It would be nice to be so spoiled by playoff wins that when one isn’t pretty, or well executed, or doesn’t even create a vast amount of confidence in the ability to repeat it in seven days, that you could spend a lot of time sitting around bitching about it.
Luckily for Ron Rivera and Lovie Smith, we’re no longer spoiled. Winning, in any form after the regular season has ended is a happy exception to what Bears’ fans have been used to for far too long.
So let’s enjoy it. Even if we’re all still baffled by why anybody would call timeout when the other team has the ball at midfield in a tie game on fourth and anything with :02 seconds left.
Maybe his real name is Lovie Schottenheimer and Smith is just an alias?
The Bears beat the defending NFC champion Seahawks yesterday on an electric moment. Robbie Gould pounded home a 49 yard game winning field goal in overtime and sent Soldier Field into a fit of euphoria we haven’t seen in nearly 20 years. It was great. It’s the kind of moment you follow football to see. You live and die with every play because you hope one of them will resonate like that one.
But you also can’t help but wonder why it came down to that. Why did the Bears, a vastly superior team need extra time to squeak by a beaten and battered Seattle team? Why did Mike Holmgren look like he was about half a Budweiser away from going all Denny “The Bears are who we thought we were!” Green on the postgame press conference?
Because the Bears let Seattle hang around. As well as Rex Grossman played, he had more than a few of his “moments.” What in the world made him think he could Fran Tarkenton his way away from Julian Peterson to avoid a second quarter sack that basically handed the Seahawks a touchdown. He banked three passes off of Seahawks in the fourth quarter.
Defensively, the Bears didn’t give up many yards to Seattle, and made some huge stops. But why did it feel like Seattle was moving the ball more than they were? Was it the largely non-existent pass rush? Was it Ron Rivera not noticing that Seattle figured out that if they sent Jeramy Stevens up the field on a seam route that Brian Urlacher would chase him, leaving the middle of the defense wide open for Shaun Alexander runs? Was it the Bears tricking Fox into thinking they were perfect in holding the Seahawks 0-for on short third and fourth down chances, while we all remembered that Alexander scored a touchdown on a fourth and inches that he broke?
Why did Devin Hester dribble every punt before finally running with it? Why did the Bears’ special teams turn Nate Burleson into Mel Gray on kickoff returns?
Why did Moose and Bernard Berrian drop key fourth quarter passes? Muhammad’s banked off his hands for an interception and cost the Bears the game-tying field goal. Bernard’s drop cost him an easy touchdown and a lead.
The Bears teased us constantly when it was 24-21 Seattle, between lining up for a game tying field goal only to have it turned into a first down on a Seattle penalty followed by the INT, followed by a punt return for a TD by Hester that got called back and then followed by Berrian’s drop. No wonder the end of the game was more relief than excitement.
Why did the Bears let :18 run off the clock before calling the dumbest timeout in the history of professional sports? What would Lovie’s legacy be if the extra play he gave Seattle at the end of regulation have turned into a fluke touchdown, or more likely, a down the field defensive penalty and a game losing field goal? Guh.
But to harp on the negative would do the game a disservice. There were some memorable moments. The Bears first opening drive was a thing of ass-kicking brilliance. So was the 68 yard bomb from Rex to Bernard Berrian.
Brian Urlacher sprinting 40 yards downfield next to Darrell Jackson and batting away a pass was impressive. As was Todd Johnson loosening Shaun Alexander’s teeth on one play. Robbie Gould showed stones the size of churchbells on game tying and game winning field goals, even if Lovie was afraid to let him try a 48 yarder into the wind.
We also got three and a half hours of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. Ugh.
Buck tried to pretend he likes Chicago by saying, “If you can’t have fun here, you can’t have it.” It’s a nice thought. If we thought Joe was sincere, it’d be better. Then again, who cares if that jackass enjoys himself?
Another great moment came when he tried to figure out which is bigger a 1/2 inch or 5/8 of an inch. Every time he pees he sees 5/8″. At least that’s what Jim Edmonds told me.
The shock of the national media is that Rex Grossman played as well as he did. None of us were shocked. We knew that either Rex would be lousy or good. It’s what he does. When he’s lousy, it’s awfully hard for the Bears to win, though they did it a few times this year. When he’s good, quite frankly, they should win. If Rex plays well on Sunday, the Bears should beat the Saints and go to the Super Bowl. That doesn’t mean that will happen.
Rex is still a coinflip between good and horrendous, but the Bears have other holes to plug this week. None are unfixable. One of them will involve teaching Chris Harris which guy he’s supposed to tackle. Another might involve teaching Alex Brown to stop trying to take the tackle to the QB and just get past him. A third will involve getting Walleye Ogunleye some Monistat.
If horrendous Rex shows up, and we’ll know early on, the Bears have no chance of beating New Orleans. The Saints are good. They didn’t get to 11-6 with all smoke and mirrors (you know who I’m talking about). They’ve got lots of offensive weapons. Their coach is a former Bear and he knows all about Bears football (well, scab Bears football) and they’ve got the kind of aggressive defense that Rex will either shred or be shredded by.
Honestly, we will probably know by 1:15 (it’s a rare 1 p.m, CST kickoff, right?) if the Bears are going to the Super Bowl. So now all we’ve got left is to wait, and worry, and figure out who the 6,000 dumbass no-shows were on Sunday. (Well, 5,999 of them, we know one of them was Desmond Clark.)
That’s when the Bears start
Gracias.
zoot do ba doo wahh. go sid luckman! swing it baby.
Dumber than my timeout? Are you sure?
Yep, mine was much dumber. I had 18 seconds to ponder it from the sidelines, and still somehow managed to take it.
I, however, got lucky as the D covered my ass.
OK, so 2:15. Gives us an extra hour to panic.
Egad. a spare bear beats the real bears in the NFC playoff. Some irony huh?
Wait a minute. The Bears won? All of the commentators have lead me to understand that the Bears didn’t even show up on Sunday.
> OK, so 2:15. Gives us an extra hour to panic.
And Rex an extra hour to learn how to step up in the pocket.
Not sure how you could have watched the game and call out Dez Clark as a no-show. You must have missed both of Jones’s TD runs.
I’ll be in Texas, you don’t need to know how to speak English to play there!
I could haul my ass off the sofa and outplay Walleye at this point. What a stiff.
Do you just pick Bears out ahead of time that you don’t like or are easy marks, then not watch the game? Ogunleye played well Sunday. If you’re talking about performance on Sunday, singling out any other D-lineman would have made more sense,
Eff you, dhort. I’m a gonna out a cap in yer ass. I was plugging the middle all day. Ask Ogunleye. I think he was spending more time watching me than beating his man.
Another opinion:
After watching the Bears’ defensive line on every play of that 27-24 Chicago win, I think this line has real problems stopping the run, and they’re problems the Saints could exploit in Sunday’s NFC Championship… of the five linemen who logged significant playing time Sunday, only one, Adewale Ogunleye, played well against both the run and the pass…
Ogunleye was the Bears’ best lineman Sunday. Alexander twice ran in his direction on first-and-10, and twice Ogunleye tackled him, once for no gain and once for a gain of just a yard.
Oguleye’s speed also allowed the Bears to use zone blitzes frequently against Seattle, and that seemed to frustrate Matt Hasselbeck. On third-and-9 on Seattle’s first series, Chicago sent cornerback Ricky Manning on a blitz on the left and linebacker Lance Briggs on a blitz on the right. Both of Chicago’s defensive ends, Ogunleye and Mark Anderson, dropped into coverage to replace Manning and Briggs. So although the Bears had two blitzers, they still had only four pass rushers. Those four were enough to confuse the Seahawks’ offensive line, and the play worked just as it was drawn up: Manning forced Hasselbeck into a bad throw. (Bears cornerback Charles Tillman dropped what should have been an interception, though.)
Ogunleye also had a crucial sack on a third-and-1 with the Bears down 24-21 in the fourth quarter, forcing a punt and giving the Bears the ball back for what would become their game-tying field goal drive. Overall it was a very good game for Ogunleye.
To #15 (and his site he links to):
Shaun Alexander got mucho yards when the Walrus tricked the Bears into nickel coverage and then ran the ball. if you look at most of Alexander’s big plays, you’ll see Ricky Manning on the field, along with Mark Anderson. Hillenmeyer and Scott were on the sidelines.
On the other hand, when the Bears had the run package in, they did a pretty good job (i.e the 4th and 1 where Briggs blitzed and stuffed Alexander at the line).
I’m not hating on Ogunleye, but I disagree with the assessment that he was the only one effective against the run. That’s baloney. If anything, the people that were guilty of not stopping the run would be Chico and Lovie, as they kept getting beat on the ground while their nickel package was in.
That is not #15’s site. Just a site #15 has read.
In the Bears defense, Seattle is one of the few teams who runs well on third and long. They should have been ready for it, though.