday, or what you think of him as a player and person, it took away from what ended up being a really good game.

And as much as I hate to say it, it takes away from a Packers victory and their first trip to the Super Bowl since 1997. They played just well enough to beat the Bears, and I have to give them credit for doing so.

I just hope for Cutler’s sake as the Bears quarterback and for my sake as a die-hard fan, that he will get the chance to avenge the loss one day down the road.

Because I don’t know if I can stand seeing Packer fans so happy.