Bear Down Baffa

With our season on the brink of disaster in week 4, Sunday’s game was a must win situation.  And we failed. 

If you judge a team by how well they do in the face of adversity, then we suck skunk ass.  We played like the Cubbies in any big game the past century.  14 penalties for over 100 yards + 6 sacks + 3 INT’s + 5 fumbles (though we didn’t lose any) does not = victory, even if Devin “Six” Hester scored again (man, that dude should change his number to 6!).  In the words of Brian Urlacher, “We stink right now.”  And it could get a whole lot worse before it gets any better.  This thing could spiral out of control faster than something President Bush has somebody working on (see wikipedia.org/Bush Administration).  That’s what common sense tells me, and I usually listen to common sense because she’s right almost every time.  And she’s saying this with hours still remaining in the month September, before baseball’s Fall Classic even starts.

But the optimist (translation: Super Fan) in me wants to believe that the only thing that happened was we got beat by a decent team on the road, and our season isn’t really over.  With a QB making his first start in nearly two years and over half of our defense on the sidelines (including our entire secondary AND Lance Briggs), we probably should have lost this game.  Detroit is considered to be decent this year due in large part to their highly ranked passing game.  All things considered, we didn’t look as awful as we could have.  So maybe there is a glimmer of hope, though it’s becoming as elusive as the end zone for our offense.

Brian Griese had only thrown 32 passes over five games since October of 2005.  So it could be argued that he deserves a game to adjust.  But, just last week I was telling somebody how this guy has thrown for over 16,000 yards and 100 TD’s, completed 60% of his passes, was a Pro Bowler and has a career QB Rating of 84.5.  So he should be able to step in and move the ball without turning it over like a back-up QB should.  Well, he did move the ball pretty well at times, but much like Rex before him, he also turned it over pretty well.  Also like Rex before him, two of his three INT’s could have easily been caught by Bear receivers.  So you can’t blame Griese completely.  He did complete 34 passes, something Rex has never done in a single game.  He was really throwing that thang around.  Griese threw so many times, I think he even threw a couple passes in the parking lot after the game, and another on the team bus.  And a Griese fumble actually saved us from turning the ball over.  Yeah, I don’t know if Einstein can make heads or tails out of that call, but that’s how it happened.

We do still have options.  I say you give Griese one more game to catch a groove and show us what he can do.  Then you gotta go with Kyle Orton.  Orton’s the only one who’s been where we are and done something about it.  With princess Rex nursing a broken ankle from the 2005 pre-season, Orton started his first four NFL games that year by going 1 – 3.  He then led us to eight straight wins and onto the playoffs with home-field advantage.  That was the last time Orton played.  And what was the result of benching Orton in the playoffs that year?  Bad Rex beat our offense, and the Carolina Steve Smith’s walked over our defense in a game so embarrassing that I lost control and was escorted from Soldier Field in a drunken stupor at half time.  So maybe it’s time to give the kid who won eight in a row another shot.  I’m not saying, I’m just saying.

The good news is that every week the season goes on, we have the chance of getting one of our injured defenders back.  But we better get someone back for next week.  If we lose in Green Bay with them already three games ahead of us, our season is pretty much done barring a miracle.  You just can’t catch a 5 – 0 team looking up from a dismal 1 – 4, even with 11 to play.  So Sunday night in Green Bay is our last hope for any semblence of a hint of a chance of getting back into this thing.  Either way, we’ve got a long road ahead. 

© 2007