The Bears: hold on to the towels

As Bears fans are wont to do, the hand-wringing, second guessing and desire to throw in the towel will begin tonight given the beat down the Bears took from the NY Giants.  But, I say, hold on to your towels...

Despite Cris Collingsworth attempt to paint the Giants as an awesome defensive machine, despite the record-setting sacks in the game, the score was still 3-0 at the end of the first half.

You'd think, with all the praise being heaped on the Giants, that the Bears were doing nothing.  Yet the Bears defense kept Eli Manning's offense to just a field goal.

Where things went south were with the exit of Cutler and thus any leadership or rhythm to the offense.  The way Cutler played in the first half, though, you'd be right to say there was never any rhythm.  I mean, given all the blitzes the Giants were throwing, you'd think Cutler would figure someone would be free 5 yards from the line, and as the replays demonstrate, there always was.

This is where Mad Scientist Martz messes us up.  When you are in a defensive showdown, you take every 5 yard completion you can get and tell your QB to stop looking downfield.  Instead, Martz got Cutler concussed right out the game.

When your backup quarterback is in his 16th season, and no one has heard of him, you effectively knew the game was over.  Despite our defense, which continued to create amazing turnovers, the offense could do nothing.

At one point, I just wanted Urlacher, Harris and company to line up on the o-line and run routes.  Maybe even have Urlacher as QB.

This was a game where we needed the defense to score and, unfortunately, they were playing against Eli Manning and company, who are not known for allowing the defense to score on them.

This loss demonstrates that we have championship level defense but need an offense.  We have to hope that Cutler is not out and that Martz realizes that short completions are just fine when you don't have a running game.  We can still do this.