This is no way to catch a bus.It’s obvious now what needs to happen. In fact, rarely has anything been so obvious. It’s time for Rex Grossman to start playing some football again. Time for him to strap it up and get out there.

The only question is, should he play wide receiver or safety?

It’s nice that Bears’ fans never really change. Only in Chicago can a one game losing streak, following an eight game winning streak cause complete panic, and afford Bears “fans” a chance to point at their favorite team and say, “See, I told you they sucked.”

On a day when the defense looked…well…(gasp!) average, and the offense was what it always is…bad, the Bears got a Terrible Towel shoved up their rectum in lovely Pissburgh.

What was troubling was the performance of the defense. It wasn’t that Pissburgh scored two touchdowns before the half. That happens. It was the fact that the Bears seemed unable to tackle anybody. Hines Ward carried two guys into the end zone on the first score and Jerome Bettis carried half the team with him on the second one. That’s not supposed to happen.

The Bears were playing without either of their starting safeties, with Chris Harris out with a sore knee and Mike Brown home tending to misbehaving cattle. Huh? Yeah, his cattle. They said he had a bad calf. Oh, never mind.

For their part, whenever the Steelers needed a really big play they just looked to see which side of the field Helen Huntermeyer was on and then threw a screen pass to that side. Having both Helen and Todd Johnson on the same side of the field is like playing Randall Simon next to Todd Walker and wondering why every ground ball is being thrown in by the right fielder.

But if it had just been those big plays (and really, who didn’t see Ian Scott get clipped on the first big screen pass and Brian Urlacher get tackled on the second one?) it would have been understandable. But when it was a day when neither Urlacher or Lance Briggs could tackle anybody, you just knew it wasn’t your day.

Offensively, Orton played OK. He made (as his is wont) a couple of horrible throws that sailed over the heads of open receivers, but he also made a few excellent throws. What we don’t know, due to the limits of television is how many open receivers he just didn’t see. How many times did he drop back, have plenty of time and either throw it away or dump it down to a back?

Chances were, given the relative sloth of the Bears’ receiving corps that nobody was open, but it’s hard to say a quarterback played well when you can’t be sure if there were any big plays to be made.

Didn’t it seem like for three full quarters that the only pass the Bears could pull off was a slant to Muhsin Muhammad? Maybe it was the injury to Mark Bradley, maybe it was Jerry Angelo’s decision to stop adding wide receivers after inking Muhammad about twelve minutes after free agency started, but the number one reason that Orton defenders make about not benching him for Rex Grossman is that it doesn’t matter who the Bears have playing QB right now because they only have one guy to throw to.

What? You don’t expect big things from Justin Gage or Bobby Wade? How about ace tight end Desmond Clark? The truth is that Gage will have his moments. But he lacks the kind of speed that the Bears need opposite the Moose. Wade’s moments are almost always bad. Gee, how did you like him turning back the clock (two weeks) and fumbling a punt inside the ten? That never gets old.

As for Clark, the Bears caused me to utter, “See, if we had a tight end we’d get a touchdown here” after they failed to score after a first and goal at the three situation in the first quarter.

It just figures that Clark would drop a six yard pass in the third quarter, then made a leaping grab in between three defenders about five minutes later. Consistency’s not really his bag. At this point, I’m not sure what his bag is, though if I had to guess, I’d guess colostomy.

What really is disturbing is that the Steelers secondary was routinely getting toasted the past three weeks. Sure, going up against Peyton Manning and Carson Palmer will do that to you, but these weren’t Lester Hayes and Michael Haynes out there. The Bears didn’t make any plays against them.

OK, Muhammad had a productive day and Bernard Berrian made a nice catch, but after three hours you should have come up with more than that.

As for the defensive “effort” of the Bears, the fact that they didn’t rough up Ben Roethlisberger had more to do with the score than the Pissburgh offensive line. Thanks to having the lead for virtually the entire game, the Steelers offensive approach mirrored the one the Bears have been using for two months. Roethlisberger only threw 20 times, and a quarter of those were screen passes. The Bears pass rush normally cashes in in the fourth quarter when the opponent is behind and their eight-man rotation has worn the offensive line down to where the tackles become turnstiles.

In this fourth quarter the Bears just got run at (and too many times, run on).

Of course the loss is damaging. The Vikings have won six in a row and are only one game behind now. The Seahawks now have a two game lead in the race for home-field and more importantly the Bears’ chances of a first round bye and a first round home game took a bit of a hit. But the Bears still have the division lead, even the best defenses have an off week (our beloved ’85 Bears had a few, including opening day against Tampa Bay, the Thursday night in Minnesota, and the Monday night in Miami) and it’s going to take more than one bad game to clear that bandwagon.

This loss doesn’t mean anything if it’s followed up with wins in the three very winnable games to finish the season. Now is not the time to panic.

Next Monday? Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

For a second straight week we were “treated” to the number two (and they smell like their number) announcing team of Dick Stockton, Moose Johnston and Tony Siragusa. Stockton was in rare form, by my count he pronounced Troy Polamalu ‘s name six different ways, my favorite was “Tony Poloma” which was uttered sometime in the first quarter.

Honestly, what is with having Siragusa on the sidelines if he’s just going to chime in constantly like he’s in the booth? Instead of the illusion of a cohesive unit in the booth, instead it’s just like Fat Tony is interrupting all the time. Also, he telestrated a play in the second half. How did he do that from the sidelines? What’s next, they’re going to have him read the ad cards between quarters.

“The NFL on Fox is brought to you by Budweiser, the king of beers. One time in training camp I drank 37 Buds and then threw up in Brian Billick’s golf cart. And by Allstate Insurance, you’re in good hands with Allstate. Hey, ever notice how the president from 24 is in those Allstate commercials? That’s crazy. Speaking of presidents, after we won the Super Bowl in Baltimore we got to visit the White House and they had some kind of champagne reception for us. I drank like nine bottles of that stuff. Then I threw up through the sunroof of the limo.”