The city of Chicago has a lot to take pride in. The Sears Tower (fight me), the Hancock Building, and the Magnificent Mile are all hallmarks of the downtown area. However, the crowned jewel of the Windy City is its sports teams. The stadiums dot the city like a Jackson Pollack painting, and the atmosphere at any and all of these stadiums is always one of fun and excitement. Unfortunately, those fun-filled game days may be numbered.

Chicago sports teams have been (moderately) successful over the past decade or so. The White Sox won the World Series in 2005, and the Bears made it to the Super Bowl the next year. The Bulls have been a perennial playoff team since the late 2000s, and the Blackhawks have as well, even winning two Stanley Cups in four seasons. Last but not least, the Cubs finally broke their famous curse and brought home a championship of their own. However, it seems that the window of opportunity is closing for every team at relatively the same time. How can this be? Well, let's take a look at each individual team and see just how contentious they're likely to be in the coming years.

The White Sox haven't been relevant since they won the World Series thirteen years ago. Since then, all the great players that made that run possible, like Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye, and Mark Buehrle, have all moved to other teams or retired. Combine this with an atrocious job of developing players, awful free agency signings like Adam Dunn and Ken Griffey Jr., and incompetent coaching and management, and you have yourself the recipe for a perennial bottom feeder.

The Bears are in a relatively similar position. This is a team that has only been relevant twice in the last thirty years, barring fluke playoff runs in 2006 and 2011. The front office has done nothing to help this team resurface from the muck; throwing cash at aging players like Roy Williams, Orlando Pace and Victor Cruz, being unable to draft well at any position, firing the only head coach that has been remotely successful since 1990 in Lovie Smith, and a rotating cast at quarterback that would make the Cleveland Browns laugh their asses off. This is why the Bears are never good, and that's why they won't ever change.

The Bulls, while consistently near the top of the league, were never able to get over the hump, losing in the playoffs every year, and only making it to the Conference Finals once. Since the injury to Derrick Rose, the team has never been able to regain the promise that it once held. Knowing this, ownership decided to clean house and go full rebuild, firing coach Tom Thibodeau, kicking Rose to the curb, and trading All-Star Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves, Thibodeau's new team. Now, the Bulls are a litany of young, undeveloped players and wayward journeyman players who have never been able to find footing with any one team. Maybe the Bulls hit big in the draft and get another superstar like they did with D-Rose, but my guess is that this team is going to be mediocre for a while.

I don't follow hockey all that much, so this is what I know about the Blackhawks. A dynasty in the early part of the decade, the team is now on the decline, opting to go all in on their superstars Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews with monster contracts, while trading away young talents like Andrew Shaw and Brian Bickell for pennies on the dollar in a bid to build for the future. The greatness of the Hawks couldn't have lasted forever, and it looks like its time as a force in the NHL is coming to an end.

Lastly, the Cubs. You might want to say that the Cubs are a young, talented group that's gotten to the ALCS in two straight years. How could they be on the decline? Because Major League Baseball is a league of parity. Teams that win the World Series are likely to not even make the playoffs the following season. Take the Royals, or the Phillies, or the White Sox. The standings are the most volatile of any in sports, so the Cubs are not safe. In my opinion, the Cubs aren't getting another title; I believe that that World Series was the peak of this team, and there's nowhere to go for this group but down.

I usually end these kinds of things with a positive final note, but I don't know if I can do that. In all honesty, this is going to be a pretty dismal decade or so for Chicago sports, so break out the relish covered hot dogs and the Zoloft, because life is going to be really sad for a little stint.