A Big Bag Of "Awful"

Jesus Christ where to begin? There are any number of things to be mad about, if you are a Chicago Bears fan like myself. How about Rodgers throwing for 10 incompletions on the day? TEN! That's out of 38 attempts mind you. Actually, if you saw the game, you have to be amazed he reached double digits in incompletions because outside of another spectacular interception by Brian Urlacher, Rodgers was on target most of the day. 

I guess if we're being totally honest with ourselves as Bear fans, we shouldn't be too surprised by this. Even though the Packers are the defending Super Bowl champs, that really isn't the reason the Bears lost today. They may have lost to a better football team on the field, but more importantly the Bears have been losing to a much better talent-evaluating organization for quite some time. Let's get to the body count:

Offense : After a much hyperbolized and often parroted call for "balance" from the Bears play calling, Mike Martz promptly went out and called 43 pass plays opposite 9 rush plays. The funny part is, you won't hear nearly as much consternation about the lack of running plays this week, because:

1. The Bears had no chance of blocking the Packers Run Defense
2. The passing game - minus a some bad hiccups - was largely effective. Cutler was 21 of 37 for 302 yards with 2 TD's. 2 costly interceptions still occurred however, to go along with 3 Packer sacks, at least one of which was Cutler's fault for holding onto the ball too long.

Regardless of the play calling selection, the Bears were playing catchup from the outset. While at times the unit looked like they had things figured out, they found ways to shoot themselves in the foot, multiple offensive penalties being the sabotage-du-jour. In my opinion however, the Bears offense is not what lost this game...

Defense : Make no mistake about it, the Chicago Bears vaunted defense is the biggest culprit in this defeat today. If the game clock didn't reach 0:00 in the fourth quarter, Greg Jennings, and Jermichael Finley would still be wide open catching touchdowns this very second. How many times this week did we hear, "Oh the Bears Tampa 2 scheme has had success against Aaron Rodgers historically"? Well guess what....I'm pretty sure the Packers figured out where to attack the Bears 2 deep zone. Craig Steltz getting burned like charcoal ALL EFFFING DAAAAAAAAAAY, certainly helped the Packers do whatever they wanted through the air as well.

When the Packers didn't feel like slicing and dicing the Bears secondary, they had no problem running the ball either, as Ryan Grant had 92 yards on 17 carries. The Bears front four was continually pushed around and set up for Grant to maximize his cut-back ability.

Admittedly, I don't know anything about football, but the Bears scheme is designed to be stout against the run, while allowing for short passes over the middle utilizing a "bend but don't break" philosophy with the hopes of generating turnovers. When you can't stop the run, nor deep passes, and generate two measly turnovers, it's going to be a long day for your defense. Today was a glaring example of that.

Special Teams : Obviously the meatballs are going to bitch about the non-holding, holding call on Corey Graham late in the 4th quarter which negated an unreal deke by Devin Hester that allowed Johnny Knox to return a punt for a touchdown. Would it have made a difference had the touchdown counted? Sure. Would it have absolved everything the Bears did wrong prior to that play? I don't believe so.

Still, it was a remarkable play which would have been awesome if it was successful. Unfortunately, it was the only thing worth noting from Special Teams all day.

Where Do We Go From Here : The Cam Newton show comes to Soldier Field next week. The funny part though, is that I don't worry about whether Newton will be the Bears. I worry about The BEARS beating the Bears.

I know it's only 3 games played, but it's time to (further) call a spade a spade here. This offense is abysmal. The Bears have a quarterback that has a chance to be magnificent, and they're WASTING him. Jerry Angelo and company have surrounded Cutler with a Swiss-cheese (full of holes and it stinks) offensive line, and receivers that would rather catch a cold versus making a play. They have an offensive coordinator that believes in an offense so obsolete, that no other team would hire him.

Defensively there really isn't anything new to extract from this game. When it works, it's great. When it doesn't, you get games like today. No matter what defense a team is running, if you don't generate pressure, you won't stop anyone in the NFL. Most teams do it with 3-4 blitz packages like the Packers do. The Bears do it with 4 lineman, which is to say ONE lineman in the form of Julius Peppers. When Peppers can't get pressure all by himself, there goes any chance of the Bears getting to the quarterback.

I'd love for this to have an easy answer, like say - fire Mike Martz right now - but we're beyond the point of no return for that. I'd love to say, "Fire Lovie Smith right now", but that wouldn't do any good at this point either. We're stuck with this bunch for the time being, and as such, I'm hoping that they have the ability to make a complete adjustment on the fly like they did last year.

Is that even possible? Technically, yes but as Bear fans know there's a big difference between "possible" and "likely".