Bear Down Baffa

If you’re only going to play one half of a game, an argument can be made that either of those halves has its advantages.  But if I were given the choice, I’d take the second half.  The same could be said about playing one quarter; I’d take the fourth.  Same goes for an eighth, you’d have to pick the eighth eighth.  And if you’re the Bears playing the Pack in ‘08, when you only play one sixteenth of a 2-game match-up, you’d have to take the sixteenth sixteenth, or that last 7 ½ minutes, when the season is on the line. 

If it then went into overtime, I would have one of our captains head-butt the coin during the coin toss.  And that’s just what the Almighty Urlacher (and the Bears), did Monday night.  Seriously, the refs allowed it to happen, and no flags were thrown or anything.  The Bears won the toss and went on to win their third must-win in a row, 20-17.  And like a patient on an organ donor waiting list, the Bears are doing their part to stay alive, but they need the help of someone else’s misfortune to keep it that way. 

The temp was 2 degrees, the coldest at Soldierz since records started being kept in 1963.  The wind chill was 13 below, the second-lowest ever recorded.  And it didn’t start off good.  It looked like we were headed for another fudge debacle, what I like to call a “fudge packing shellacking.”  We were beaten badly – again – throughout the first half.  Our offense was offensive.  Our defense could stop the run but not the pass, and of course GB passed A LOT.  To give you an idea, we were out-gained 221-48 yards in the first half, losing the first down battle 14-2.  And down 14-3 at half time, we were behind 51-6 in the first three halves of GB football this year, yet to score a single TD.  And the Bears didn’t seem to be doing anything about it.

But that first TD came early in the second half.  After our 4th 3-and-out of the game, Maynard’s punt hit a Packer and we recovered, giving us the ball on GB’s 27.  It was our 18th possession against GB this season.  But we waited until our last drive in regulation to do what we were unable to do the previous 21 – score a TD that was not aided by a turn-over and started in Bear territory.  And of those 51 yds – the most crucial of our season – 48 were on Forte’s (and our O-Line’s) back.  And we made it look like we’d done it 100 times before, like we hadn’t proven incompetent beyond even Bear expectations in the first 20 drives against them.  But we did it when it mattered most, and that’s what matters.

And after tying it in regulation, we somehow managed to score again on our first OT possession.  The first 17 yards came on an Olsen catch, with 15 added for a horse collar penalty, moving us from our own 33 to their 35.  Forte then gained 15 yards over the next 5 plays (including two that went for losses) to put us on the 20.  Robbie “Elliot” Gould then knocked in the winner, making him the first NFL Kicker to kick game-winning FG’s in back-to-back OT games.  You probably remember 2001 when Mike Brown returned 2 INT’s for TD’s in consecutive OT games which had never been done.  So we got that going for us, which is nice.

So we did our job so far, winning 3 of our final 4.  But we still have to win that 4th in order to have a shot at advancing to the post season.  Here’s how it breaks down (break it down!).

Division Ranks
Hotlanta came through for us in beating MIN.  So we’re tied with one game left. But MIN takes the tie, as we broke down last week (NFL official tie-breakers).  The short version is that it would go to the 4th tie-breaker, record in the conference (they’d be 8-4 in the NFC vs our 7-5).  So we have to beat Houston in Houston, and MIN has to lose to the NY Giants.  Neither scenario looks good for us.  HOU has won 4 of 5, and the NYG, who’ve lost 2 of 3, have nothing to gain or lose having already clinched the #1 seed in the NFC.

Only Scenario where we win Division:
Bears win in HOU AND
NYG win in MIN

Wild Card, Schmild Card
We got everything we wanted last week, with Dallas, Philly and Tampa all losing.  Tied with DAL and TAM at 9-6, they would both take tie-breakers from us (TAM beat us head to head, and DAL by conference record).  So we’d still need both TAM and DAL to lose.

Only scenario where we win Wild Card:
Bears win in HOU AND
DAL lose in PHI AND
OAK win in TAM.

Reportin and Retortin on Orton
Orton’s 48.7 QBR isn’t going to get him much good press this week (Rodgers’ was 87.6). Neither is his 14 for 27 (51.8%) for 142 yds, 1 TD and 2 INT’s.  In the first half, he was 4 for 9 for 36 yds and 0 for 4 on 3rd down pass plays, compared to Rodgers’ 16 for 24 for 176 yds and 5 for 8 on 3rd down pass plays (with 2 TD’s).  But the Beard is now 21-12 (63.6%) as a starter, and that’s just where it starts.  He’s 15-3 (83%) at Soldierz, and a perfect 7-0 at Soldierz in December (beating Aaron Rodgers, David Garrard, Michael Vick, Drew Brees twice and Bret Farfignuggen twice).  So he is doing something right.  What that is, I’m still not sure.  But I know it’s not passing the ball further than 6 yards, moving like an athlete or trimming his beard.  But he’s also articulate.  When asked what he was thinking on the final drive, he said, “Ya know, we don’t do nothing, we’re done.”

Super Bowl, Super I’ll settle for a W right now!

© 2008

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