Chicago Sports Slant: The Case of the Expressionless Coach

Monday, December 1, 2008 The Case of the Expressionless Coach You'd expect more from a professional franchise, wouldn't you? The question is half rhetorical. There were several moments during last night's game where I couldn't react, the most telling of which occurred just after a carefree Gus Frerotte waltzed back three steps, pump-faked (the pants off of Charles Tillman), and slung a perfect pass into the welcoming arms of a former Bear who upstaged his former employer with a record-setting (okay, tying) touchdown. Everyone talks about how it was a fourteen-point swing. Granted, but that's expecting the Bears beguilingly bad coaching staff to have made any remotely wise decisions during the four-down sequence at the Viking's one-yard line. Yes, we were expecting them to run it up the middle at least twice. Point taken, but each time? Seriously? What about on third down? Who in tar-nation was that? I'm not even going to look up his name. He fell like a Dow-Jones-Industrial-Average before he even hit the line of scrimmage! This isn't the movie Rudy, this was our chance to go up 14-3 on a hated division rival in a HUGE game. Oh, I forgot. These are the Chicago Bears. Monsters of the Mediocre. Back to reality. Though we never really left the ground, it felt nice to be a marked team. The Vikings expected a tough game, and they got it... for about 22 minutes. The grocery list of shortcomings is too gargantuan to address in small doses. The big picture is too nauseatingly ugly to look at. Kyle Orton's passer rating was a Grossman-like 39.1, the secondary reinstated its porous nature, Urlacher continued his decent into middle-age, and the Bears' receiving core looked like a bunch of kids engaged in a game of hot potato. They were just... bad. That's it. I could sit here and hem a story so beatifically saddening you'd swear you'd notice a Victorian-aged sense of a lament--It would remind you of why you listen to sad songs when your heart is broken. We've all done it, and doesn't it feel good? Nah. I'll pass. It's giving the situation too much respect. The Bears hardly respected their fan base last night. That's not how you play in a prime time slot. Now everyone knows we're a .500 team. Just watch where you sling the significant share of the blame. Mark my words: This is the worst-coached team in the NFL. We can all surmise a series of other instances this season where the Bears had a chance to win, or score, or stay in the game where Lovie Smith and his crew gave us nothing but the right recipe for repent. But that's the thing. They never look sorry about the state of the football team they're running into the ground. They don't belong in playoff contention, and for some reason they are--This makes the reality harder to face. You can only survive on potential for so long before you're too bamboozled into believing you're a decent team to realize how marginal you really are. So, before you start whining about Peanut's misread of "that play," or Orton's sudden submission into awfulness, or anything else, please remind yourself itself impossible to go forward with no sense of direction: Lovie, this one's on you. Subscribe to Chicago Sports Slant by Email at 7:25 AM Labels: Brian Urlacher, Charles Tillman, Chicago Bears, De Salvo, Gus Frerotte, Kyle Orton, Lovie Smith, Minnesota Vikings, NFL 0 comments: Post a Comment Newer Post Older Post Home Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Try These Related Topics

Try These Related Topics