Week Five Bears Recap: I'll Be In The Basement Working The Heavy Bag

When I was a kid my dad used to send me down to the basement of our house after the Bears lost. I was supposed to expel my anger over another demoralizing defeat by working the heavy punching bag hanging next to Pinbot, the talking pinball machine. I don't know if he installed the heavy bag as a response to my young rage or it merely was a helpful coincidence that he had a son with anger management issues and a 75 pound bag of wool stuffing swinging next to the furnace. Either way, it was there I learned the sweet science. In later years, the sweet science, for me, consisted of taking furious blows to the head by off-duty Chicago cops and Aryan frat boys from Vanderbilt armed with Keystone Light bottles. But I digress...

I had the pleasure of watching the Bears game at my parents' house in Chicago this weekend. It was a great Sunday. I was hungover, we got a deep dish pizza, the Bears were outplaying Cleveland in every phase of the game.

Then I blinked. Or went to take a whiz. I don't know what happened but suddenly I was dropping F-bombs left and right, my mom was yelling at me, the dog was cowering under the table, and with two minutes left in the game my dad threatened to send me down to the basement.

How did we go from completely dominating a game for 56 minutes, controlling the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and having a 100 yard rusher to getting blown out by the Lake Erie Browns? I watched the entire game yesterday and I still don't know the name of one Cleveland defender. This one hurt, bad.

Kyle Orton didn't lose this game for us. Then again, he didn't win it either. There has to be a happy medium between throwing down the field against the Bengals for five interceptions and not taking one chance against the Browns a game later. I appreciate letting the running game develop and not screwing up good drives with poor choices from the passing game. But take a shot deep, please!

I'm sorry but now that I am writing this I really can't believe what happened. We were winning 10-6 with four minutes to go, right? What the hell happened? I don't know what Mike Green did to get benched in week one, but there is no way rookie free safety Chris Harris is better than Green. Getting burned in the fourth quarter of a close game is inexcusable. What was he worried about? Another Reuben Droughns 2 yard rush up the gut? I think Urlacher had that covered, Chris. NOW GET YOUR ASS IN THE F*$KING ENDZONE AND DECAPITATE ANTONIO BRYANT!

Oh boy, here I go again. Getting real angry.

I think the biggest mistake of the game was not challenging the Cedric Benson fumble. It was clear after the replays that he was down before losing the ball. Everyone in Chicago was confident when Fox went to commercial during the change of possession that we would challenge and get the ball back. How does a booth full of football coaches miss that? They see the same replays we do.

It just proves my theory that FOOTBALL COACHES ARE IDIOTS! The media loves to jump on these guys as "geniuses." Let's keep this in perspective, people. These are former football players, guys not smart enough to get into broadcasting when their pathetic careers are over, but lucky enough not to be ravaged by multiple concussions from covering punts for the 1974 St. Louis Cardinals. So they were better at memorizing a playbook and did a good job of kissing every coach's ass who they ever played for and now they are a bunch of Enrico Fermi's splitting football atoms in their sleep? No.

Now the Browns (it hurts just to write that word, knowing they actually beat us yesterday. Angry again) didn't score on the possession after the Benson "fumble" but they did punt from mid-field and the Bears were pinned in the shadow of the their own endzone the rest of the game. We'd have the ball at our own 10, punt, and Cleveland would start out at the 50. This happened two or three times and you just knew the Bears defense couldn't keep bending without breaking.

Did we really lose this game? I'm sorry. I just can't believe it. There is a silver lining, however. The Bears sucked last year, too. So we have a really easy schedule. At least for the next five games. Minnesota, Baltimore, at Detroit, at New Orleans, San Francisco. A great team goes 5-0 during that run. A good team, 4-1, The Bears? I have no idea. I always predict a 16-0 season so clearly the beatings to my neck and brow have taken their toll. Maybe I'll switch over to the speed bag next weekend, work on my left a little.