Bernstein: Bears Still Hard To Enjoy
By Dan Bernstein-
CBSChicago.com senior columnist
(CBS) Yaaaaaaay. Wheeeeee.
Now pardon me while I clean up the streamers and balloons. These empty champagne bottles won't carry themselves out to the recycling bin, either.
It says something about how lost this Bears season is that a win at home over the divisional rival Vikings elicits such profound indifference, but that's where we are – the Bears on the right side of the scoreboard, finally, but not in any race and still exhibiting the many troubling signs of a team led by a coach in well over his head.
When a case has to be made that an NFL victory meant anything, that means it didn't.
Jay Cutler's jump-balls ended up in the right hands enough times, aided by the Vikings' curious decision to play man-to-man coverages that created size mismatches for their cornerbacks and allowed Cutler room for scrambles that sustained drives. That he threw another pair of clueless interceptions didn't end up mattering much, but it still underscored a continuing lack of trust. Even when he's more good than bad, he's still Jay Cutler.
The defense had little to worry about all day, because Minnesota rookie quarterback Teddy Bridgewater stopped reading the field under even the slightest hint of pressure, dropping his eyes close to the line of scrimmage and hoping to find something that never was going to materialize.
Bears coach Marc Trestman supplied enough signature weirdness to ensure that we wonder what he's doing, with end-of-half clock management that made little sense and a fourth-and-goal call from the 1-yard line on which he opted for a futile quarterback sweep to the short side. The newly productive offense still remained dogged by communication problems and ill-timed penalties.
Rooting for Brandon Marshall is no fun at all, as he has gone out of his way to show exactly why teams love getting rid of him despite his talent. The loudmouth whack-job clowned his way through a week of social-media-inspired stupidity, going so far as to ignore general manager Phil Emery's suggestion that he knock it off. He caught two touchdown passes Sunday. Good for him.
It's a 4-6 mark, now, for a team that once held Super Bowl aspirations.
The Bears could easily be 5-6 with a win over the hapless Buccaneers next week, continuing to provide misplaced optimism for those inclined to flights of fancy. But that takes both active ignorance of historical probability and that idea of trust that the Bears have forfeited by their overall body of work.
The Bears players themselves seemed entertained by their individual successes, celebrating sacks, tackles and receptions as if they had more wins than losses. Perhaps they can be excused some levity after their spiral out of contention cast a pall over their daily grind, but asking all but the dumbest fans to share such feelings may be going a bit too far.
Dinner will taste a little better for the guys in the winning locker room, yet the fans are still left to digest a season that turned sour and rotten with two of the worst losses in franchise history. Defeating the Vikings can do little to erase the enormity of the embarrassments against the Patriots and Packers that ended real hope and exposed the coach, but I guess it beats the alternative.
Wall Streeters have long used the term "dead cat bounce" to describe a brief uptick for a stock or market in free-fall, the idea being that even something that limp and lifeless can rebound slightly if dropped from a great enough height.
The Bears are a dead cat.
Like actual cats, they had made themselves difficult to like even back when they were viable. The coaches' endless blithering, the quarterback's turnovers and blasé unresponsiveness and the receiver's solipsistic buffoonery have been chipping away at our good will.
Nice win. I wish I cared more.
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.