Bears' win over Rams doesn't make all their problems go away
November 24, 2008
BY GREG COUCH Sun-Times Columnist
ST. LOUIS — The Bears know what the St. Louis Rams are. They beat a tackling dummy Sunday.
At least we learned they can do that, anyway. They learned it, too.
But coach Lovie Smith is taking it a little far. To hear him, the Bears are 1-0 in this six-game mini-season he invented last week. The first 10 games? Gone.
So was it nice to see the offensive line open big holes, in contrast to what they’ve done all year?
‘‘They have played well all year,’’ Smith said.
Understand what he means by that. The Bears beat the Rams
27-3 on Sunday, and the line has been great all year.
All of the one-game year. A perfect season!
Will the Bears take anything from this game? Sure. They have seen the defense get into the backfield and actually hit, and hurt, a quarterback. They have seen the offensive line create holes for Matt Forte to run through. They have seen Brian Urlacher, Tommie Harris and Adewale Ogunleye play well. They have seen defensive backs intercept passes and stop receivers.
The Bears are like a golfer who has lost his swing in tournaments. He takes a vacation, and with the pressure off, does it all right. He remembers how it was supposed to look and feel. Basically, the Bears were able to get away from the pressure of the NFL for a week.
The Rams must be one of the worst teams in history, and that was before they lost their running back, best offensive lineman and quarterback.
‘‘There is not much to work with,’’ Rams coach Jim Haslett said.
‘‘I’m still going to say we had a lot to do with it,’’ Smith said.
‘‘We had a scheme, and the scheme worked,’’ Bears linebacker Lance Briggs said.
But the mirage won’t work. The Bears know.
This season is all still on Smith, who has made mistake after mistake. His newest game is to try to push a reset button with more than half the season done.
You cannot forget, pretend and re-invent yourself that easily.
But with assistant coaches who know they will be bumped out if they say anything other than ‘‘Yes’’ to Smith — the way Ron Rivera was — and with an unwillingness to accept any blame or responsibility, Smith had little else to turn to.
Forgive and forget. That’s the new slogan.
‘‘We’re going to have a 1-0 record in the six-game season we’re coming up on,’’ Smith said. ‘‘Best position we can be in.’’
The Bears did try a few new things, I guess. They occasionally went to the wildcat formation on offense, in which the ball is snapped directly to a back. That can confuse defenses. They also seemed to use their defensive ends in a couple of new ways, twisting them inside.
Ogunleye came inside on a stunt in the first quarter for a big sack.
But before you get too excited about Smith’s adjustments and flexibility, know what Ogunleye said about that stunt:
‘‘We’ve run that all year. It just worked today.’’
It worked against a tackling dummy.
That said, the Bears got all they could from this game. If they had lost, they probably wouldn’t have won another game. As it is, they’re 6-5, still tied for first place. And they know they cannot fall low enough to lose to the Rams.
Truth is, the Bears looked fantastic. On their first defensive play, Alex Brown made a tackle for a five-yard loss, then did a little dance, shaking his head and wagging his finger. It seemed a little weird for a team that had lost 37-3 to Green Bay a week earlier.
But erase that game from memory, and why not? Ogunleye had an early sack, knocking Rams quarterback Marc Bulger out of the game with a probable concussion. Urlacher had a tackle for loss.
Mike Brown made a tackle for a four-yard loss on a pass reception, and he and Briggs high-fived. And I think kicker Robbie Gould blew a kiss after making a field goal.
That was all in the first half. Everyone had a chance to feel good about himself.
But beating the Rams doesn’t prove that Smith’s defense works or that defensive coordinator Bob Babich knows what he’s doing.
Smith’s job would almost be in jeopardy if he didn’t have millions of dollars left on his contract and a cheap boss.
Before last week’s game, he insisted that no player was questioning his defensive schemes. They were, in fact. And if Smith wouldn’t blame himself, his scheme or his coordinator, then he was blaming the players. The players, in turn, took to pointing fingers.
Smith ignored it, the way he’s now ignoring the first 10 games, and the Bears were humiliated.
But at least he had the new slogan this week, and now the Bears are supposed to believe in themselves, that they’re one game into a perfect season heading into the big game at Minnesota next week. They won’t slip back to what they were, a .500 team with a not-so-good defense?
‘‘We’ve still got Green Bay in the back of our heads,’’ Ogunleye admitted. ‘‘We know what that game did to us.’’
Of course they know.
