We'll be back!
Well, the sports writers were right after all.
Despite a larger than average Bears' offensive line and a smaller than average Indianapolis defensive line, the former was dominated Sunday by the latter. The Bears were unable to run well enough to matter against a team vulnerable to the run. Meanwhile, Rhodes and Addai surprised me by having a good night against the Bears' defensive line. The result: the Colts dominated time of possession, kept the Bears offense off the field-and won the Super Bowl.
The Bears' game plan worked to a "T-" only for the wrong team.
The Colts were my pre-season picks to win at all, and I can't say I am surprised- or disappointed- that, if the Bears had to lose, it was to Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning. They and the rest of the Indianapolis franchise are richly deserving of their moment of triumph. The Bears got their heads handed to them Sunday even in areas of the game where they figured to be superior, and Lovie Smith's post-game comment was exactly on target: "They played better than we did. It's clear from what happened tonight that we aren't yet where we want to be."
Which is the solace for Bears fans: we'll be back- and better prepared next time.
I have no doubt that Sunday's game would have been far more competitive had Tommy Harris and especially Mike Brown been on the field Sunday; you can't lose two players that important to your defense without a major impact. One of the more perceptive pre-game articles argued that the absense of those two players would prove to be the difference between the Colts and the Bears, and perhaps it did. The fact is that the Bears simply weren't the same team after Brown went down. Precisely the defense against the run deterriorated badly especially after the injury to Brown; he would have made a major difference Sunday night. The season-ending injury to Harris, in retrospect, sealed their fate; the defensive inconsistency which dogged them late this season was the direct consequence of those two injuries.
Without Brown and Harris, the Bears were simply not the same team. With those two injuries, the boys from Halas Hall went from having the best defense and arguably the best team in the NFL to simply having one of the better ones. Well, Brown and Harris will be back next year, and I'm reassured that Lovie understands that the Bears are still a work in progress, in need of adjustments on a variety of fronts if they're going to get where the organization is committed to getting.
I see the Super Bowl this year more or less as the contemporary equivalent of the 1984 NFC championship game, in which the Bears got stomped by the 49'ers; the San Francisco newspapers jeered, "Next time, bring your offense." Well, we did- along with one of the greatest defenses in NFL history- and took the 49ers' place on top of the NFL heap. Next year, the Bears will be a team on a mission- and hopefully a team which has addressed the flaws Sunday night showed to clearly.
One of the main sore spots, of course, was at quarterback. Instead of taking advantage of the Colts' vulnerability (inherent, as Peyton Manning realized, in the "Cover Two" defense, which Tony Dungy himself originated at Tampa Bay) to short and medium-range passes, Grossman tried to go long far too often- and went back to making up his mind, apparently, to throw passes whether his receiver was open or not. In fairness, of course, it was offensive coordinator Ron Turner, not Grossman, who actually made the dubious play selections; Rex simply ran the plays he was given. Even more disturbingly, his interceptions were "floaters-" balls that simply hung in the air. One was a pass to an open receiver which should have resulted in a huge gain at a critical moment (or perhaps even a Bears touchdown) had it not simply hung there an instant before falling- and as a result, falling into the arms of an Indianapolis defender. There is a reason why passes "float," and with Grossman, it's a all too familiar one: that's what happens when theyre thrown off the back foot. This disasterous and fundamental flaw in Grossman's mechanics has been pointed out to him over and over and over again. If he's still making the same basic mistake at the point- and in the Super Bowl, at that!- it's cause for real worry. One wonders whether Grossman might not turn out to be the Corey Patterson of the Bears- a player with all the talent in the world, who simply can't- or won't- accept coaching. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that the Bears have won 15 of the 19 games Grossman has started- and that his faults are almost indentical to those Brett Favre at the same point in his career.
We will probably lose defensive coordinator Ron Rivera over the summer; several teams want him to be their head coach. Free agency might well cost us Lance Briggs- a blow which we should do everything possible to avoid. Losing Super Bowl teams often have a tough time even making the playoffs the next season, and the way the Super Bowl XX champions degenerated over the summer to be merely the unsuccessful top level contenders of subsequent seasons. Professional football isn't a game it's easy to stay near the top of the heap in; Super Bowl caliber teams are fragile things that tend not to last long.
Grossman, again, has all the talent in the world; nobody who has seen "Good Rex" in action can doubt that. But I really have to question whether the Bears have the time to let him develop. By the time he does, the current team will likely be well on the downward slide. I don't advocate cutting or trading him. But I do hope Lovie and Jerry Angelo will do everything possible to pry, say, Jeff Garcia out of the Eagles' claws (Donovan McNabb, of course, will be back as the starting quarterback in Philly). Get a top level veteran (sorry, but Brian Griese doesn't qualify) to run this offense while Rex watches for a year or two. Give him both time to mature and a mentor. Let him reach his potential when he reaches it- but don't undermine the Bears' chances of getting back to the Super Bowl and actually winning it by forcing this team to spend its window of viability with a quarterback who, unfortunately, remains a long, long way from being the kind of quarterback who wins Super Bowls.
So I'm disappointed, but not crushed. The Bears will be back. They'll use this loss the same way they did their 1984 embarassment against the 49'ers: as motivation. And when the Bears do win their tenth NFL championship (I'll never understand the silly habit of writing off half the league's history and only counting victories since the NFL Championship Game simply changed its name), it will be all the sweeter for this disappointment.
One final point: something has got to be done about the announcers for post-season games. The guys in the booth were openly pulling successively for the Saints and the Colts during the Bears' last two games, and it got so bad in the Super Bowl that I finally turned off the sound. I have nothing against a little partisanship, if it's balanced by partisanship from the other perspective. But listening to the supposedly neutral announcers shamelessly root for the other team does tend to be a downer, especially when you get down to conference championship and Super Bowl time.
But anyway, one last time: Let's hear it for the Bears' victory in Super Bowl XLII!
Despite a larger than average Bears' offensive line and a smaller than average Indianapolis defensive line, the former was dominated Sunday by the latter. The Bears were unable to run well enough to matter against a team vulnerable to the run. Meanwhile, Rhodes and Addai surprised me by having a good night against the Bears' defensive line. The result: the Colts dominated time of possession, kept the Bears offense off the field-and won the Super Bowl.
The Bears' game plan worked to a "T-" only for the wrong team.
The Colts were my pre-season picks to win at all, and I can't say I am surprised- or disappointed- that, if the Bears had to lose, it was to Tony Dungy and Peyton Manning. They and the rest of the Indianapolis franchise are richly deserving of their moment of triumph. The Bears got their heads handed to them Sunday even in areas of the game where they figured to be superior, and Lovie Smith's post-game comment was exactly on target: "They played better than we did. It's clear from what happened tonight that we aren't yet where we want to be."
Which is the solace for Bears fans: we'll be back- and better prepared next time.
I have no doubt that Sunday's game would have been far more competitive had Tommy Harris and especially Mike Brown been on the field Sunday; you can't lose two players that important to your defense without a major impact. One of the more perceptive pre-game articles argued that the absense of those two players would prove to be the difference between the Colts and the Bears, and perhaps it did. The fact is that the Bears simply weren't the same team after Brown went down. Precisely the defense against the run deterriorated badly especially after the injury to Brown; he would have made a major difference Sunday night. The season-ending injury to Harris, in retrospect, sealed their fate; the defensive inconsistency which dogged them late this season was the direct consequence of those two injuries.
Without Brown and Harris, the Bears were simply not the same team. With those two injuries, the boys from Halas Hall went from having the best defense and arguably the best team in the NFL to simply having one of the better ones. Well, Brown and Harris will be back next year, and I'm reassured that Lovie understands that the Bears are still a work in progress, in need of adjustments on a variety of fronts if they're going to get where the organization is committed to getting.
I see the Super Bowl this year more or less as the contemporary equivalent of the 1984 NFC championship game, in which the Bears got stomped by the 49'ers; the San Francisco newspapers jeered, "Next time, bring your offense." Well, we did- along with one of the greatest defenses in NFL history- and took the 49ers' place on top of the NFL heap. Next year, the Bears will be a team on a mission- and hopefully a team which has addressed the flaws Sunday night showed to clearly.
One of the main sore spots, of course, was at quarterback. Instead of taking advantage of the Colts' vulnerability (inherent, as Peyton Manning realized, in the "Cover Two" defense, which Tony Dungy himself originated at Tampa Bay) to short and medium-range passes, Grossman tried to go long far too often- and went back to making up his mind, apparently, to throw passes whether his receiver was open or not. In fairness, of course, it was offensive coordinator Ron Turner, not Grossman, who actually made the dubious play selections; Rex simply ran the plays he was given. Even more disturbingly, his interceptions were "floaters-" balls that simply hung in the air. One was a pass to an open receiver which should have resulted in a huge gain at a critical moment (or perhaps even a Bears touchdown) had it not simply hung there an instant before falling- and as a result, falling into the arms of an Indianapolis defender. There is a reason why passes "float," and with Grossman, it's a all too familiar one: that's what happens when theyre thrown off the back foot. This disasterous and fundamental flaw in Grossman's mechanics has been pointed out to him over and over and over again. If he's still making the same basic mistake at the point- and in the Super Bowl, at that!- it's cause for real worry. One wonders whether Grossman might not turn out to be the Corey Patterson of the Bears- a player with all the talent in the world, who simply can't- or won't- accept coaching. On the other hand, it's worth remembering that the Bears have won 15 of the 19 games Grossman has started- and that his faults are almost indentical to those Brett Favre at the same point in his career.
We will probably lose defensive coordinator Ron Rivera over the summer; several teams want him to be their head coach. Free agency might well cost us Lance Briggs- a blow which we should do everything possible to avoid. Losing Super Bowl teams often have a tough time even making the playoffs the next season, and the way the Super Bowl XX champions degenerated over the summer to be merely the unsuccessful top level contenders of subsequent seasons. Professional football isn't a game it's easy to stay near the top of the heap in; Super Bowl caliber teams are fragile things that tend not to last long.
Grossman, again, has all the talent in the world; nobody who has seen "Good Rex" in action can doubt that. But I really have to question whether the Bears have the time to let him develop. By the time he does, the current team will likely be well on the downward slide. I don't advocate cutting or trading him. But I do hope Lovie and Jerry Angelo will do everything possible to pry, say, Jeff Garcia out of the Eagles' claws (Donovan McNabb, of course, will be back as the starting quarterback in Philly). Get a top level veteran (sorry, but Brian Griese doesn't qualify) to run this offense while Rex watches for a year or two. Give him both time to mature and a mentor. Let him reach his potential when he reaches it- but don't undermine the Bears' chances of getting back to the Super Bowl and actually winning it by forcing this team to spend its window of viability with a quarterback who, unfortunately, remains a long, long way from being the kind of quarterback who wins Super Bowls.
So I'm disappointed, but not crushed. The Bears will be back. They'll use this loss the same way they did their 1984 embarassment against the 49'ers: as motivation. And when the Bears do win their tenth NFL championship (I'll never understand the silly habit of writing off half the league's history and only counting victories since the NFL Championship Game simply changed its name), it will be all the sweeter for this disappointment.
One final point: something has got to be done about the announcers for post-season games. The guys in the booth were openly pulling successively for the Saints and the Colts during the Bears' last two games, and it got so bad in the Super Bowl that I finally turned off the sound. I have nothing against a little partisanship, if it's balanced by partisanship from the other perspective. But listening to the supposedly neutral announcers shamelessly root for the other team does tend to be a downer, especially when you get down to conference championship and Super Bowl time.
But anyway, one last time: Let's hear it for the Bears' victory in Super Bowl XLII!
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