Bear Down Baffa

Hopefully you didn’t read any of the papers or online reports about the Bears season being over already.  Because it’s not.  We were supposed to lose this game on the road.  GB had our number last year, especially on offense.  But our defense pretty much shut them down on Sunday.  GB only scored the one TD at the end of the game against our D, with the other one coming after an INT was returned to our one yd line.  So even with all the INT’s and our lack of offensive potency, we only lost by 5 points, and we were leading with just over a minute left.  It didn’t look to me like GB played much better than we did. 

Apparently Obamacare and it’s free-spending policies didn’t leave much money behind to cover fudge for the Pack to pack this year.  Yes, we lost.  But unlike last year, we left with our dignity, sans fudge. 

Defensively, we have a lot to be stoked about.  Other than one crucial play, we played pretty solid all game.  Considering how badly GB smoked our D last year, this was a major accomplishment for our collective D unit (D Unit!).  We held them to only 76 yds rushing, and only 150 passing.  So how does our D get that much better so quickly?  It’s two things. 

First, Lovie is calling the shots on D now.  You may remember us firing Ron Rivera after losing the Supa Bow because we couldn’t stop the run.  Bob Babich ran the show since.  But this year, Lovie’s getting his D on and taking over D Coordinator responsibilities.  He is more aggressive, as you saw on Sunday.

Second, we went out and got the worst head coach in history, Mr. 0-16 himself, Rod Marinelli.  Why did we do that?  No, it’s not because we’re like the Cubs, whose mission it is to hire shitty players and pay them more than their best players, whom they then try to get rid of.  It’s because the guy is the best D Line coach in the NFL.  You can be a shitty head coach and still be a phenomenal asst coach in one specific area of the game. 

Imagine a guy going from having responsibility for a whole team to coaching just a handful of guys in his area of specialty.  Now imagine that guy doing such a bad job as a head coach that he’s DYING to do something good.  He’s been watching film and working with our guys 24×7 since the day he was hired to prove to everyone that he’s still got it.  And like Jon Lovitz’s character in “The Wedding Singer” when Adam Sandler’s character loses his mind, we’re “reaping all the benefits” of his recent dismal failures. 

Sure we played horribly on offense, but it was about as well as we played last year.  So I don’t understand what everyone’s so shell-shocked about.  Our line didn’t buy Cutler much time most of the game, and Cutler made some pretty bad passes (a la Orton).  But given that it was his first start with a new team, on the road on Sunday night, in a tough rivalry, against a team with a new defensive scheme (and D Coordinator) that we’ve not seen before (so it was probably tough to plan for), and with an inexperienced receiving corps which was at least partially responsible for most of his plethora of interceptions – given all that, I still like Cutler. 

I mean, this is going to be his worst game ever for the Bears.  And we already got it out of the way.  Cutler will only get better, as we saw in the second half once he was able to simma down, nah.  It’s not like he’s injured, or he can’t throw the ball anymore.  The problem he has, which is synchronicity with the offense and his teammates, can be fixed. 

It’s called time, people.  It’s called reps.  It’s called comfort and familiarity, all key elements in any good team’s mojo.  And it will come.  It came for him in Denver, and it will come for him in Chicago.  And until then, if you can’t do anything to stop the tears, do what I do, just close your eyes and imagine what it will be like when it does. 

We built it.  It will come. 

Super Bowl, Super Bears! 

I’m the new punky QB, known as Cutler,
I stole number 6, from Kevin Butler.
Growing up as, a Chicago Bear fan,
I’m honored to walk, in the shoes of Jim McMahon.
I may not find, a helicopter to moon,
But I bet you’ll ask me, to wear his number 9 soon.
So please don’t try to beat my hustle,
I’ll ask to be traded if we don’t Supa Bow Shuffle…

© 2009

This entry was posted on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 10:52 pm and is filed under l) 2009 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.