Bear Down Baffa

Apparently somebody hasn’t been playing nice with others. 

This is the kind of season when you look forward to the bye week just because you can’t take another loss.  It’s the kind of season that makes you question your commitment to the team.  And when you do, you find no answers.  Brian Urlacher didn’t have any answers Sunday, or at least none that he shared.  He responded to questions with the phrase “Not sure” more often than the Lions have scored on us this year (37 + 16 = 53 points).  The face of our team has been blocking out the media for two weeks now like opposing offensive lineman have been doing to him and his arthritic back all year.  And when the media called him out for not talking even for the sake of the fans, his only response longer than a couple words was to direct them to Foxsports.com (foxsports.com/Urlacher injury).

So this modern day gladiator and hero to millions gives an exclusive interview to Fox Sports’ Jay Glazer (who?!), and then directs fans to visit the site for answers.  The article discusses the fact that he’s been playing hurt all season, how he’s had multiple tests run, and he even flew to Pittsburgh to see a specialist last week.  As Urlacher points out, there’s nothing that can be done about the pain, so he felt it was better left unmentioned.  But why tell one guy?  And why this bozo?  So all of Chicago (and half of America) go to the site to read about his injury.  And what does this “Senior NFL Writer” do with this undivided attention on his “NFL on Fox” page?  He follows it up with a story entitled, “There’s a hippo in your pool.”  The first text after the Urlacher revelation is about a hippo that got out of the San Diego Wild Animal Park after the fires, and went for a dip in someone’s pool.  That folks is reason #463 why Fox news is about as awful as it gets.

Except when it comes to Tommie Harris.  After saying he’d do everything in his power to beat the Lions, he asked fans to “keep believing,” and said that “it’ll be a year to remember.”  Then he “guaranteed” the Bears will make the playoffs.  He also quoted St. Augustine (though I couldn’t confirm he ever said this) saying, “Sometimes it’s better to believe than to understand.”  Well I don’t believe him.  And I don’t understand him either.  This from a guy who got called for an Encroachment penalty on 4^th and 1 at our own 2-yard line, giving Detroit 1^st and goal at our 1 when we were down by 6 with time running out in the 3^rd quarter.  Our D did rally to pick him up, stopping Detroit three times in a row, and forcing them to settle for a FG.  But it was this FG (and/or a missed FG by Robbie “I’ll settle for a bronze” Gould) that put them up by two scores.  So even this minor victory was a step towards our defeat.

Another step was Brian Griese, who had another rough day against Detroit.  We had our chances, but he just didn’t deliver when we needed him to.  He was 22 of 40 for 208 yards with 1 TD and 4 INT’s.  And all the post game shows talked about was how 3 of them were in the Detroit end zone, and how bad that is.  But what’s the alternative, throw INT’s in your own territory?  Or on your own goal line?  I would think that if you’re going to throw them, the other team’s end zone is the best place.  Of course that means you’re not scoring, but we showed we’re not going to score running the ball.  At least throwing it up gives you a chance.

Speaking of scoring, why does everybody keep brining up the 34-point 4^th quarter we allowed at Detroit?  First of all, the first TD was scored on the very first play of the 4^th quarter from our 15-yard line.  Then after they returned an INT for a score, Hester ran a kickoff back, giving them the ball for a third time in just over 2 minutes.  They also returned a muffed onside kick attempt for a score.  While those points don’t do much to defend the Bears’ play in that quarter, they do sort of explain it as a fluke.  I mean, why do you think it was a record in the first place?  Because you need a lot to go your way for something like that to happen.  Anyway, I just don’t want that to be the defining moment of our season.  I’m still hopeful that moment lay ahead of us, rather than behind us.

The good news is that, not counting Detroit, we’re .500 this year.  And there are only 8 teams in the NFC with more wins than us.  And only 2 of them are more than 2 games ahead of us.  I know, I’m reaching.  But it’s not like we’re 5 games back with 6 to play.  Coming off our bye week, there’s a chance we could be only 2 back with 8 to play.  We went 1 – 3 in the first quarter of the season.  This loss makes us 2 – 2 in the second quarter.  If we continue this trend of gradual improvement by going 3 – 1 in the third quarter and 4 – 0 in the fourth, we may just have a shot at making it into the post season at 10 – 6.

The bad news is that since 2000, only 1 of 43 teams that started the season 3 – 5 made the post season.  And if you have to win 7 of your remaining 8 games to do so, it typically means you suck.  But hey, Tommie Harris guaranteed it.  So we should be solid.  Super Bowl, Super Bears!

© 2007

This entry was posted on Mon, Oct 29, 2007 at 1:17 am and is filed under n) 2007 Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.