Tossed for a rattling loss
EJECTED, REJECTED, DEJECTED | It's tough uncovering positives in latest debacle of a defeat
If one positive came out of this latest humiliating defeat it's that denial is no longer an option. Coach Lovie Smith tried to be positive after the Bears' latest demoralizing loss, claiming the team's short week was coming at an ideal time and his team's inexcusable penalty total was a product of needing to do things ''differently'' and a little more ''aggressively,'' but nobody was buying it, not even his players.
Feel free to demand a coaching change in the wake of this latest debacle. Performances like the Bears' during a 41-21 home loss to the Cardinals on Sunday get coaches fired, especially when it's the second such demoralizing outing in three weeks. Not only are the Bears not playing winning football, they're not playing competitive or competent football. Try as he might, not even Smith could claim otherwise after his defense collapsed once again.
Feel free to question the Bears' schemes and talent. You can claim they lack heart and even a backbone after allowing the Cardinals to score on their first six possessions. The one thing you can't say, however, is that they don't have a conscience. As hard as it might be to believe after so thorough a thrashing, they do have that. Alex Brown, like the rest of his defensive mates, admittedly didn't play as well as he would've liked while recording two tackles, one sack and a forced fumble.
But if a second positive came out of this latest Bear-Down beat down, it was that at least one player struck the right chord afterward. If not the coach, at least one player was willing to level with the media and fans and admit that players did not deserve their paychecks after this one.
This one hurt so much, Brown may as well have opened a vein and bled directly into the notebooks and microphones.
''Anybody who doesn't feel bad after that shouldn't be here,'' Brown said. ''That's horrible. We stunk up the place. It was pretty bad. I don't really know what to do. We've got another game Thursday. I know we keep saying go home and soul search and look at yourself, but I don't know. It might be something more. It might be more than that.''
Tommie Harris was ejected for punching Deuce Lutui less than a minute into the game, which turned out to be one of the few times a Bears defender delivered a blow. Kurt Warner threw five touchdown passes. Arizona's 32nd-ranked rushing offense gained 182 yards. Not only did the Cardinals convert all six third downs in the first half and 8 of 14 for the game, but they had only two second downs on a nine-play scoring drive in the first quarter.
It was so easy that Warner and receiver Larry Fitzgerald were sipping umbrella drinks in the huddle while staking the Cards to a 31-7 halftime lead.
An advertisement by a moving company that flashed on the video board during the game read: ''We move the Bears without a scratch,'' which the Cardinals' offense now plans to use as its official slogan. Brown doesn't know why that is so, but he agonized over that and other questions afterwards.
With the season slipping away, it's nice to know that at least one player was as disgusted as the 62,309 fans forced to witness it live.
He couldn't come up with an answer when asked to elaborate on what might be missing. But at least he's not in denial.
''If it's going to work, we've got to believe it's going to work," he said. ''We've got to have a sense of urgency, and we don't have that right now. I don't know what the hell is wrong, but we've got to change it. It's the eighth game, and I know a lot of people like to think we're better than 4-4, but our record is 4-4 so that's what we are. If we have any aspirations of going further or making it to the playoffs, we've got to play a hell of a lot better."
If there was a third positive, however minute, it was that the Bears didn't remain in the fetal position for the entire second half. Greg Olsen's third touchdown reception pulled them within 34-21 with 9:04 left in the fourth quarter. After that, the Bears' defense actually forced a few punts and Zack Bowman picked off a pass. It looked like they might make things interesting until a Jay Cutler interception ended that silly notion.
"For about five minutes during that game we actually believed that we could win and played like it," Brown said. "Why the hell couldn't we do that in the first place? That's what we have to figure out. We can do that. We can be pretty good. If not, we're going to go home like a bunch of other teams this season."
If there was a fourth positive from Sunday's game, it's that the Bears will play the 49ers on Thursday night in San Francisco, which means there's less time to hear about how the cover-2 is still effective or how they can fix their myriad of problems on the practice field. Their time for denial has ended.
The only way to convince us that they are better than what they showed against the Bengals and Cardinals is to prove it.