Olson: What a bummer of a win
CHICAGO – The Bears and United Airlines missed out on a great promotional opportunity Sunday.
It turned out that the Bears’ 30-6 win against the Cleveland Browns was the ideal game for “sleep mask day” at Soldier Field. The crowd was whisper quiet for much of the day, and the sun was bright and warm. Conditions were ideal for a quick nap.
If you watched this game on TV, maybe you snuck in some Zs. If you did, chances are you didn’t miss much, other than a few runs for no gain by Bears running back Matt Forte and maybe a punishing hit or two on quarterback Jay Cutler.
“It felt almost like a preseason game,” said Bears nose tackle Tommie Harris, who actually did play this week and made [it says here] two tackles. “I didn’t really understand it.”
Few blowout wins ever have inspired so much negativity on the winning side. How weird was it? After the Bears, who were up by 17 points, failed to score on four tries from the 2-yard line, they were booed by the home fans, who headed for the exits in droves with 4:56 left in the game.
Those who left did miss a predictable interception return for a touchdown by Bears cornerback Charles Tillman, and a stat-padding 36-yard run by Garrett Wolfe.
Anyone who looks up the box score 10 years from now will see five Bears takeaways, 369 total yards of offense, and a 30-6 score and figure it was a dominating performance.
Those of us who lived it will know the whole story.
Yes, the Bears racked up some stats. Yes, their defense was dominant against one of the league’s most inept offenses, and got back in the habit of taking the ball away and scoring.
But the only thing that this game really proved is that the Browns are really bad. Comically so at times.
The Bears should have had this game put away by halftime. But the problems that have nagged them offensively continued, even against a defense that came in worst in the league in yards allowed (414.9 yards a game) and second-worst against the run (170.6 yards).
That same defense stopped the Bears on four tries from the 2-yard line, and kept the Bears out of the end zone five of the seven times the Bears were inside the 20.
Cutler, Bears cap pulled down low over his eyes, seemed to be trying his best to keep from saying what he really felt after the game.
Questions about the punishment he absorbed and then about the frustration of saying “we’ve got to get better” week after week seemed almost to penetrate his veneer of clichés and detachment.
“Uhhhh ... you know, no, I don’t know,” Cutler said when asked if he was frustrated. “There’s been times where everything kind of goes your way on one side of the ball, and defensively it seemed like that. ... We’ve got to give a little of the credit to Cleveland [defensive coordinator] Rob Ryan and those guys. ... But offensively, we’ve got to take a look at this and find out what we can do better.”
Were this a political campaign, the winning strategy would be “it’s the offensive line, stupid.”
The line struggles to keep the pass rush off of Cutler. The front five also don’t get much push off the line of scrimmage, which led to 9 of Forte’s 26 carries going for 2 yards or less Sunday.
Oh, and the offense doesn’t score a lot of touchdowns when they’re inside their opponents’ 20, in large part because they struggle to run in obvious running situations.
Orlando Pace, the Bears left tackle in his 13th season in the league, said sometimes it takes awhile for a group of offensive linemen to come together. Even this long.
“There’s no real timeline on it,” Pace said. “You just know when it happens.”
So the best is yet to come, then?
“Yeah, no question,” Pace said.
There. It’s going to get better, see? That ought to lift your spirits after a 24-point victory.
• Eric Olson is the Northwest Herald’s sports editor. Reach him at 815-526-4554, or e-mail eolson@nwherald.com.
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