Bernstein: Bears' Situation All About Perspective
By Dan Bernstein
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) As we consume the frantic action of a given week's Bears game, it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture that exists well outside and beyond that screen on the wall.
In a way that's the point, really, at least with this team in it's current condition – having our attention and emotion from play to play removed enough and so much in the moment that we don't have to think about just how far they are from winning the Super Bowl. If we didn't work so hard to distract ourselves from the truth, we would all be golfing.
For me, that experience is almost identical to watching the Bears, however. It's a few moments of excitement interspersed with rampant incompetence and a glaring lack of talent. Irrational hope eventually, inevitably surrenders to a full awareness of cold, harsh reality, and then I'm thirsty and my back hurts.
This early in the season, enough outlandish possibilities still remain, in theory, to make it feel like it all matters. The good news after Sunday's dispiriting 48-23 loss to the Cardinals at Soldier Field is that it really doesn't -- or if it does, it's about as important as a day hacking a ball around for 18 holes.
You didn't really think the Bears were going to beat a much better-equipped opponent, despite some further evidence of qualified coaching, even if that's nowhere near enough to overcome this horrible roster. Next Sunday in Seattle isn't going to be pretty, either.
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If last week's performance against the Packers represented some kind of moral victory, this game reminded us what a weak idea that was. I loved Matt Forte's line about his teammates not having "that stupid look on their face," but that's exactly what's now on mine. It's going to stay that way for a while, I'm afraid.
And Jay Cutler did it again, putting together a perfectly efficient, intelligent performance before the little gremlin that lives in his head made him throw a signature interception. That he left with a purported "hamstring injury" – despite falling hard on his shoulder and leaving the field immediately without a limp – can also be seen as only marginally significant.
General manager Ryan Pace and coach John Fox had a decent idea of how large this project was, and that informed their efforts to find a taker for Cutler in trade talks. They found the market less than enthusiastic, however, and ultimately gritted their teeth and re-embraced him with the knowledge that this would be the last shot. They're all but certain to draft a quarterback this year, remember, and 3-13 means securing a more valuable draft pick than 6-10. The argument is sad but true, with the Bears realistically closer to winning a championship by running the execrable Jimmy Clausen out there.
They couldn't do it by choice, of course, not with a new coaching regime putting the floor in and establishing a culture of professionalism. In that way, Fox is similar to the weekly viewer described earlier and Pace the one saddled with the responsibility of larger thinking, and the coach must be seen internally as doing everything within his power to win.
Cutler's injury makes any victory without him far less likely, thus improving Pace's opportunity to find what's next.
Last week's optimism in defeat was one kind of loser talk. This week's realism in defeat is another, but it's even more deserved for a Bears team so, so far away.
Dan Bernstein is a co-host of 670 The Score's "Boers and Bernstein Show" in afternoon drive. Follow him on Twitter @dan_bernstein and read more of his columns here.