The Chicago Bears are a stupid, stubborn football team who couldn’t block to save their mothers’ lives. They couldn’t even score at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch with only the hookers in the building.

Despite getting that bit of anger out of my system, I’m not done.

I listen to the Boers & Bernstein podcast on a regular basis. Living in Minneapolis, I’m  unable to hear the show live.

I recently heard Devin Hester, being interviewed by Zach Zaidman, say that changes should be made, that the team is frustrating, and that things are bad. Finally, some honesty from someone who plays on this mess of a team, even though it’s coming from someone who is contributing, albeit not in a particularly major way, to the problems in Chicago.

Then, in one of the most unconvincing statements since Pete Rose’s anti-climatic “admission” that he bet on baseball, a Twitter statement appeared, authored by Hester, retracting the statement made.

To the best of my knowledge, Devin Hester doesn’t have a Twitter. Never has, either.

Really, Chicago Bears front office? Really? This is what you have time for? Not fixing what’s broken, not bringing anyone in who could help the team? Instead you want to make up a retraction from a player who meant every word he said?

The performance in Baltimore is a prime example of what every true Bears fan, who doesn’t have their head jammed firmly in an unmentionable place, has been yelling about this entire season. The Bears rolled over and laid down for Baltimore. Not because the Bears are bad, which they are, but because they have no pride and no guts.

Listen to me, now. I’m not, nor ever have I said, that Jay Cutler has no blame in this. But in a pie chart, Cutler’s share wouldn’t even be 15 percent. Jerry Angelo holds the lion’s share of blame.

How do you not improve the worst receiver corps in football? How are you not prepared for this exact situation? Marvin Harrison may not be any good anymore, but even he would have improved this team more than putting Hester as your No. 1.

Look at the other three teams in the division. The Lions have the best receiving corps by far in “CJ the Cornerback Slayer;” the Packers alternate Greg Jennings and Donald Driver as their No. 1; and the Vikings have Sidney Rice, who has supplanted potential cap victim Bernard Berrian as the Vikings’ top receiver.

Then you have the Chicago Bears, who made an idiotic decision to make a converted corner into their No. 1 wide receiver. You know when things like this work? Never!

Every other team in the NFL has better receivers than the Bears. Well, maybe not the Browns, but that’s a different story. Not only that, where was the backup plan for when Urlacher went down? This isn’t just a bad team, it’s a bad team that has given up.

And speaking of Urlacher, I’ve said this before: this whole defensive identity thing is a load of hooey. This team has won nothing being defense-oriented.

In the Super Bowl era, the Bears have appeared in two Super Bowls and won exactly one. By contrast the Pittsburgh Steelers are 6-1 over exactly that same time period. The Pittsburgh Steelers of the 70’s, the Steel Curtain, had superstars and Hall of Famers on both sides of the ball.

Don’t even get me started on the Dallas Cowboys.

So for Brian Urlacher to take shots at Cutler was not only unjustified, it was completely wrong. Unless you’re the 2001 Baltimore Ravens, you’re not going to win a thing with a defensive-minded scheme. Offense-only teams (say, the Mike Martz-led Rams from the late 90’s-early 2000’s) suffer the same fate.

Cutler is not nearly as bad as this season is making him look. He is not an average quarterback. Kyle Orton is not a Pro Bowl quarterback. But I would still make the deal. However, I would improve the team through other signings and transactions.

Remember, I said it before: you will not win without at least an above-average offensive line. A good offensive line is the most important part of an offense. Cutler went from Ryan Clady, a potential Pro Bowler, and guys like Ben Hamilton, to guys who get handled routinely by defensive linemen, giving linebackers and assorted others’ a clear path to blow up every single play.

I’ve given up on watching the Bears. Not only because they have all the entertainment value of the Chicago Wolves hockey team (with the excitement of an UIC Flames basketball game), but because I’m literally watching my life shorten with the rage I feel when a receiver isn’t catching a catchable ball or when Greg Olson does his best impression of Wonder Woman by spinning around in a circle every time a linebacker comes near him.

Or when Cutler looks lost without a single good receiver to take the pressure off Softness, (my new name for Matt Forte) and when Lovie Smith continues to insist that nothing’s wrong with the team.

I really wish the Bears would spend time learning how to win (or even being competitive in) a football game and not making up fake Twitter accounts for Devin Hester to retract statements he went on the record with.

Read more Chicago Bears news on BleacherReport.com

So, The Chicago Bears lost again.  (Chirp, Chirp).  Yeah, I didn’t think that was a big highlight.  Plain and simple, this team is awful.  three interceptions on Sunday alone brings Jay Cutler’s interception total to a grand total of 25 which of course leads the NFL. 

The second closest is Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez who have 20, and they are of course rookies!  You can make the argument that Cutler has no one to throw to but think about this.  When your top four receivers; Bennett, Knox, Hester, and Davis are ranked 14th in passing you expect the team to be better than 5-9.

Injuries have hurt the Bears team also.  Right now, the Bears have 10 players on injured reserve including ole man Orlando Pace, and Brian Urlacher.  Along with having Ogunleye and Hester most likely out for next weeks game against the Vikings. It has hurt them all season long and one wonders how much that has impacted the defense having top players like that out.

Head coaching by Lovie Smith: I used to respect this man a great deal.  When he took over as head coach of the Chicago Bears he turned the team around and has had moderate success. However he has been criticized for his poor clock management and arguments over the quarterback position between himself and Jerry Angelo.

Matt Forte has not been the same rusher that he was his rookie year.  Seeing a significant drop in all his rankings, which some people attribute to a “sophomore slump” the running back has not performed like Bears fans would have hoped. The offensive line has struggled as well protecting Cutler, allowing 31 sacks.

All in all, Where do you look? The team hasn’t played well.  Many people say they need to give Cutler a season or two to gel. Some say that age is whats leading to the Bears downfall.  But the truth of the matter is what happened to our Solid Defense that we had that got us to the Super Bowl just a few years ago? Well I will continue to support this team and hope that come time for the off season there will be change.

Read more Chicago Bears news on BleacherReport.com

About four hours after his boss failed to offer a vote of confidence Sunday, Bears coach Lovie Smith understood the reason.

The scoreboard told that reason: Ravens 31, Bears 7.

“We’re disappointed in our play, disappointed in our record,” Smith said. “I’m the head football coach so I’m sure a lot of people aren’t knocking down the door wanting to pat me on the back.”

Smith had said the Bears had three “legitimate losses” among their eight heading into Sunday’s contest. Make that four out of nine.

In other words, they got hammered four times in ways that only bad NFL teams get beat. In a league built on parity, few decent teams lose by double digits often. The Bears aren’t a decent team.

Sunday they committed six turnovers, including three more Jay Cutler interceptions. It brought his total to 25 on the year, the second highest total in Bears history. He’ll have to do some work to match Sid Luckman’s record of 31, though, with only two games remaining.

“Their running game got going a little bit, passing game…The game looked like one team was playing for something and the other one really wasn’t,” Smith said.

While this was certainly the situation, it’s anything but a positive for Smith’s future here that this is the case.

A few hours earlier, general manager Jerry Angelo said the Comcast Sportsnet report that Smith was returning is “speculation.”

He said a review will be conducted after the season and pointed to the final few games as important because he needs to see the Bears continuing to play hard or even win.

“We need to get a win,” Angelo said. “That’s very important right now. “And I feel like we’ve been competitive, we just haven’t been able to win. And that’s the bottom line in our business as we all know.”

Angelo said he wants to talk to Smith during their review about the decision to be both defensive play-caller and head coach and the effect it might have had.

“I’m sure that’s going to come up and then we’ll see,” Angelo said. “Things didn’t come together like we wanted and there are a lot of reasons why, “It’s not just any one thing and he may bring that up, I don’t know. All this is premature, but we could get a real laundry list of things that didn’t go quite the way we wanted them to go this year.”

Two things Angelo said won’t have any impact on whether or not Smith comes back are the season-ending injury to linebacker Brian Urlacher and Smith’s remaining contract—two years at an $11 million cost to the McCaskey ownership family.

“Everybody has injuries,” Angelo said about whether losing his best player crippled the Bears from the start. “I’m not going to blame injuries on our season. “For the most part we stayed pretty healthy. Losing Urlacher right at the beginning [hurt] but we were able to overcome that. Like I said, injuries are a part of the game. If you have a rash of injuries that’s one thing. We never really had a rash of injuries.”

The cash would seem an obvious McCaskey excuse for not wanting to let Smith go—even if it shouldn’t be in a perfect world.

“It’s not about money,” Angelo said, “It’s about doing what we feel we need to do to be a better football team.” One way to achieve that would be stop turning over the ball. With the heat turned up both internally and from media and fans, it appears Smith and offensive coordinator Ron Turner are not quite as willing to absolve Cutler of blame.

“Every call’s not going to be perfect, there’s a lot of times you’d like to have something back and that’s just part of the process and learn,” Turner said. “When you have a good look and have what you want defensively, then you have to execute.

“When you don’t, then you have to manage the bad plays.”

There’s that word again: manage. They got rid of the game manager when they shipped Kyle Orton out in the trade for Cutler. Now they have Cutler nearly doing an even trade: receptions for interceptions. His 7.9 passer rating Sunday was Grossmanesque.

Going 10-for-27 for 94 yards won’t beat anyone but yourself.

“I think you can look at what has been our team’s biggest problem,” Smith said. “Jay’s been a part of that. We’ve turned the ball over too many times. We’ve had the opportunity to make plays and we haven’t. You know when you’re not a good football team there are a lot of things that have gone wrong.”

What can be done about it? “We’ve been talking all year,” Smith said. “It’s about action and trying to take care of some of these things.”

The receivers and offensive line have absorbed a lot of the blame for Cutler’s problems. Angelo doesn’t think the receivers should necessarily be scapegoats. In fact, he doesn’t believe he should have pursued another veteran receiver stronger than he did.

It has to be remembered that Angelo did pursue Anquan Boldin, even if he couldn’t offer what the Cardinals wanted.

“I thought our receiver position played pretty well,” Angelo said. “There are other things that maybe we didn’t do as well, but I felt that turned out to be a pretty good position of strength.

“I want to see it continue, in these next three weeks because we have a lot of young guys.“ The one guy everyone seems willing to throw under the bus is Turner. Cutler did it last week by failing to give Turner a vote of confidence.

On Sunday, Angelo did it in a way when asked if the offensive scheme could be to blame when a Pro Bowl quarterback comes in and struggles.

“Anytime you don’t see progress throughout it’s not just one thing,” he said. “We have our issues as a football team and certainly we do as an offense too. But again, we’ll evaluate those things.

“I’ve been doing that. I have my thoughts. I feel very good about going into the offseason, but I want to see these next three games. I’m not going to minimize these three games and see how we continue to develop.”

Angelo said Smith still has autonomy over hiring and firing his assistants, although he does get to offer input. Turner has one year left on his contract.

Smith, meanwhile, says he isn’t concerning himself with job security questions at this point.

“I come to work same way each day, trying to do the best job I possibly can,” he said. “If you can do that, you don’t think about job security.” The lack of a vote of confidence from Angelo lingered afterward like a foul odor in a crowded elevator.

“What’s a vote of confidence at this time?” Smith said. “I am sure what Jerry said is what I’m saying right now: disappointed in our play and probably let the season play out. That’s the way you do everything.

“You don’t talk about things like that during the year except what’s going on on the football field.”

After the season, if Angelo is to be believed, is when the talking will occur—and action, if there is any to come.

Read more Chicago Bears news on BleacherReport.com

In a wide-ranging interview with media Sunday afternoon prior to the Bears-Baltimore Ravens game, Chicago general manager Jerry Angelo answered questions about the team’s disappointing 5-8 season and some about the future.

Angelo suggested that a Comcast Sportsnet report saying Smith would be retained might be premature, and that an evaluation process will be made with the final few games having an impact.

The Bears’ general manager said the $11 million still owed to Smith over two years and injuries the team suffered this year, like the early season-ender to linebacker Brian Urlacher, will have no impact on decisions about the team’s head coach. 

Angelo confirmed Smith will have final say in who will go and stay on the coaching staff, provided he is still head coach next year, and expressed disappointment in the way the offense has played around quarterback Jay Cutler.

Here is what Angelo said: 

Q: With the season lost, when does the evaluation process begin for coach Lovie Smith and his staff?

A: At the end of the year, obviously, we’ll sit down and we’ll talk through everything like we have every other year, so the protocol in terms of how we go about our evaluation won’t change, and that’ll be at the end of the season. You know Lovie and I talk predominantly about our players/personnel during the year, focused on each and every week, winning the game so to speak, as well as talking about some of the younger guys, particularly now, where we’re at, out of the playoffs. So that’s been our dialogue through the season and no more than really what it’s been in every other year.

Q: Lovie is owed a lot of money for 2010 and 2011. Will money factor into the decision on his future?

A: I’m not going to get into that. At the end of the year we’ll talk. We have three football games left, I know we’re not in the playoffs, obviously we didn’t meet expectations, but when we sit down and we go through everything that we need to talk about because we did have some problems, and I want to make sure that I focus on, first and foremost, to make sure we understand what went wrong, and then what we need to fix it. I don’t look at money in those times. It’s not about money, it’s about doing what we feel we need to do to be a better football team.

Q: There was a report with unnamed sources that Lovie would definitely be back next year, was that inaccurate, premature, accurate … ?

A: I don’t know where the report came from, I heard that, again speculation, I’m not dealing with. At the end of the year, we sit down, we talk as I’m saying, so I’m going to keep circling back to this because that’s what we do. I understand where you guys are going. I’m not going to talk about anything prematurely. It makes no sense to do that, we’ve never done it in the past, we’re not going to do it regardless of how the season went.

Q: Does this team need to be competitive in the final three weeks?

A: I fell very much so. We need to get a win, that’s very important right now, and I feel like we’ve been competitive, we just haven’t been able to win, and that’s the bottom line in our business as we all know.

Q: In retrospect, did Lovie’s duties as defensive play caller hurt him as a head coach this year?

A: I can’t answer that. Again, I want to talk to Lovie about a lot of things. I’m sure that’s going to come up and then we’ll see. Things didn’t come together like we wanted and there are a lot of reasons why. It’s not just any one thing and he may bring that up, I don’t know. All this is premature, but we could get a real laundry list of things that didn’t go quite the way we wanted them to go this year.

Q: Does the roster have to be better?

A: I like our roster. Your record is your record. This is who we are. I’m not going to get into that game. We didn’t play well as a team this year. We were inconsistent. We just seemed to never get the offense and defense playing well on the same Sunday. That’s very hard to do and win if that’s not happening. So we like the roster, we have a good nucleus of young players. So pretty much our roster will be intact next year. But I look at that as a positive, not a negative.

Q: What is your biggest concern about this team?

A: It’s the consistency. We just didn’t have the consistency throughout the year. Again, I have my thoughts and at the end of the year, I’ll share them with Lovie. And you have to be able to do that. And we had some veteran players so it wasn’t that we had too many young players, but we just weren’t able to get that week in and week out. So for the most part it didn’t bode well for us on Sunday and we just weren’t able to finish.

Q: You’ve been here a while, is this the most frustrating season?

A: Any time you lose it’s frustrating. Is this any more so than that? I don’t know. Maybe it is if I really sat down and thought about it. But again we’ll address everything that needs to be addressed at the right time and we will get our problems fixed.

Q: Does Brian Urlacher’s injury impact on the decisions you might have to make about the future of the coaching staff? Does it have to be taken into account when reflecting on what happened?

A: Everybody has injuries. I’m not going to blame injuries on our season. For the most part we stayed pretty healthy. Losing Urlacher right at the beginning was big, sure, but we were able to overcome that. Like I said, injuries are a part of the game. If you have a rash of injuries that’s one thing. We never really had a rash of injuries.

Q: Do decisions about the future have to be based on how best to build around QB Jay Cutler?

A: It’s our starting point, yes. It is about our offense. We came into this year and we felt like we were going to have a pretty good offense or have the ability to be a pretty good offense this year. I should say it that way. We had young receivers, it was a new system. I said this way back when, that there going to be some growing pains and it was a process. So things didn’t quite come together on offense. Things didn’t quite come together on defense like we wanted either. That’s an important part of what we need to make happen to have the success that we all want.

Q: Considering reports about Lovie Smith the last few weeks, can you clarify what his status is from now going forward?

A: Well, he’s here. He’s our head football coach. I don’t know what else is there to clarify.

Q: Bringing in a Pro Bowl QB and having an offense stagnant indicates to some that there’s a big problem with the offense, not just one or two people. Is there validity to that argument?

A: Yeah, there is. Anytime you don’t see progress throughout, it’s not just one thing. We have our issues as a football team and certainly we do as an offense too. But again, we’ll evaluate those things. I’ve been doing that. I have my thoughts. I feel very good about going into the offseason, but I want to see these next three games. I’m not going to minimize these three games and see how we continue to develop.”

Q: Fans see an unprecedented quality of head coaching candidates available like Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, maybe Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan. Does that have any impact on your decision-making process as far as what to do with Lovie?

A: No, it doesn’t. Not at all. We’re going to do what we feel we need to do to win and become the kind of team that we know we can be. We’ll go through an extensive evaluation process like we have every year. There probably will be more things to talk about this year in the offseason, yes, I’m not minimizing that, and we’ll do that and we’ll do that rightly.

Q: Everyone is talking about Lovie’s situation and his evaluation process. What about your own evaluation process, how will that go? Will that be any different than in any previous year?

A: I’m evaluating myself too. But I do know this: We all share into what happened this year. I’m not going to sit here and put blame on any one thing. When we sit down and visit and I talk to ownership as well as the coaches, our personnel people, it will be an organizational decision on what we do going forward on everything. I can’t say any more than that, because we haven’t made any definitive evaluations on anything right now. All this right now is premature talk. I understand these questions are out there. I’d like to give you answers right now, but I can’t because we still have some football left to play.

Q: Does Lovie have control over who he keeps and who goes on the coaching staff?

A: Lovie has always had control of his staff, determining his hires, and I have always felt that the head coach has to have that autonomy with his staff. That’s never been in question. Do I have input? Yes. Like Lovie has input on personnel, he’ll ask, as he has in the past, about assistant coaches that we’ve brought in. That won’t change, I’m sure, because we’re working in unison on that.

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Everyone loves the idea of a “dark horse” pick. Many teams get that label despite the attention they get ultimately flying in the face of the true definition (i.e. little-known). 

Most of those teams, picked to make great steps in the preseason or early in the year, have now found themselves facing the very real possibility of a missing the playoffs entirely after being picked to possibly make some noise. 

Houston is the poster child for this effect. Chosen as the dark horse pick in the preseason by the bulk of so-called experts, the team is now below .500 and fighting just to match its prior year’s 8-8 record. With a high-powered offense that seemed to have all the pieces in place, it was assumed that Matt Schaub’s health was the only stumbling block.

A full year (to this point) of Schaub has made little difference to a team trapped in the toughest (by overall win-loss record among all teams) division in the NFL. They have dropped five out of six inside their own division to stumble into their division’s basement at 6-7.

Ironically, even the 0-6 starting Titans are technically above the Texans at 6-7 but holding a better division record at a scant 2-4.  This team has teetered on the edge of success all year, losing six of their seven games by one touchdown or less, including several late leads that fell apart.

The Texans have had the statistical success expected of them (fourth overall in passing, eighth in total yards, while posting a respectable 13^th in overall yards allowed), but a stalled running game and second half letdowns have prevented those stats from translating into success.

Atlanta was also another preseason darling. They had already made the playoffs last year, but with another year of experience for rookie phenom Matt Ryan and the addition of hall of fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, the team was expected to make the jump from relevance to a true playoff threat.

The team is instead at 6-7 (though with some slim chance still present with fewer over .500 teams in the NFC). Ryan playing his age and has been hampered by injuries. Injuries have also dogged Michael Turner, which has greatly hurt a team that was looking to boast one of the NFL’s more prolific offenses this year. Instead of the top five projection, the team is presently 16^th in total yards of offense.

Were it not for the fortunate scheduling of Washington and Tampa bay during the second half of the year, Atlanta might very well have been staring down an eight game losing streak (as it stands, those wins against one and four win teams leaves them at 2-6 over the last eight).

One final preseason darling, Chicago, has disappointed to a far greater tune. The hype surrounding the arrival of franchise quarterback Jay Cutler led to some preseason speculation of a potential return to the Super Bowl. 

Brian Urlacher was purported to be in his best shape in years, Cutler would provide the arm to transform the unspectacular receiving corps into a powerhouse offense.

A fast 3-1 start (after a game one speed bump) despite an opening day injury to Urlacher (for the year) did nothing to quash the speculation that they were Minnesota’s greatest inter-divisional challenger. 

Matt Forte’s failure to make good on a solid ’08 along with an ever growing interception total by Cutler finally started to catch up to the team at that point. Chicago has since gone 2-7 with its only wins coming against the St. Louis Rams and Cleveland Browns, who have a combined a total of just three wins.

Cutler’s knack for forcing plays, paired with no running game (32^nd in the league), has proven to fans that one man alone cannot make a team. With little offensive talent around him, Cutler has gone from a pro-bowl quarterback to a hurried trigger-happy mess that has fans eyeballing the success of recently departed Kyle Orton in likely playoff-bound Denver with troubled hearts.

What do these three preseason hot-picks have in common?  Beyond disappointing with sub .500 records to this point, they all also started the year with encouraging signs to their preseason hype.

At the one-quarter mark of the year, these teams had posted a combined 8-4 record.  Since that point the trio has gone 9-18 (or a paltry .333 winning percentage). 

The other commonality is preseason hype based upon the idea of a high-powered offense. Chicago was supposed to be the most balanced, but the Bears’ hype was the Forte/Cutler duo, while Houston’s Slaton/Schaub/Johnson combination and Atlanta’s Turner/Ryan/White/Gonzo groupings were looked at to push each team up several slots in the standings. 

To further counterpoint this is the biggest example of a team with a modest 2008 with a lot of preseason hype that has made good, that of course being the New Orleans Saints. Of the teams looking to step from good (or even just decent) to great, this was the one team whose preseason hype was surrounding changes made on defense. 

Cincinnati, likely the biggest surprise among playoff teams, also went the route of swapping high-flying offense for a physical, well-balanced offense and tough defense.  The “new” Bengals retooled their team in the opposite manner of Atlanta, Chicago, and Houston. The results speak for themselves.

What you can take away from this is that teams often suffer when putting a lot of faith in question marks. Be it one guy who had a great year, a la Ryan/Forte/Slaton or optimism over a big pickup in the vein of Gonzalez or Cutler, faith is hard earned by sexy “take the next step” picks.

Along with those teams that have failed to step up, some have also taken a step back. Read their story here:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/306652-why-the-mighty-hath-fallen-a-look-at-major-nfl-declines-in-2009

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CHICAGO — Once the thought of Bears coach Lovie Smith losing his job seemed ridiculous.

After 13 games, though, and Sunday’s 21-14 defeat by the Green Bay Packers, nothing seems out of the realm of possibility: from Smith and his staff getting the ax to general manager Jerry Angelo and his staff joining them.

It would be difficult to imagine this happening if they win two of their final three.

However, if they manage to lose all three, including the season-finale at Ford Field against the woebegone Detroit Lions, it could be time to at least get the proverbial guillotine out and dust it off — if not merely for the sake of showing what awaits if this type of play goes beyond 2009.

On Sunday, the Bears displayed some of the same problems they’ve had all year.

They fell behind 13-0 at the outset. Someone is either outmatched our out-game planned—or both—from the start each week. The Bears have had only two leads after first quarters all year.

They fought back, and in the process saw wide receiver Devin Aromashodu make eight catches. This is a receiver who sat on the bench and rotted all season while Devin Hester struggled, especially in his last four games.

The eight catches represented Hester’s career high and Aromashodu did it in his first Bears start and second NFL start.

But then again, Aromashodu didn’t get a $40 million deal and have his position changed from all-time great return man to wide receiver by this coaching staff and management staff.

“You think that if Devin Hester was up, maybe he would have had a day like that today,” Smith countered. “The last time we played the Packers we were able to do some things in the passing game, too; I don’t think you can look at it that way.

“As far as we’re concerned it’s a guy taking advantage of a great opportunity and it’s always good to see players step up, similar to how Jamar Williams did last week. You get your opportunity to step up and he did.”

All of which leads us exactly to Jamar Williams.

The week after the Bears backup linebacker made 20 tackles subbing for Lance Briggs — most for a game by any Bear except Brian Urlacher in Smith’s tenure as coach —Williams found himself back on the bench behind Nick Roach and Hunter Hillenmeyer.

They just couldn’t get Williams on the field.

And on the first play from scrimmage, Hillenmeyer got blocked. Roach got taken out of the play completely. The Packers’ Ryan Grant ran 62 yards for a touchdown despite facing a Bears’ “elephant package” alignment using an extra safety to stop the run.

For some reason, when opponents come in with special alignments like the Packers’ or Bengals’ inverted wishbones or the Bengals’ unbalanced line, or the 1-5-5 alignment Green Bay’s defense used Sunday, it works.

When the Bears try an elephant alignment or a fake field goal, it blows up in their faces.

How can a team constantly fall behind early in games and get burned by opponents’ innovations every week?

Coaching?

There was also the little matter of 13 penalties for 109 yards, including three key screw-ups by Angelo’s last first-round draft pick, left tackle Chris Williams.

“We haven’t been a team that’s been penalized that much,” Smith said. “Some of them were in critical situations for us.

“Whenever you lose yardage like that on a day like today of course it hurts you quite a bit.”

Smith apparently has a habit of not seeing laundry strewn about the field.

The Bears haven’t been a team penalized much?

They are now fourth in the NFL with 91 penalties and third in penalty yards with 761. They were fifth in 2007, fifth in 2006 and fourth in 2004 in penalties under Smith. And last year an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on cornerback Charles Tillman against Tampa Bay probably cost them a playoff berth.

Penalties are caused largely by lack of discipline, according to Smith. Discipline is something coaching can impact.

The coaching staff impacted the game in a few more messy ways Sunday.

Facing fourth-and-one at the Packer 45 with a 14-13 lead and 1:30 left in the third quarter, Smith opted to punt.

This is a 5-7 team at the time, lacking one win this year over a single winning team and needing to win the worst way to remain in playoff contention. In the worst way they need a big first down.

At 5-7 against your biggest rival and with the playoffs all but gone, the ship was kind of leaning there Lovie, and Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were scrambling to get to the high end. It seemed like as good a time as any to take a chance and put the pitiful 2009 season on the line.

“It was a full yard,” offensive coordinator Ron Turner chipped in with protection for his boss’ decision. “If it was half or something like that but it was a full yard, still a lot of time left, we had the lead and I don’t think we were across midfield.”

A full yard. Wow. Thirty-six inches. That’s a lot. Well, it is to a team ranked 31st in rushing at the time, and now last in the league. It seems like the last time the Bears converted a big third-and-one, it was Thomas Jones carrying the ball.

“It was a difficult decision,” Smith said. “But at the time we were playing really good defense and thought we could pin them down there and really go from there.

“Those are always good decisions. We’ll be a little bit more conservative in those situations based on how we’re playing at the time defensively.”

So Smith played it conservative because he had faith in his strong defense. This defense hasn’t stopped a good offense when it really mattered since the second week of the season. And when that happened, it was Pittsburgh’s offense. The Steelers aren’t even a winning team now.

Smith also brushed off inquires into why the Bears called timeout and then before the next play asked for a review of tight end Greg Olsen’s dropped pass. They wound up losing the challenge and another timeout.

Of course, they needed the timeouts later, but Smith only said things were hectic and messed up on the sidelines and that they needed time to sort something out before they could waste a timeout — with a stupid challenge that no one in the stadium could realistically think they would win.

He wouldn’t explain what the exact problem was on the sidelines when asked.

Somehow, this explanation seemed plausible. It’s very easy to believe things were messed up on the Bears’ sidelines.

It probably happens a lot.

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The Green Bay Packers travel 180 miles down the shores of Lake Michigan Sunday for a 10 AM PST tilt against the only team in NFL history that has been in its home longer. But the two most storied franchises in the league have completely different goals…

With a win Sunday, the Green Bay Packers can ensure a winning record and at least second place in the NFC North. We cannot, no matter how things go in other games, lock up a playoff berth, but we can move into the top wild card seed for the time being.

The Bears, with their season all but over, will still be able to keep their extremely slim second place and even slimmer playoff hopes alive. For one week, Jay Cutler could make fans stop longing for Kyle Orton (much less all the additional value given up in the trade), and Lovie Smith could put off sending out that resume.

What a difference a month makes. At the start of November, these two teams were tied at 4-4, but the Packers have rattled off four straight wins for the fourth time in Mike McCarthy’s four years coaching this team. The Bears lost four in a row before getting an unimpressive home victory over the one-win St. Louis Rams.

All the intangibles except desperation point toward the Packers, and with the lack of hope for the Bears, even urgency might not favour them over a team fighting to secure a playoff birth. The most significant mitigating factor becomes the trend that rivalry games favour the underdog in that games that do not look close usually still are, but the result is still a big advantage to the Packers for intangibles.

The Packers are beat up on the defensive line, with all four players in the rotation listed on the report. The team’s best run-stuffer, nose tackle Ryan Pickett, is doubtful with a hamstring injury. Versatile back-up DT/DE B.J. Raji and end Cullen Jenkins are listed as probable and likely to be a little less than 100 percent. However, defensive end Johnny Jolly is questionable—my guess is he will suit up but see limited action, and that the team will promote practice squad NT Anthony Toribio as well as lean on DEs Michael Montgomery and/or Jarius Wynn.

Green Bay is also without linebackers Aaron Kampman and Jeremy Thompson as well as defensive backs Al Harris and Will Blackmon. Other players listed as probable on the injury report, all of whom should not only play but be close to 100 percent, are tackle Chad Clifton, tight end Jermichael Finley, cornerback Charles Woodson, and linebacker Nick Barnett.

As one would expect at this time of the year, Chicago has injuries, as well. They have been playing without linebacker Brian Urlacher since he was injured in the opening week against the Packers, and list both of their remaining outstanding linebackers (Lance Briggs and Hunter Hillenmeyer) as probable—expect them to play at a high level, just as their defensive tackle teammates Tommie Harris and Israel Idonije.

However, converted wide receiver Devin Hester and tackle Orlando Pace are questionable. While both will probably play, they will not likely be at their best. Nevertheless, it is obvious that injuries are a big advantage for the Bears.

The Packers passing game is in the top quarter of the league in total yards and fourth in yards per pass play for two reasons:

1. Aaron Rodgers has inserted himself into the MVP debate (even though he will not and should not contend for it unless he has the best four-game stretch of his career) by ranking fourth in the league in passer rating, third in the league in total yards (passing plus rushing) and second in total touchdowns.
2. Packers receivers are once again in the top four in the league in yards after the catch. They are one of six corps in the NFL to have two players on pace for 1000-yard receiving seasons (incidentally, New England already has two there!), and are one of four teams with four receivers in the top-50 of the NFC for receiving yards.

However, the Bears are a stout ninth in both total passing yards and yards per play. The Packers seem to have improved their weakness of yielding sacks, giving up just four in the last three games, but they did face some pretty weak pass rushes (the week before that, they gave up four against a stout Cowboys‘ pass rush). With the Bears being about the middle of the pack in this category, this works out to be only a slight advantage for Green Bay passing against the Bears defense.

Ryan Grant has struggled in the last two weeks, but last week he was against a Ravens defense that ranks first in the NFL in yards per carry allowed and knew the Packers would be running the ball most of the second half. Grant is still on pace for another 1200-yard season, and Rodgers leads the league in quarterback rush yards.

Overall, Green Bay is ranked 11th in yards per carry and 13th in total yards rushing. The Bears are ranked 25th in both total yards allowed and yards per carry. Thus, the Packers have a big edge running against the Bears defense.

On the other side of the ball, Green Bay’s defense is third against the pass in total yards and fourth in yards per play. This is thanks in large part to the best secondary in the league, even after the loss of Al Harris, led by the current front-runner for defensive player of the year, Charles Woodson. The team has even moved up to the middle of the pack in sacks, being tied for 15th.

Chicago ranks 16th in passing yards per game and just 19th in yards per play and their best receiver is hobbled. They are 16th in sacks allowed and their second best lineman is hobbled. This adds up to a big advantage for Green Bay’s defense against the Bears passing attack.

The Packers rush defense ranks fourth in both yards per game and per play thanks to a stout line, deep linebacking corps, and great tacklers in the secondary. However, the line deserves the plurality of credit for this, and they are banged up.

The Bears rushing attack has fallen off for two reasons: Matt Forte’s production is suffering from the sophomore jinx and the coaches have fallen in love with Jay Cutler’s arm, convinced their play-calling has been better when statistically this offense is worse than last year’s. Thus, the Bears are ranked 31st in rushing and 24th in yards per carry, leading to an huge advantage for the Packers when the Bears are running the ball.

On special teams, I have repeatedly documented the Packers being among the bottom third (and often bottom quarter) of the league in every statistical category (punt net average, punt return average, kick return average, kick coverage, and field goal percentage). I am certain enough that this remains true that I will not subject myself to the depression of verifying it.

Meanwhile the Bears have two potential Pro Bowl kickers and good punt and kick return statistics. Their coverage is not very good, especially on punts, but this still adds up to a big advantage for Chicago on special teams.

Overall, the Packers are first in the league in turnover ratio (plus-18), seventh in points scored (26.9) and ninth in points against (19.1). Green Bay is also second in time of possession (33:36) thanks in large part to a fifth-place ranking in third down percentage (45.7) on offense and sixth place defense(34.4).

Meanwhile, Cutler leads the league in interceptions and is horrible in the red zone, meaning a lot of those yards the team gets through the air are for naught; they are minus-four in turnover ratio for the season. In addition, 24th in time of possession (28:34) because they are only 20th in third-down percentage on offense (36.9) and 29th on defense (42.9).

Adding this statistical domination to the Packers’ one slight and four big advantages I listed above, and the Bears’ two big advantages are dwarfed. My prediction: Packers 34, Bears 13.

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That is what Brian Urlacher was talking about, right?

When he thinks identity and he thinks Bears’ football, 38 carries and 18 passes is what he has in mind, isn’t it?

Never mind, temporarily, that they were not particularly good when it came to executing in today’s 17-9 victory over the St. Louis Rams. The Bears (5-7) entered on a four-game losing streak and they had lost six of seven. They needed a victory any way they could get it, and a win over the hapless Rams (1-11) will qualify.

Coach Lovie Smith talked about Bear weather, the cliche that is this time of the year, and referenced needed to run the ball. For the first week of December, I’d venture to say it was about as nice as you can expect it to be on a newly re-sodded field. But the Bears wanted to get their running game going against St. Louis’ lousy run defense. Matt Forte finished with 91 yards on 24 carries, lost a fumble and danced around near the goalline. Kahlil Bell had 35 yards on 11 carries, so the rookie was less effective in his first extended look. The Bears totaled 120 yards, averaging 3.2 yards per carry against a defense that was allowing opponents to gain 4.75 yards per carry.

Cutler pushed the ball downfield early in the game. He hit Devin Hester for a 48-yard gain on the first play of the second possession. Then a shot to Johnny Knox in the end zone drew a 35-yard pass interference penalty to set up Forte’s one-yard touchdown run.

Move to the Bears’ third drive and on the third play Cutler hit Earl Bennett coming across the deep middle and he raced for 71 yards. Cutler was at his best throwing the ball downfield. That’s what has been amiss in this offense of late. That is what the Bears seemingly could have worked more on in a game against an inferior opponent.

“Part of it was the way our defense was playing,” Cutler said. “We didn’t feel like we had to make big plays or throw the ball down the field.”

The defense did a pretty decent job. It held the Rams to three Josh Brown field goals, and the Rams converted only 2-of-14 third downs. But they still had the ball on the Bears’ side of the field with a chance to score a touchdown and two-point conversion in the final minute and force overtime. So as much as the Bears believed they were in control, St. Louis was two plays away from overtime at the end.

The Bears won the game playing like they did when they had their old identity. Don’t they need to be playing to their new identity, though, the one they haven’t quite found yet? Urlacher might needed to be reminded that the Bears aren’t going to be winning a lot of games with defense this season. The defense isn’t very good, and there were some faces missing today.

Now for 10 quick (and some random) reactions coming out of the game:

CHICAGO — To find truth in the Chicago Bears‘ locker room, one must go to defensive players, and particularly, the defensive ends.

Alex Brown has the right team-oriented attitude, but usually will not look through the same rose-colored or Lovie-tinted glasses that everyone else does. He didn’t Sunday.

“We can’t play the way we played today and expect to beat a Minnesota. But it is good to get a win,” Brown said. “It’s great to get a win. I can’t express how good it feels just to win.

“We’ve lost so much this year.”

Obviously winning is more fun, and the Bears hadn’t done it in a month until they registered an uninspiring 17-9 victory at Soldier Field over the moribund St. Louis Rams.

But Brown shed the proper light on the win with his first sentence. You can’t beat Minnesota with a game like that.

In fact, you can’t beat a lot of teams like that.

When they beat the Cleveland Browns at home on Nov. 1—in a manner nearly as unimpressive—the Bears acted indignant over negative media and fan reaction.

That was a game in which their offense collected red zone possessions like Bernie Madoff collected retirement accounts, but then treated the goal line like a force field.

So hearing one player acknowledge a win by a touchdown and two-point conversion, over Steven Jackson and a bunch of department store dummies wearing millennium blue and new century gold, was unimpressive seemed a step in the right direction.

Because nothing could be truer than to point out that even in victory Sunday, the Bears found plenty of ways to remind everyone of their inadequacies.

For one, the offense, which only managed only two second-half yards against Minnesota the previous week, put up 131 passing yards in the first quarter. And, oh by the way, they threw for 12 more yards over the next three quarters.

“I dinged my hand a little bit the first half,” said quarterback Jay Cutler, who wouldn’t explain what exactly “dinged” meant. “Part of (the passing failure) was with the way our defense was playing we didn’t feel like we had to make some big plays or throw the ball down the field.”

Apparently this Bears offense is so good it can pick and choose when to score.

Another problem the Bears had was the running game—again. Eventually they got Matt Forte heading toward 91 yards, his longest effort since they beat Detroit on Oct. 4.

Their 120 team rushing yards doesn’t sound bad until you realize six straight opponents had run for more yards against the Rams’ defense.

“My performance today was decent,” Forte said. “There are a lot of things I can do better. The first drive I gave the ball up. As a running back you can’t ever do that.

“I think there were a few runs where maybe if I make somebody miss, I could have some more yards.”

Wasn’t that exactly what Brian Urlacher said which irritated Forte last week?

Smith was his usual vague self when asked about the success the defense had with Kevin Payne playing strong safety, Al Afalava moving from strong to free safety, and Danieal Manning moving from free safety to nickel back.

“We’ll go back and evaluate it,” Smith said. “We thought it would be this type of football game (with the Rams running a lot).

“Kevin down at the strong position and putting Al back, that combination gave us our best chance to be successful today.”

It was Payne who gave up the game-winning TD pass to Green Bay in the season-opener, and he was immediately banished to the bench. 

The problem is, Payne actually looked better defending the pass Sunday than most Bears defensive players. He knocked down two passes, including a touchdown-saving diving deflection in the fourth quarter.

Perhaps it’s a case of the coaching staff misidentifying the talent they had, and Payne can actually play better than he initially got credit for—like that’s never happened (Cedric Benson, Justin Gage, Chris Harris, John Gilmore, etc.).

The Bears’ special teams looked surprisingly poor with three returns for minus-three yards and a couple muffs by Earl Bennett and Johnny Knox, who had to replace Devin Hester due to an injured calf muscle.

The Bears even had a trick special teams play explode in their faces when tight end Greg Olsen got caught from behind on a shovel pass out of field goal formation.

“At the time I thought our defense was playing pretty good, so if we didn’t get anything we at least had them down at their end of the field,” Smith offered.

Those three points the Bears passed on in favor of a failed gamble would have made for an awfully easy feeling by the late fourth quarter. Instead, the Bears had to get a Hunter Hillenmeyer interception and a fourth-down incompletion on St. Louis’ final two drives to reach the end of their four-game losing streak.

“It’s been a while since we talked about our win, but the guys did what they needed to do,” Smith said.

The Bears did what they needed to do to get a win over a team staggering around in a three-year slump, but not what they needed to do to instill any confidence that something good might come out of their home field rematch with Green Bay next Sunday.

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Greetings, Bears fans.  So we won today.  We beat a team with one win by eight at home in a game that wasn’t decided until 17 seconds were left in the game.

Forgive me for not streaking down the street screaming “We Won!” A win is a win, but shouldn’t this one be filed under the “moral loss” category?

Granted, we did some things well; it was nice to see us decide to play defense on third down this game.  

But for the most part, nothing we did today made me feel like we can win more than one game the rest of the season (I love playing the Lions twice a year).  Let’s take a quick look at the stats.  

We had 126 rushing yards on 35 carries against the 28th-rated rush defense in the league.  It was nice to see us establish the run and stick to it.

On our second touchdown drive, we ran the ball 10 times and passed it three times.

We still didn’t have any breakout runs, though.  Forte had a long run of 15 yards, and Bell had a long of just 9.

Remember just two years ago, when we all knocked Benson for dancing around too much in the backfield and not being able to break the big one? Forte is slowly slipping into that same category, whether we want to admit it or not.

You can point fingers to the O-line if you want to, but just look at the other side of the field. The Rams O-line might be worse than ours but Stephen Jackson doesn’t seem to have a problem running the ball this year.

Comparing Forte to Jackson is unfair, but the point is that it isn’t just our O-line’s fault that we are not running well.  

In the passing game, Cutler had a very Ortonesque line: 8-of-17 for 143 yards and a touchdown. Cutler should have had a better line, he had a couple balls dropped and no one can deny that the third down pass to Bennett wasn’t a pass interference.  

We had success throwing the ball deep early in the game. We should have stuck with it, but you can’t argue against the strategy of running the ball when you have the lead against a team whose offense wasn’t doing anything.

Now onto the highlights.

Forte fumbles the ball in our own territory. For the rest of this article I am going to call him Cedric Benson V2.0 or 2.0 for short.

Tommy Harris gets called for being offsides. It’s annoying, but at least he’s attempting to do something. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Cutler tosses a deep one to Hester for 48 yards. Now that’s what I’m talking about.  Hester went up and made a sweet grab. When I saw that pass go up I was gonna be happy with anything that wasn’t a pick.

Pass interference on Knox…and Ron Turner reintroduces our best play into the game. Throw a deep bomb to our fastest receiver and pray for the penalty. This play worked great for us in the 2007 season.

2.0 breaks off a one-yard run for a TD. It took him three tries, but hey, at least he didn’t fumble. CHI 7, STL 0

Hester calls for a fair catch on our seven-yard line.  Even kids in high school know you are supposed to put your heels on the 10-yard line.  

Terrific catch and run between Cutler and Bennett. Got him right in stride and he was able to out run most of the defense. Bennett’s speed is often overlooked because of Knox and Hester. Fumbled at the end, but he was lucky enough to fumble out of bounds.

Gould’s kick is good from the nine-yard line. This might not be the end I wished for, but points are always better than turnovers…more on this later. CHI 10, STL 0

On the defensive side, we’re playing really well. Our pass rush is getting to Boller and we have contained Jackson really well. No complaints here.

Another punt downed inside the 10. We are lucky our D is containing them, because otherwise this game could have gotten out of hand for us.  

2.0 rushes the ball three times for eight yards. We have to be able to get out of that bind. This won’t be the last time we get pinned down this season, let alone this game.  

We have to call a timeout because we don’t have enough men out on the field.  Bell was the culprit. Rookie mistake, but you hate to see him make it in this situation.

About fives minutes of mediocre football. Nothing to write home about.

The volcano ends up being in the right place at the right time and takes the pick back to the 16. Good to see our defense getting turnovers again.  

Can someone who isn’t certifiably insane tell me why we tried that fake field goal? Do we really need to start getting cocky now and say that we can beat the Rams with only 10 points on the board? Always take the points. 

Our defense lets up a bit and lets the Rams drive down most of the field. Rams only saw one third down this drive and the D stepped up. They played well in the red zone and that’s what counts. Rams get a short field goal. CHI 10, STL 3

A very frustrating end to the half. We have one timeout and bring in a QB utilized for end-of-the-half drives. We get sacked and then run out the clock. Are we now in a war of attrition with the Rams?

The defense forces a quick three-and-out, and Hester runs the punt backwards three yards. Back to the 2008 Bears. Somewhere, Brian Urlacher is smiling.

Short field leads to a Rams field goal. They gained 19 yards in total—with 15 of them being on a facemask. I wish we could play the Rams twice a year as well. CHI 10, STL 6

Knox has a sick return. This guy has speed and moves…but wait, penalty on the play. Our A.P. held a guy on the 34—a huge 49-yard swing.  

2.0 has a great start to the drive but sputters out in the red zone. We have to to be able to punch it in when we are that close. Luckily, Cutler and Bennett bail us out.

Am I the only one that was surprised that a pass play in the red zone actually worked? CHI 17, STL 6

Bears and Rams exchange a couple of three-and-outs. It can’t be stressed enough how boring, painful this game was to watch.

Rams get an impressive 50-yard field goal from Josh Brown. Tip your cap to someone who can make a kick of that length in Soldier Field. CHI 17, STL 9

Bears spend most of the rest of the game running the ball with 2.0 and Bell. They break off some pretty good ones. We only attempt a few passes here, but mainly we were trying to run down the clock.  

We knew that the Rams couldn’t do much with the ball in their hands. The game ends when Boller overthrows Gibson on a fourth-and-10 pass.

That’s about it. We won the game. Bears fans can only savor this for a minute before the grim reality of getting killed by the Packers next week sets in.

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