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Bears Mon Oct 19 2009
Footballic Ramblings: Bears Beat Selves, Lose to Falcons
Congrats, Bears! I don't know how you did it, but you've somehow managed to crap the bed in successive seasons, against the same team, in the same stadium, yet in utterly disparate ways. This sort of artistic expression in the name of losing is commendable if not misguided, to wit:
(starting around the 2:18 mark:)
"The plain-faced existential anguish is so evident in this second fumble in as many plays at the goal line. It's reminiscent of Munch's finer works while not being derivative, my hat off to the artiste, Matt Forte."
Throw in Forte's anemic 1.5 yards per carry average and his 60 yards of total offense and you truly have a "piece de resistance" of offensive ineptitude. Yet, Monsieur Forte was not alone in his creative expression of failure. No, even the mighty Jay-Bot 5000 got in the on the arts and crafts at football's expense extravaganza, too. [He is a competitor, after all-Ed.] Cutler, seeing Forte's ineptitude in the running game, decided to raise his running back a pair of interceptions (two beautiful and hand-crafted dying quails that the Atlanta secondary just had to have).
Meanwhile, the post-Modern secondary of the Bears continued their assault on good taste and bourgeois notions of "defending the other team's receivers" by affording the willing Roddy White and Tony Gonzalez to score touchdowns of 40 and 10 yards, respectively.
Still not satisfied with what they saw from their teammates, Chicago's defensive front seven decided to get in on the act and contribute what they could to the "Art for Art's Sake Night" in the ATL. Not by basket-weaving (Alex Brown does teach a class on that topic but that's only at summer camp), but by not recording a single sack of the talented Mr. Ryan and by only notching one tackle for loss all night. The talented Mr. Ryan did try to keep up Cutler's two "creative expressions" by tossing two gimme INTs to the moody but curious Bears secondary: Nate Vasher you should send Matt Ryan a very nice thank you-note. Unfortunately, Ryan's efficient night managed to shine through his contributions to craft night and the Falcons defense collectively agreed to "Screw art night, we're here to play football." Which they did all night, managing to bully Forte into a husk of depersonalized disarray, because Forte (and Cutler, et al)was not himself last night.
Much more to come later in the week!
awfullyquiet / October 19, 2009 1:09 PM
I can say one of those INTs were clearly just an awful route running.
That said. I brutally dug into Clark for having piss poor route running earlier in the season. Again, he came up with some great plays (and great hands), and held onto the ball.
On the other hand.
What the heck was Turner doing with 3 rushers and 8 dropped playing prevent defense that Cutler couldn't even get into. Sure he ran 35! yards... but, the Bears went 110 yards down the field and didn't score at all. It was clutch performances by Olsen. Man, for every bad thing I could possibly think about the game, and how everyone (*cough* Denver fans) said. Look, Cutler can't win games! No. It's not on cutler, its never been just on Cutler. Lets start with Third and 25, what does Cutler do? Puts it at the 24 yard line. At 4th and 1, totally manageable (even with Forte getting 1.5 ypc)... and that turns into a 4th and 6? on the 9? The size of the field isn't long enough to let a play develop, and it's too short to play spread 4 wide hot routes like he did with Olsen earlier.
You have to set up the game for the man to win sometimes. This was one of those moments that regardless of how fantastic Cutler performed, the rest of the team didn't.
To note:
Who didn't call a time out when the falcons lined up trip wide? Who missed their assignment? These are questions I DEMAND be answered... The defense couldn't get around sam baker, they couldn't penetrate... and then left our corners and safeties open to kidney punching most of the game. Shame. Maybe Gaines Adams will help.