Bear Down Baffa

A crappy win against a crappy team by a crappy team – now that’s a lot of crap.  But I’ll take it. 

Even Urlacher had something to say about the victory: “4 – 5, better than 3 – 6.”  That’s not a lot of words, but it sums up the game’s result rather concisely.  As has been custom for us this year, we needed this win pretty badly.  I don’t think we played very well against a weak Raider team.  But we played better than they did, and that’s all you really have to do to win.  And “win” was the only verb any of us was concerned with on Sunday.  We can’t win more than one at a time; all we can do is beat the team they put in front of us each week.  Luckily, the NFL scheduled us a much needed gimme, even if it was in “the Black Hole” of Oakland’s McAfee Coliseum.  That place, like an old gray mare, just ain’t what she used to be.  And not only does this win give us the jolt we needed coming off a bye week, it puts us a game under .500, and undefeated in the second half of the season.  And it saved us from certain death – once again, for at least another week.

All things considered, I bet there weren’t a dozen people who predicted Sunday’s outcome would come the way it did.  Rex filled in, playing the role of back-up much better than he has starter, doubling his TD passes for the season with one beautiful bomb.  And he didn’t throw an INT for the first time this season.  He started where he left off, fumbling the first snap (and this time he was the second Bear QB to do that in the game).  But once he found a bit of a rhythm, he was able to read a mismatch the offense was waiting for, and hit Bernard Berrian in stride on a 59-yard TD.  He finished the game with a QB Rating of 110.  That’s 50 points higher than any game this year, and also his highest rating in 10 games.  Is he “back?”  Not by a long shot.  But he needed to do something – anything – to contribute to gain some confidence.  Remember, this kid still has tons of potential.  That’s why he was drafted, that’s why he has been given so many opportunities, and that’s why he was still on our team Sunday to fill in for an injured Griese.  And it was clear today that he’s not done playing QB in the NFL.

The defense also showed up, making some big plays.  Ogunleye had three sacks, and Briggs was all over the place.  But they’re still suspect, considering the competition.  And considering Oakland is terrible against the run, it was disappointing to see Benson once again doing very little with the running game.  Against a decent team, we lose Sunday.  But the lowly Raiders didn’t bring much to the table.  With nothing to lose, they even kicked to Devin Hester, who said he was insulted by that decision.  And it pretty much worked for them because they got into his head.  Hester looked like he had his own agenda, like he was out there under a completely different pretense than everyone else.  It was almost as if he was possessed by his mentor, the King of pop (and child fondling), Michael Jackson.  Each time he got the ball he started to dance, running this way and that, spinning around, running backwards – I think he even tried to do the Moonwalk.  He was wearing a mic for the game, and he was overheard saying “Hee-hee” with each cut or spin, and “Oooh!” while getting tackled for a loss time and time again.  I’d say we’re lucky to walk out of there with a W and without him getting hurt.

So what does this win mean, exactly?  As Olin Kreutz said, “A win brings hope” (this from a guy who can’t seem to transfer a ball cleanly to someone whose hands are buried in his crotch).  But it may be a little late.  Sure, we’ve won before.  But each time we followed it up with a loss.  Show me you can win two in a row and I’ll get excited.  Until then, GB is 4 ahead with 7 to play.  At least we gained a game on Detroit, but we still have a long road ahead.  The good news is that there are only three teams ahead of us in the Wild Card race (Gians, Skins and Lions), which means we may only have to catch two teams to reach the post season.  We showed some life Sunday, and we’ve now gone two weeks in a row without a loss for the first time all year.  I know it’s not shooting for the stars, but losses are bad and you have to avoid them.  So right now we’ll take whatever we can get.  Maybe we can build on this win, pick up some momentum and give chase.  And maybe Rex found his satchel after all.  Super Bowl, Super Bears!

© 2007

This entry was posted on Mon, Nov 12, 2007 at 2:57 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.