Jason McKie (left) celebrates with Matt Forte after one of Forte's two TDs.
Rarely in the NFL's hallowed history has a 30-6 victory looked less impressive or drawn more boos from a victorious home crowd than what we witnessed Sunday at Soldier Field.
Talk about ugly: The Bears came out in their Halloween orange (not the most appropriate look on a day you're honoring Walter Payton) and played uninspired offensive football, especially in the red zone. But thanks to the absolute ineptitude of the Browns' offense (five giveaways leading to 20 Bears points), Lovie & Co. get a badly needed bounce-back victory.
The Bears can't afford to fumble their chance to beat up on an NFL patsy.
As we've discussed, it's the year of the blowout in the NFL. We know that Vegas bookies are taking a bath as one creampuff after another gets trounced by double-digit margins. Hard to believe there are still three winless teams (the Rams and Buccaneers at 0-7, the Titans at 0-6). Among the teams with only one victory are the Cleveland Browns, who visit Soldier Field on Sunday. Just what the Bears need: a truly awful opponent.
But the way the Bears were outclassed Sunday, you could argue they have "awful" potential themselves. Lovie Smith has stressed that the 45-10 shellacking in Cincinnati was just one game, and the bookies are expecting a big bounce-back this weekend. How about you?
Browns QB Derek Anderson feels the pain during Sunday's 31-3 loss to Green Bay.
If you're a Bears fan who wasted three hours of your life watching the 45-10 debacle Sunday at Cincinnati, you don't need any further rehashing here of how excruciating that ordeal was. Many of you already have vented your spleen on the previous thread, and your criticisms of Lovie Smith and his admittedly embarrassed players were dead-on.
You can read all about it elsewhere on this site: Neil Hayes calls it possibly the worst loss in franchise history, given the hype surrounding Jay Cutler and the fact the Bears were mere one-point underdogs. Mike Mulligan says this could be the death knell of the Bears' Tampa-2 defense. And no one is happier today than former Bears castoff Ced Benson, who rushed for a career-high 189 yards.
Ex-Bear Cedric Benson has been finding plenty of running room in Cincinnati.
So many story angles to Bears vs. Bengals: Cedric Benson accusing his former team of trying to blackball him while flashing the running ability with the Bengals that we never saw in Chicago. Tank Johnson, embroiled in controversy during his stint with the Bears, claiming to be a new man in Cincinnati. The wacky Chad Ochocinco twittering up a storm all week, talking trash with various Bears while also sending congratulatory tweets to Jay Cutler on his contract extension. And, oh yes, the game itself (which has been moved back to a 3:15 p.m. Central start to maximize the Fox viewing audience).
What looked like an easy game when the Bears' schedule was released last spring now looms as another rugged road assignment. The Bengals are off to a surprising 4-2 start, with victories over Pittsburgh and at Green Bay (where the Bears were unable to win), and they understandably have been installed as 1 1/2-point favorites. But in spite of all the Bears' flaws that were exposed in Atlanta, I look for them to walk away from this one with a victory.
Jay Cutler figures to give the Bears stability at quarterback for many years to come.
Major news broke Tuesday night (reported first by Mike Mulligan on suntimes.com): Jay Cutler has agreed to a contract extension that will keep the 26-year-old quarterback with the Bears at least through 2013 and make him one of the NFL's five highest-paid QBs. If you're a Bears fan, you have to be thrilled that there won't be any contractual controversy involving the team's franchise player for the foreseeable future.
Kyle Orton guided the Broncos to another upset victory Monday night at San Diego.
It's the last thing we would have expected coming out of the preseason: Kyle Orton, who was error-prone and injured while the Broncos were losing all four of their exhibition games, is playing like a Pro Bowl quarterback for a Denver team that is 6-0 after Monday's convincing 34-23 victory at San Diego.
Meanwhile, in Minnesota, 40-year-old Brett Favre has found the fountain of youth in leading the Vikings to a 6-0 start. Despite first declining to come of retirement and then, after changing his mind once again, barely breaking a sweat in the preseason, Favre is flashing his gun-slinging style, rallying Minnesota to yet another come-from-behind victory Sunday over Baltimore.
Orton and the Broncos. Favre and the Vikings. Who has been the NFL's biggest surprise so far this season? Here's my top-5 list:
Jay Cutler was pressured by a Falcons defense that shut down the Bears' run game.
Yes, the Bears let one get away. The conventional wisdom entering Sunday night's game in Atlanta was that Jay Cutler would have to have a huge passing night and it would take a high-scoring effort for Lovie Smith's charges to prevail in a raucous Georgia Dome.
As it turns out, the defense more than held its own against Matt Ryan & Co., but Cutler could have used a little help from his friends. The running game was non-existent, a fumble and two Cutler interceptions short-circuited drives and nine penalties further gummed up the works. And yet, just like on an earlier Sunday night in Green Bay, the Bears were still in the game in the final minute before failing on fourth-and-six from the Falcons' 10.
Quarterback Matt Ryan (left) and running back Michael Turner lead Atlanta's offense.
No less an authority than Hub Arkush, editor/publisher of Pro Football Weekly and longtime Bears radio analyst, calls it his Lock of the Week: The Atlanta Falcons will beat the Bears handily on Sunday night, their potent offense -- led by Matt Ryan and Michael Turner -- posing too many problems for Lovie Smith's suspect defense.
The Falcons are three-point favorites, playing at home in their dome and fresh off an impressive 45-10 rout of the 49ers at San Francisco. If the underdog Bears were to win, it would be quite an accomplishment, a victory that could stamp them as genuine Super Bowl contenders. But, what exactly will it take to get the job done?
Hi friends, Ricky here once again. Stu is out doing his thing, so I'll be in all week. Keep it clean, please.
For the record, I'd like to point out that I hated Brett Favre before it was cool to hate Brett Favre. Nowadays, Favre hate is all the rage: whether we're mocking his Wranglers or the sports media that adores him (I'm looking at you, Peter King and Jon Gruden), it seems like you can't read anything football related on the Internets without seeing some punk blogger (kids these days!) take a shot at the ol' gunslinger.
I don't know how I feel about this. I suppose it's comforting that America is starting to build up the type of disdain I've held for Favre for years, but it's also a bit confusing. It's like watching your favorite band become super popular, only the exact opposite. You're telling me that everyone hates Brett Favre now? But I hated him first!
I have loathed this man for my whole life, you see. It's because I have never known a sports world in which Favre wasn't a central figure. He started tormenting me when I was young - that 99-yard heave to Robert Brooks at Solider Field may be my earliest Bears memory - and he continues to do so to this day. His waffling ruins my offseasons, his touchdown celebrations put a tiny damper on my happiness. Favre is a true sports villain in every sense; one that must be stopped.
The question is this: are the 2009 Bears the team to do it?
Hi friends, Ricky here once again. Stu is out doing his thing, so I'll be in all week. Keep it clean, please.
Lovie Smith likes to talk about how he views football seasons in quarters and the Bears just finished their first. It wasn't always pretty but it was certainly a success: a 3-1 start is probably all we could have hoped for, even if the games weren't as aesthetically pleasing as we might have liked.
This was far from an easy 3-1. For all the talk of the Bears heading into the 2009 season with the league's easiest schedule, Sunday's home bout against the Lions was the only cupcake the Bears had in their first four games. The other three games were close, hard fought contests. There is little shame in losing by six at Lambeau to a Packers team that could win 10 games this year. Playing in Seattle - Seneca Wallace or no Seneca Wallace - is never an easy task, either. And I don't think I need to defend the merits of a close victory at home against the defending champs.
If I were in the business of giving out grades, the Bears would earn an A- from me in quarter number one. It was good, sure, but there is still plenty of room for improvement. These Bears have a long way to climb before they reach their ceiling.
Defensive end Adewale Ogunleye sacks Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford.
So the Bears do have a running game. And a pass rush. And they can win without going right down to the wire. There was a lot to like about their 48-24 taming of the Detroit Lions on Sunday.
Yes, things were dicey in the first half as rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford marched the Lions up and down the field, including a 98-yard TD drive. But when Johnny Knox returned the second-half kickoff 102 yards for a score, the Bears seized the lead and never looked back en route to boosting their record to 3-1 entering a bye week.
The Bears need to put the heat on Lions rookie quarterback Matthew Stafford.
The Detroit Lions haven't had a winning season since 2000. They finally managed to win a game last Sunday, snapping a 19-game losing streak with a 19-14 victory over Washington. The chances of them coming into Chicago and winning for a second consecutive week? Next to none, right? The oddmakers certainly think so, installing the Bears as 10-point favorites.
So why do I get the feeling that this one will be another nail-biter?
