TCB (Those Craptacular Bears)

What I didn't see coming was the defense playing better than the offense this year. I was so used to that under Lovie Smith, and when the new management team took over the Bears front office, the word on the street was that they were going to build around Jay Cutler and become more of an offensive-minded system.

They brought in a coach with a killer pedigree (for quarterbacks, anyhow - not sure how he became the head coach), then did a pretty amazing job of getting top-flight receivers and solidifying the offensive line with an odd mix of rejuvenated castoffs and newcomers. On paper, this offense should be scoring on every drive. There should be a much better mix of plays available. It's not like it's everyone's first year together anymore, either.

I used to joke around about Lovie's "Prevent Offense" which would come into play the second they got a lead. It wasn't politeness or sportsmanship, it was a fear of failure. And when you focus that much effort on something (failure), you set up blockades for yourself. Then the other team shows up.

There's been wishy-washy coaching decisions, play calling meant to keep Jay Cutler upright (interspersed with plays meant to gain yards), and a defense that's gassed by the end of the 3rd quarter. I'm not sure where Matt Forte ranks with rushing yards, but as of this morning, he led the league in passing receptions. He's the running back, but this is nothing new for Bears fans.

There's the possibility that the issue is the turf, but opposing teams seem to be able to adjust. What I'm more concerned about is that we're stuck with another coach that would have been better off as a coordinator under someone with a more killer instinct. We didn't get the inverse Lovie Smith - we got another Lovie Smith. The scores end up being pretty much the same despite the shift of emphasis to offense.

After the game today, the twitterverse and sports media machine churned up some dirt about the Bears locker room, saying guys were sniping at other guys, and turning on the fans. I'm not sure it's fair to make headlines out of the stuff being said in semi-private after a loss like that; I'm not surprised the players weren't singing Pharrell songs, either.

I do wish that when they have 8 minutes to score 21 points, they'd go into some kind of "hurry up" offense. I've never seen a team (the Bears or otherwise) with such a lax approach to crunch time. Forget controlling the clock. You can worry about that once you're in the lead by a few scores (although the Dolphins didn't relent for 60 minutes).

Maybe it's time for Trestman to stop worrying about his team being better men and start focusing on getting them to be better at football. Maybe he needs to get a little Ditka crazy. Maybe yelling would help. Hugging hasn't.