‘Crisis mode’ plagues Bears’ defense

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The Cardinals’ Anthony Becht (84) scores a touchdown past the Bears’ Lance Briggs (left), Danieal Manning (center) and Kevin Payne (not pictured) on Sunday at Soldier Field. Arizona scored touchdowns on four consecutive drives to start the game. (AP Photo)

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LAKE FOREST – A rare dose of candor emerged Monday at the Bears’ practice facility after the team scrutinized its latest lopsided loss in a half-empty season.

Players viewed film of Sunday’s 41-21 loss to the Arizona Cardinals that showed plenty of missed tackles, missed assignments and dumb penalties. But Bears linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer went one step further Monday when he said the defense needed to show more mental toughness.

“I’m not trying to play team psychologist here or anything,” said Hillenmeyer, who relays the plays to his teammates in the defensive huddle.

“I just think that there’s a mind-set that we need to have. You saw there at the beginning of that game – we come out and things look like they’re going well, and then they convert one third down, and we’re in crisis mode for the next three quarters.

“That can’t happen,” Hillenmeyer said. “Bad things happen to every team in every football game, and we need to find a way on defense that when those bad things happen, we bounce back. [So that if] we miss a play we’re ready to make a play. We don’t miss a play and then go into the tank and say ‘Oh no, here we go again.’ ”

At times, the Bears’ struggles on defense have resembled an afternoon re-run. Coach Lovie Smith’s defensive unit has allowed more than 40 points twice in the past three weeks after surrendering that total twice in the previous five seasons.

Smith still had no answers Monday about why his defense was dominated in every facet of the game.

“After a day like [Sunday], I can’t give you a lot of reasons why it happened,” Smith said. “It happened.”

Instead, Smith opted to look ahead toward the Bears’ game Thursday night at San Francisco.

“We’re just halfway through the football season,” he said, “and they don’t announce the winner after halftime.”

Good thing.

In almost every game this season, the Bears have been blown away in the first quarter before regaining their composure after halftime. Opponents have outscored the Bears by a 59-20 margin in the first quarter and a 127-70 margin in the first half.

After Sunday’s loss, Hillenmeyer said, defensive captain Lance Briggs stood up in the locker room and told his teammates that they needed to start each game believing they were the better team. The Bears played the Cleveland Browns with that belief and won by 24 points.

“We went into that game knowing we were going to win,” Hillenmeyer said. “We went into that game with confidence and a swagger and an attitude. I know that people thought that that game was kind of an ugly win, but it was the best performance we had on defense all year. And regardless of who your opponent is, if you go into a game with that mentality, then better things are going to happen.”

Veteran cornerback Nathan Vasher said better things could happen with this Bears defense.

“We have a lot of veteran guys on this team that have a lot of pride, and we feel like we can go out and play up to our ability,” Vasher said. “We’re still the same team that can go out there and dominate. That’s something that we have to put out on display instead of talking about it.”

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