SmashMouth

The Bears’ offense had one -- count it, one -- drive. It came on their second possession.

After that, pffft.


Fifty-one minutes of pffft.

Last season kind of pffft.

I thought the Bears had learned something this year. I thought they had it figured out.

But no.

This devolved into last year’s misery. This became the Meadowlands with a ceiling.

Protection became a mess. Receivers weren’t reliable. There was no hint of a run game, which wasn’t working anyway, but wasn’t even given the chance to keep the aggressive Saints defense honest. Jay Cutler was channeling his inner Ricky Vaughn.

Pressure, sacks, drops, more sacks, utter futility. Stop me if you’ve heard this before.

By the end, it was manslaughter. Worse, Cutler had been kicked in the throat and couldn’t make himself heard in a place when you can’t hear under the best of conditions.

By the end, too, it was ridiculous that Bears coach Lovie Smith still had Cutler taking sacks. I mean, snaps. Same thing.

But from the start, Cutler looked jumpy in the pocket. Not sure why. He had some semblance of protection early. By the end, though, it was completely understandable. Cutler was getting pressured and hit like this was last season when everybody was starting from scratch with the Martz du Soleil offense.

When he did have time, he either had no touch or was betrayed by all kinds of drops and routes that still haven’t been completed.

To think, the Bears were down only 16-13 in the third quarter. Then Cutler was sacked and fumbled.

Yeah, that happened a lot last season, but this seemed worse because of who it was. Kellen Davis was beaten by Turk McBride. Remember, the Bears traded Greg Olsen to give Davis the job, and Mike Martz liked Davis and free-agent tight end Matt Spaeth because they could handle blocking defensive ends one-on-one.

Or not.






Bears offense reverts to last season's mess - chicagotribune.com


A very good read!