Rerun

I wish I was talking about Rerun from What's Happening!!. I'm wondering if I should have been watching The Departed or Goodfellas, excellent Scorsese films that were on Sunday night. Don't get me wrong, I love watching the Bears even in defeat. However I feel like I've seen this game before, just. Follow me if you will through Goodfellas and 4 of the Bears losses (GB, ATL, SF, PHI) this season. The Bears open poorly get beat on both sides of the ball. Henry gets a job at the Cab stand misses school and gets beat by his dad. The Bears put together a few long drives to get back in the game. Scorsese uses a couple long shots to introduce you to Henry's adult mob life, the most famous of which goes through the Copacabana. The Bears momentum fades and the Bears do what they can to stay alive. Cutler does his best Joe Pesci impression unleashing a tantrum as NBC goes to break. Henry gets sent to jail starts to deal drugs to get through it. The Bears' opponents take back the lead late. Henry starts seeing helicopters and gets arrest for dealing drugs. Cutler frantically leads the Bears on a 2 minute drill but flushes the Bears hopes down the drain when he gets intercepted. Henry frantically gets home to get the drugs he left before he was arrested but finds that Karen has flushed the drugs down the toilet. The Bears lose another close one and will now probably watch the post-season on tv like schmucks like everyone else. Henry enters the witness protection program and now lives like a schmuck like everyone else.

Cutler. This was actually the first game since Green Bay I thought Jay was off. In other high turnover games, I thought Cutler's interceptions were more a product of unfortunate circumstances and the reality of playing 3 TDs down. I felt Cutler kind of lost his edge. He wasn't forcing many balls, as a result many of the passes were Orton dump downs. He also missed on balls to open Olson, Hester, and Knox.

Red Zone. The key to this season is probably in the Red Zone. With better play in the red zone, the Bears, probably defeat the Falcons, Packers, Niners, and Eagles. Twice the Bears were in the red zone in the first half and only came out with a field goal.

Defense. I thought the defense played reasonably well. Its not the defense that wouldn't allow more than 20 points, but its also not the same defense that we saw against the Bengals and the Cards. You can tell the Bears miss that inside stabilizing force of Brown and Urlacher. I thought that Alex Brown and Marcus Harrison showed great recognition, complete blowing up a couple screen passes. Charles Tillman showed why he is the best at causing fumbles. I'm actually going to name it a Tillman any time a corner causes a fumble on a slant route just after the ball is caught. It also appears that Bowman can grow into his role. I think they just need to stop switching the DBs positions and start to develop some players in one role.

Turner. I've defended Turner in the past, because you can't always blame the coordinator for the miscues of the players. However, I thought there were a few instances were I would have called things differently. First of, after the success of the screen pass last week, why didn't he call a screen pass to Forte until 11 mins left in the 4th quarter. Second, that wide receiver screen has got to go, especially on long yardage situations. Third, a straight run play up the gut on 1st and 20?

At the end of the day... One of my favorite overused expressions in sports, but at the end of the day this loss likely ends whatever was left of the Bears season. So why play? To show improvement. I doesn't even matter in draft position because we don't have 1st or 2nd round picks. If I was Lovie, I'd say just go out and have fun. There's no pressure to make the playoffs because its so unlikely that it will happen. Just play free, get some hits, and score some TDs.