Bernstein: Bears' Win Signifies Nothing
Two plays from yesterday's game symbolized this Bears team.
First was the four-yard touchdown pass from Jay Cutler to Greg Olsen in the second quarter. Or maybe it was to Earl Bennett, who reacted as if it were intended for him. Or perhaps it was designed for Johnny Knox, who had also run a route to the same spot.
Three receivers all arriving in the same place, like they were meeting for coffee and a bagel.
It's so Bears – so 5-3, still-in-the-hunt Bears – that the result of such a mess turned out ok.
(They will tell us otherwise, of course, since only they are allowed a valid opinion about their offense. We will hear that the genius of Mike Martz sometimes demands that three guys all have a chance at the same ball, and it's just outside-the-box football thinking)
And the game's biggest play was even more appropriately two-sided. With Buffalo leading 19-14 and nine minutes remaining in the game, cornerback Tim Jennings was pantsed by Bills receiver Steve Johnson on a hesitation route. But just as 26-14 looked probable – and with it a 4-4 record, the embarrassment of losing to a winless team, and postseason bleakness looming in that instant– QB Ryan Fitzpatrick floated a duck into Jennings's hands.
Another mistake is rewarded with a positive result, and the Bears continue to stumble upward.
We will praise the sensible playcalling, a spasm of sanity quieting nerves for a week. But the running game was awful, really – 105 yards against the NFL's worst at defending it. The actual rushing totals were 26 attempts for 66 yards, an average of 2.5 per carry. That's when we subtract Jay Cutler's five rushes for 39 yards (since those came on designed passing plays, and don't count toward "balance").
We will also praise Cutler's 97.6 passer-efficiency rating, as the final numbers describe a careful, measured performance. The actual performance, however, was marked by the same sloppy footwork, bad timing and ill-advised throws we have seen before.
The combined record, now, of the teams vanquished by the Bears this year is 10-31.
Feel free to see beauty in the Bears. This is a league of disconnect, with each game its own reality, independent of other outcomes. Lovie Smith has finished the first two quarters of his segmented season in contention for a playoff spot, and you have every right to proclaim that a team is as good as its record indicates.
But something rare is occurring this year, as a fandom prone to pendular shifts of emotion seems stuck somewhere in the middle. It's impressive that so many observers seem so keenly aware that we may not be able to trust all we see.
Smart fans – and they seem to be legion – look at the second half of the 2010 slate with neither hope nor dread. We realize that we still know little or nothing about these odd Bears, the more of them we see.
