Well, what do you haters have to say now? Well, I'll tell you because I was one of the haters...notice I said "was" because this was a HUGE win for this franchise, this coach (actually all three of our head coaches), and this QB. I still HATE the Bears GM Jerry Angelo as this team is put together with duct tape and paper clips, but this coaching staff put together a pretty amazing game plan to take advantage of the tools and players currently at their disposal. The downside for me of the 8-3 record to date is that the status quo will remain...and while Lovie and Martz and Marinelli (those are the 3 head coaches on the staff) have pulled this thing together, I believe this is happening despite what Jerry Angelo has done to this roster not thanks to his efforts but now is not the time to spotlight this major deficiency.
Let's face some facts though...the Bears did face one of the easiest schedules to date as their opponents had a combined winning percentage of .370 going into today's game...that's really pretty pathetic. And the only team with a winning record they had beaten before today was the Packers on Monday Night Football. The Packers probably played one of their worst games of the season with a TON of really stupid penalties and practically gave the game to the Bears, but it was still a win; a divisional win; a BIG win against their #1 arch rival too.
But that was really it as far as Ws against good teams...you can say "what about Dallas?" but they were a TOTAL mess when they played...you can say "what about the Vikings?" but they were even more of a mess. If not for a just terrible rule forcing receivers to "complete the process", they would have lost their home opener against the lowly Lions. You have to wonder what might have happened had they lost that game...actually, you don't "have to wonder" as we're way past that game now. When they lost the game against the Giants most people (again, myself included) wrote them off for the season as they fell to 3-1. They only lost 17-3 although Cutler would tell you (if he remembered any of it) it seemed much worse that that and showed how seemingly flawed this team really was.
They came right back the next week to demolish a HORRID Carolina Panthers team with their backup QB Todd Collins throwing 4 picks and only 6 receptions to his own guys. But the next two games really turned the tide against them with home losses to so-so teams Washington and Seattle back-to-back. Brutal!
The bye week seemed to come at the perfect time so the Bears coaching staff could regroup. They were 4-3 going into the bye and not at all firing on all cylinders. The big question on everyone's mind...could these pretty arrogant coaches REALLY take a look at their personnel and REALLY put together a game plan that "gives them the best chance to win". How many times have we heard this from Lovie over the years about his head-scratching personnel decisions?
But then came another terrible team in winless Buffalo and they barely eeked out a W up in Toronto in front of a bipartisan crowd (not fair to the Bills who were supposed to be the home team) with a BIG pick late in the game turning a sure game-clinching TD on a slightly underthrown pass into the game-winning drive for the Bears...another W and they were now at 5-3.
Next up were the reeling Vikings that were imploding at the time but that was still Brett Favre and Adrian Peterson and a division rival. They took pretty good care of them with a nice game plan and they totally shut down Favre (4 turnovers) and AP (averaged 3 ypc and no TDs). Nice W, but the 5-3 Bears were actually slight underdogs AT HOME against the 3-5 Vikings...so I wasn't the only hater out there; it seems not many people in the entire country believed in them.
Next up was a trip to Miami. The Dolphins were 5-4 but their 4 losses came to the Jets, Patriots, Pittsburgh and Baltimore while the Bears at 6-3 had lost to the Redskins, Seahawks, and Giants. So again the team with the better record was an underdog and again the underdog Bears won the ballgame. But the breaks continued to fall the Bears' ways (I'm referring to their easy starting schedule and the Packers' play in their first game) when all three of the Miami QBs were knocked out in their previous game (a W at home against the Titans) leaving 3rd string Tyler Thigpen as the starter against the Bears. He was WAY out manned by one of the NFL's best defenses and the Bears had their first shutout and a tie atop the NFC North at 7-3.
Surely now they'd be favored at home...I mean they were 7-3 and playing at home although they were playing the red-hot Philly Eagles and no, they were not the favorite AGAIN as a 3-point underdog. I had heard the Bears were 3-0 against Michael Vick (or is it Mike Vick now?)...well, after a nearly perfect game by the hometown Bears, they are now 4-0 against Vick and even more importantly 8-3 and ALONE at the top of the NFC North as the Packers were losing in Atlanta on a last second field goal.
Do I wish we had a better offensive line? HECK YA! Cutler was sacked 4 times in that first half (none in the second half!) with a couple of them happening without an interior D-lineman getting a finger laid on them by our O-line. But with this newly transformed Mike Martz O, they mix things up enough to keep the defenses way off balance. They had huge play after huge play this afternoon in the Fox game of the day with two first place teams facing off. Cutler has been pretty close to amazing as of late making many, many, many more good decisions than bad since the bye week and is now actually taking advantage of his amazing athletic skills by running for big chunks of yardage when flushed out of the pocket...this instead of forcing the ball into a tight spot for a pick or holding onto the ball for a sack and maybe a fumble. The D and the newly ball secure conscious Jay Cutler along with the new run-oriented (ya, I said it!) offense are the keys to the turn-around.
So in my opinion, EVERYTHING is clicking MUCH better now with this team. Are they world beaters? No, but they don't have to be...they don't have to beat the world; they just have to win the majority of their remaining games to get into the playoffs and see what happens. Certainly teams that have looked worse than these Bears have gone to the playoffs in the past and have done some serious damage when they got there so all you can really do now is continue to learn and get better and try to be peaking come playoff time.
GO BEARS!
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