True to form, the Chicago Bears came out after a great win with an equally horrific loss to the New York Giants Sunday night. Concerns abound for Lovie Smith's team, who never got in sync on offense and lost Jay Cutler to a concussion at the end of the first half. There are plenty of areas to pick on, but here's what I noticed from Sunday night's debacle.
Obviously the passing game was a hot mess. The pass-blocking was atrocious beyond measure and Jay Cutler held onto the ball too long on almost every drop-back. Cutler's interception was a poor decision, no question. Shuffling around the offensive line on every series probably didn't help either. (It was hard to keep track of all the movements.) Nine sacks in the first half perfectly capture the story of how awful they looked. It took every Bear coach and player working together to suck that bad. Jay can certainly share the blame for his multitude of sacks. Instead of other QB's who would tend to want to throw the ball quicker, Jay's personality works the opposite way where he wants to stay in longer and hit the big play. When that happens the coaching staff has to know better.
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At a certain point, Mike "Genius" Martz has to reign in and protect his franchise QB by calling quick three-step drops and running plays. That's how you settle down a frantic passer and avoid taking unnecessary hits. At that point in the game it was only 3-0, which is obviously not a time to give up on the ground game. After sack two or three (in the first quarter), Martz has to change his gameplan. He is just as responsible for Jay's concussion as the offensive line and tight ends are. When the other team's leading pass rusher is out, things should be EASIER. The Bears failed to make the right adjustments throughout the course of the game until Todd Collins came in. Note how they only gave up one sack in the second half? If Collins and Hanie can do that, so can Cutler. It's called coaching, try it sometime. The Bears were never able to move the ball down the field or hit any wide receivers, and the tight ends didn't get invovled until late, which is inexcusable.
Chicago's vaunted run defense wore down over the course of the game, but they have up too many runs early and gave the Giants confidence. To their credit, they were on the field quite a bit and held strong over the course of the night. However, when they couldn't shut down the run the Giants were able to take advantage of play-action passes late in the contest. Julius Peppers was again all over the field making plays, proving his worth in every games this season despite his lack of sacks. Tim Jennings and Zack Bowman played well enough at the left cornerback spot, but eventually Lovie will have to pick one and stick with him. Bowman's strip of Ahmad Bradshaw probably earned him next week's start.
Focusing on the quarterback situation, I would be surprised if we saw Jay Cutler against Carolina. As tough as we all know he is, it just wouldn't be safe to put him out there with that line the way it looks right now. It would just be asking for more trouble. With a week of first-snap reps, Todd Collins should be sufficient to beat the Panthers.
This game reminded me of the awful games we would see in Kyle Orton's rookie season when the defense had to make every stop and score twice in order for us to win. It was that freaking bad. Despite the problems, the Bears are still 3-1 with a few favorable match-ups coming up. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility that we could win a game or two without Cutler. Before Bears fans up and revolt over this crappy outing (which is was, no question), let's just keep it in perspective. We're still 3-1. Even putrid teams don't give up nine sacks in a half. This was closer to an aberration than a realistic representation of the Bears team we've seen over the past four games. Wait and see how it plays out over the next four to six games before making a final judgment. Deal?
Happy Jay Cutler Day. (Get better Jay!)
