This blowout none too pretty
Bears' Cutler gets nailed, hits nail on the head: 'We have to get better'
Here's what the Browns must do. Go to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in downtown Cleveland, find a section that suits their individual tastes -- rap, gospel, death metal, whatever -- and quit playing football for a while.
Meditate. Reflect.
Like the rest of the season.
Quarterback Derek Anderson and his alleged ''receivers'' should lock themselves in the prison music area and ponder career changes.
I don't know what the 1-7 Browns are doing, but it's not pro football.
''I don't want to say he was bad,'' said Bears free safety Danieal Manning of Anderson, who on a day of perfect weather had an astounding 0.0 quarterback rating at the half before surging to a ludicrous 10.5 for the game. ''But this is the National Football League. I don't think those guys are bad.''
Manning had a great game himself -- six tackles, a diving interception returned for 16 yards, a pass broken up, a fumble forced and recovered for five more yards. Bears coach Lovie Smith called him the ''probably the best athlete on the team.'' And Manning, a modest fellow who changes on the field like his hero, the Hulk, admitted in an aside, ''Coach tells me that sometimes. And I believe him, because he doesn't open his mouth just to say things.''
But Manning is wrong. About the Browns, that is.
They and their offense are terrible.
We'll get to the Bears in a second, but that can't be done without sorting out this heartless shell of an outfit from the shores of Lake Erie. Indeed, every time Bears quarterback Jay Cutler got blasted on a scramble or sacked or threw badly or was rudely -- and I'm saying illegally -- crushed into the sod by 395-pound (real weight) Shaun Rogers, the Browns did something so stupid that it defied reason. Or talent. Or coaching. Or caring.
Take Cleveland receivers Mohamed Massaquoi and Steve Heiden. They caught three passes and fumbled the ball back twice.
Jeez, guys, just get out of the way. Let the Browns do what they do best, punt.
Curious: Where is Braylon Edwards, Kellen Winslow, Brian Sipe, for God's sake?
If Brady Quinn can't start on this team, why did he go to Notre Dame?
First-year coach Eric Man-genius, go listen to the Doors' ''This is the End'' till 2010.
OK, we're done with the Browns.
This was a Bears win, after all, and if it was the ugliest blowout win in recent memory, it still moved the Bears above .500 and kept them alive for a wild-card spot in a division with the sizzling Vikings.
Cutler, whose chin was blasted by a helmet and whose ribs must have been near collapse after getting pile-driven by the immense tackle Rogers, was as disgusted a winning quarterback as you are likely to see.
''We have to get better,'' he said. ''That's the state we're in.''
Imagine, the Bears outgained the Browns 369 total yards to 191, got 90 yards rushing from maligned tailback Matt Forte, including two touchdowns from him (one a beautiful left-to-right, switchback 10-yard sprint to the northeast pylon), and still they felt they stunk.
The brown spreads and clings, you know.
It even affected stellar Bears punter Brad Maynard, who shanked an inexplicable 12-yarder in the third period, and then launched a 25-yard blob a few minutes later.
It's hard to believe, but even with that 0.0 passer rating late in the third quarter, Anderson (6-for-17-for 76 yards, two interceptions) had Cleveland in position to make a game of it right then. The score was only 16-6 Bears, and Cutler and his mates were out of sorts and minus rhythm.
Naturally, the Browns shot themselves in both feet, every knee and their orange helmets, with Heiden promptly fumbling to Manning at the Bears 46.
''I'm not happy about anything,'' said one-time decent quarterback Anderson in deserved disgust.
Oops, no more about the Browns.
The Bears did survive this odd thing, and sometimes that's all you do, and you move on.
But the vision will linger of the battered Cutler, who was erratic (17-for-30, for 225 yards and one interception) and how he could have been badly injured after releasing a sweet 31-yard completion to Johnny Knox in the third quarter and then getting the full-Rogers pancake.
The Bears without even an erratic Cutler are a car without gas.
''The official felt pretty good about the [no] call, so we had to,'' said Lovie, toeing the protest line without going over. ''I have a real good angle. From the angle that I had, yeah ...''
Such is football.
Thus, the halftime honoring of the late Walter Payton was inspiration even on a confusing day.
I remember talking with the great Bears running back just before he broke Jim Brown's all-time rushing record back in mid-October 1984.
''The way you think is the way you are,'' Sweetness said cheerily. ''And I think I'm 23.''
He was 30. And, like a warrior must, he took what even the weak gave him.