The Sky Might Be Falling

One game does not a season make, and if I’m looking at things with the glass half full, the Bears have lost to the Packers, Texans, and 49ers this year, the sky isn’t falling.  They lost two of those games with Cutler out and one game when they lost Forte.  The defense has played one really bad game this year and it was last night.  I still think, depending on the health of Jay Cutler, and this would be assuming he doesn’t miss any more games, that they can finish 4-2 or 3-3 giving them an 11-5 or 10-6 record and hopefully securing the 5^th seed in the NFC.  

Don't worry bud, I'm sad too

Here’s the deal why, as a Bears fan, you can still convince yourself this team can make a run:

• The Bears still have a good defense.  Like I said, one game does not a season make.  It’s the NFL, not college.  Urlacher, Briggs, Peppers, Tillman, and Jennings are all still healthy. 
• Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffrey, although rusty last night, and both guys obviously had no rapport with Campbell, are still a very good WR combo, the best we have ever seen in Chicago.
• Matt Forte and Michael Bush are still one of the best 1-2 RB combos in all of football. 
• Jay Cutler makes a BIG difference with this team.  In the games he’s started and finished in the past two years, the Bears are 14-4. 
• The 5^th seed will most likely play either at New York or Dallas, and either of those would be winnable games
• Assuming they won, they would most likely play at Atlanta, another winnable game. 
• And assuming they win there, they would play either at San Fran or at Green Bay.  A tough game no doubt, but it’s hard to beat a team twice in the same season, or 3 times in the case of the Packers should Green Bay beat the Bears at Soldier Field in 4 weeks. 

 After watching last night, it’s very hard to hold this perspective, but the Bears are still 7-3 and still play 4-5 of their 6 remaining games against teams that won’t be in the playoffs. 

I can still take us to the promise land guys

Now………..with all that said, last night was embarrassing.  Every aspect of the game was poorly played and I turned the game off at halftime because I felt sorry for the team I was rooting for.  Jason Campbell, for someone who started 71 career games in the NFL, looked worse than Caleb Hanie.  The defense got punched in the mouth and never responded.  Mike Tice continues to display a lack of creativity on the offensive side of the ball.  The 49ers looked like a far superior team in every single aspect of the game.  It was a worse loss than week 2 at Green Bay for the simple fact that the strength of this team in the defense, played like an old, slow, bad unit.  In the Packers loss (and even against Houston), there was something to hang your hat on (the defense played well), but last night, you could only walk away feeling thankful that the game ended and the NFL didn’t make teams play 5 quarters. 

It’s hard to call any game in an NFL season a must win but Sunday against the Vikings will determine the course of the rest of the season.  If the Bears win, we can all take a deep breath and start to fill up our fan glasses half full again.  If the Bears lose, they put themselves in danger of not making the playoffs and we will start hearing rumblings of coaching changes, the defense being too old, and Cutler not being a franchise guy.