I guess that 3-0 start for the Bears was too good to be true. Sadly, Bad Jay showed up again and the Bears just disintegrated against the Lions. The Lions for goodness sake! Weren't we supposed to be dominating the NFC North this year?
The Bears were bad in all ways this past Sunday. Jay Cutler threw two interceptions, the defensive line could not stop Reggie Bush, and the Lions just made the Bears look stupid all Sunday. It was clear that the Bears were not going to go undefeated this year, but it was so utterly total that this loss might be a template for other teams to beat the Bears.
As mentioned previously, Jay Cutler was back to his old self. His throwing motion got worse as the Bears predicament went further south, a problem that was supposed to be fixed by Trestman. Cutler had been dominant in the fourth quarter in the past three weeks, but there was none of that. So what happened? My hypothesis is that the Lions knew this is still Jay Cutler and they took advantage of his mental instability.
And the Bears offense couldn't do anything either! Aside from a Matt Forte run, the Bears mostly had to settle for field goals for much of the game. Oh, and did I mention they were 1-13 on third down conversions? They only third down they had the entire game was with :48 left in the game. Yeah, you're not going to win if you can't convert on third down.
Of course, the defense is not blameless at all her, either. The Lions shredded the Bears defensive line, which was hurting with Henry Melton out for the season and Pat Tillman not 100%. The Lions had 16 plays where they gained 10 or more yards against the Bears. Reggie Bush had 139 yards on 18 carry attempts. Looking at the replay, he made the defense look like idiots.
The worst part is this comes a week before the high-power Saints offense comes to town. The Bears defense will have to watch the game tape, shame themselves and come back. Now granted, they did force a few fumbles (a number of which they could not recover) and they held Calvin Johnson. Also, this bad defense only showed up in the first half. The rest of the game, they were able to contain Bush.
So what happened? The Lions took advantage of the Bears' hiccups, that's what. Cutler picked a bad week to go back to Bad Jay and the Lions made him pay. The defense was still recovering from Henry Melton's injury and the Lions found the gaping holes. Trestman will have his work cut out for him. He'll have to figure out a way to get Jay to drop the "Bad Jay" persona and become the Pro Bowl Quarterback we all know he can be.
There is significant work that will need to be done before Week 5. The Bears offense needs to step up and recover from bad play pretty quickly, or else this will be another year of disappointment. However, before things get worse, I might as well point something out: The Bears are still 3-1. But this game has exposed the Bears flaws. They must be fixed and fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment