Bear Down Baffa

Lovie Smith’s career as head coach of the beloved Chicago Bears died on Sunday.  He leaves behind him an assortment of tired colloquialisms, a team with talent but no play left in it, and a large contingency of shattered dreams.  I don’t like going after the head coach because it’s too easy, but I’m finally throwing him under the bus that the Bears get off running.  And losing.  Yes, after six years and a slightly better than average 50-43 (.537) regular season record, I’m calling for Lovie to man up, and step down. 

For starters, Lovie has not been living up to the standards he set for himself.  According to the Bears own website, he set three goals when he was hired:  beat the Pack, win the Division and win the Supa Bow.

– He got us to a Supa Bow in his third year (’06).  But he lost.  And he’s gotten further and further from it since.

– He won our division twice (’05, ’06) in six seasons.  But so have both GB and Minn.

– He WAS 6-2 against Green Bay (’04-’07), but GB has owned us the last two years.  He’s now 7-5 (.583) vs the Pack.

On his annual review, at best that’s called “Does not meet expectations.”  But putting personal feelings aside, I’d say it’s somewhere between, “Your services are no longer required” and “Don’t let the doorknob hit you in the ass on your way out, oh, and we’re gonna need your key to the stadium.”

Lovie has said repeatedly that we get off the bus running.  Granted, we didn’t ride a bus to this game, but we ran for fewer yards (59) and TD’s (0) all game than GB did on their first play from scrimmage (62, 1).  Yikes.  And speaking of our porous defense, after taking over himself as our third D Coordinator in four years (as we’ve gotten progressively worse), we’ve hit rock bottom.  And now there’s nowhere left to point the finger.  And by the finger I mean the middle finger.

Added to which, the Bears are not playing with any sense of urgency.  After receiving the opening kickoff against a division rival that kicked their asses a couple months ago, they found themselves down 7-0 less than 2 minutes later.  And nobody was surprised.  But what everyone was surprised by was the Bears taking back the lead.  I’m not exaggerating, I was shocked.  And then no one was surprised when they collapsed and lost.  It’s evident the players just don’t believe.  You can see it in their body language, on their faces and in their play.  And that speaks to coaching.

Another coaching indicator is the lack of field discipline.  The Bears lost the penalty battle to a team that had 11 penalties for 175 yards just 6 days prior, when they and BAL tied for the second-highest penalty yardage total ever in an NFL game (310 on 23 penalties).  The Bears topped both of them Sunday with 13 penalties of their own.  Actually, that’s the one thing I was impressed by.  I mean, you have to have your head buried pretty far up your own ass to see failure that closely.

But the final straw wasn’t that we got swept by GB, and it wasn’t that we were mathematically eliminated with this loss.  It was the boneheaded coaching move that cost us two timeouts on a single play.  I don’t care whose fault it was, that doesn’t happen on a well-coached team.  And when asked about it, Lovie said, “In the end, that time out didn’t hurt us.”  Could you imagine if that would have happened on a Ditka-run sideline?  People would be in the hospital.  Including Ditka.  And it got me thinking.  We need more fire, more passion.  Someone who’s played the game, and been successful as a head coach.  We need the opposite of Lovie.

So our staff voted.  And we unanimously agreed that we should bring back Coach Iron Mike Ditka.  Think about it: he played for the Bears, he coached the Bears to their only Supa Bow victory, and he’s still alive.  I know; it’s almost inconceivable, right?!  This guy should have secret service protection, btw.  But there isn’t a single person on the planet with better credentials or more suited for this position.  It’d be like Neil Armstrong coming back to run NASA, and it’s almost as logical.  And this may be our last chance.  Not because he might die; Da Coach is gonna live to be 150.  But because of global warming.

Wrapping it Up for the Holiday Season
The 5-8 Bears may finish 5-11, and that would be without having beaten a team with more than 1 win all year:  PIT was 1-0, SEA 1-1, DET 1-2, CLE 1-6, and STL 1-10.  Sure, PIT and SEA were early, but PIT (now 6-7) has lost 5 in a row, and SEA (5-8) has only beaten one winning team.  And when you add in STL (1-11), DET (2-11) and CLE (2-11), the teams we’ve beaten this year are a combined 16-48 (.250).

And so we’re calling it a day.  In protest of Lovie’s failure to achieve his own publicly announced objectives, we’re hanging it up for the season.  We may post something, but it would only be sporadic.  Because let’s be honest, no one wants to write it anymore this year, and no one wants to read it either.

Happy Holidays!  And go 2010 Bears! 

© 2009

This entry was posted on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 11:31 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.