Look at the fright side
Any victory's a good thing, but this one has some ugly blemishes
November 3, 2008
BY MIKE MULLIGAN mmulligan@suntimes.com
A victory -- any victory, even a victory over a winless team -- is a glorious thing in the NFL. A victory that gives a team sole possession of first place is one that should be celebrated and enjoyed with pagan pleasure.
Still, you tend to measure victories by the quality of the opponent, and that's where the Bears' 27-23 triumph over the woeful Detroit Lions translates into a wonderful but wretched mess. Great in theory, of course, but horrible to sit through.
Throw in a couple of key injuries -- quarterback Kyle Orton's ankle sprain and safety Mike Brown's right calf problem -- and suddenly a gimme game against a hapless foe might have terrible implications for the rest of the season. Of course, there's the possibility both will be back before long and the Bears dodged a major bullet. Rarely has victory engendered the kind of complacency you felt watching the Bears on Sunday.
''I'm proud of our football team for hanging in there and finding a way to win at the end,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said.
Is that what happened? Did the Bears really find a way to win or did the Lions find a way to lose?
There will be a lot of myths surrounding this game that need to be immediately debunked. For every plus point you can make about this team, there seemed to be a perfectly reasonable counterpoint. Here are a few of the goofy story lines:
1. Rex Grossman rode to the rescue.
Grossman played fair enough. He was on the field in the second half when the Bears rallied. It couldn't have been easy, given how little preparation time he has had this season. Unlike most backups, he likes to run the scout team to keep himself sharp, but can you actually be sharp by aping Dan Orlovsky in practice? Grossman produced only a 49.9 passer rating, as low a number seen in these parts since, well, the last time Grossman was starting.
2. The running game saved the day.
This one is a bit trickier to argue against. Matt Forte had a career-high 126 yards on 22 carries (5.7 yards per carry), his first 100-yard outing since the season opener. He produced 101 of those yards in the second half when the offense needed him most, including 40 of the 54 yards on the game-winning drive that culminated in Grossman's one-yard sneak for a touchdown. But twice in the final 3:48, the Bears had a chance to run out the clock and wound up punting the ball back to the Lions.
''It's hard to run when there are 10 guys lined up there to stop you,'' Forte said.
Fair enough. See Point No. 1.
3. The defense made adjustments to pitch a shutout in the second half.
It's true the defense pitched a shutout in the second half after allowing four consecutive scoring drives in the first half. But did the unit make adjustments or did the Lions simply make mistakes? It was great to see the Bears force three three-and-outs in the second half, especially because they scored touchdowns on offense after two of them. But why would the defense need to make adjustments in the second half when it had two weeks to prepare for Detroit, thanks to the bye?
And what adjustments were made? Arguably the key play of the game -- outside of Detroit's missed point-after conversion -- was a Craig Steltz interception on the goal line early in the fourth quarter. It came off a third-and-nine from the 19. Without the pick, the Lions would've been chasing a field goal to win late in the game instead of trailing by four. And when the Bears couldn't run out the clock, they got the ball back thanks to a great play by Lance Briggs, who forced and recovered a fumble. Are those adjustments or is it players making plays?
4. It's difficult to get up for a winless team.
This is a laughable excuse. Detroit, as Orton pointed out earlier in the week, beat the Bears twice in 2007, effectively ruining their season. They're a division opponent, which ought to send an alarm through the locker room. Division games are crucial. True, the Bears' schedule is wacky with a winless team being followed by an unbeaten one (the 8-0 Tennessee Titans visit Sunday). Here's hoping there's a legitimate counterpoint to this one and the Bears are sky-high and ready to go against the Titans.
In the end, the result of Sunday's game tends to gloss over a multitude of problems. Regardless, the enduring image from this game was the sight of middle linebacker Brian Urlacher walking off the field on two occasions urging on the crowd's boos. He did it first with just under seven minutes left in the first half after the defense surrendered 20 unanswered points to blow a 10-0 lead, and he did it again as he headed to the tunnel at halftime.
You couldn't tell if Urlacher was egging the crowd on because he was angry with them or because he agreed with them. Like everything about this game, there seemed to be a good with the bad and vice versa.
