Chicago Bears: Lovie Smith Already Looks Wrong

LAKE FOREST, IL—When some one says something stupid, it’s funny how fast these stupid things can come back to haunt someone.

Take Chicago Bears coach Lovie Smith, for instance.

When asked Tuesday, whether team president Ted Phillips had given him a win-or-else ultimatum for 2010, Smith responded by skirting the issue.

However, at the end of his answer he chose to change subjects and brought up an earlier question given to general manager Jerry Angelo. The question was whether it would be difficult finding qualified coordinator candidates to come here with the chance they could be coming for only one year.

“Coaches don’t deal in long-term commitments and things like that,”  Smith lectured. “It’s about getting the job done right away.

“There will be a lot of candidates that will come and want to be a part of what we’re going to do next year.”

This brings up the curious case of Jeremy Bates, USC’s offensive coordinator and one of the coaches integral in Bears quarterback Jay Cutler’s development while with the Denver Broncos.

According to numerous reports, the Bears are known to have reached out to Bates.
For someone like Bates, Chicago would be a good opportunity. Nevertheless, it very well could be a one-year opportunity.

On Friday, word broke in Seattle that USC coach Pete Carroll is the man most likely to replace fired coach Jim Mora Jr., and ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported Carroll is trying hard to recruit Bates to join him with the Seahawks.

So much for the Bears reuniting Cutler with a coordinator they know he trusts, and so much for the idea that desired coaching candidates will come here with a one-year possibility looming over their heads.

Why would a coordinator come to Chicago knowing it might be for one year when he could go for three or four years to Seattle and run an offense he’s been running in college?

Bates might have liked Cutler and liked working for him, but you’ve got to look out for No. 1 in this business.

There is one way the Bears could lure Bates here if they really wanted him. They could offer him multiple guaranteed years on the contract.

“I am not going to get into contracts,” Smith said when asked about this topic. “This is what I get into, there is an opportunity for you to come here to help us do some good things. We have a good nucleus of players here that they (coordinator candidates) all see.

“I think an offensive guy would want to come here and have a chance to work with a Jay Cutler, and have a chance to mold some of the young receivers and get the offense back on track.”

That may be, but the right guy will want some guarantees if he’s got an opportunity to coach elsewhere.

This could leave the Bears looking at some of the coaches still in the playoffs, like Green Bay quarterbacks coach Tom Clements.

Or it could lead them down the path toward someone Smith knows very well, Mike Martz.

And anyone who saw what Martz did with offenses in Detroit and San Francisco—after he ran the Rams into the ground as head coach—knows where this would lead the Bears.

There’s nothing magical about working with Cutler or coaching in the city of Chicago, regardless of what Smith thinks.

It’s a job, and if the Bears are not too cheap and really want Bates, they need to make certain they do what’s necessary to get him. It’s called spending money.

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Bears President Ted Phillips Banking On Jerry Angelo-Lovie Smith Duo

LAKE FOREST, IL — Not only will Bears coach Lovie Smith be back, but so too will the cover-2 defensive scheme that has been his trademark.

“We haven’t played it as well as we need to,” Smith said. “But as long as I am the head football coach here, that is something that I believe in and we will keep continuing to make our scheme better, but we will be running some form of that.”

It just won’t be Smith calling the defensive plays like this year. Nor will Ron Turner be calling offensive plays as he’d done since 2005 after being the sacrificial lamb offered up Tuesday to appease Bears fans angered over the third straight non-playoff season.

Turner and offensive line coach Harry Hiestand, offensive line assistant Luke Butkus, tight ends coach Rob Boras, quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton and wide receivers assistant Charles London all lost their jobs as Smith used a press conference at Halas Hall to voice a need to get fresh ideas on offense suited to quarterback Jay Cutler’s skills.

“Offensively, right now, I’m pretty much open,” Smith said. “You (media) guys know what my philosophy is as far as being able to run the football. I still want to be able to run the football.

“We realize we have maybe some of our best weapons at the receiver position so we’ll be looking to of course expand on that. But we’re not happy with where we are. We realize it has been three years since we have been to the playoffs.”

Team president Ted Phillips insisted the decision to keep Smith on as head coach had nothing to do with the two years and $11 million remaining on his contract. But it’s quite apparent team ownership expects a winning — if not playoff — season in 2010 following three seasons of 7-9, 9-7 and 7-9.

“One thing we’ve never had with coach Smith has been back-to-back losing years,” Phillips said. “There’s a fine line sometimes between winning and losing, but we expect to win now in 2010.”

Now Smith faces the difficult task of finding suitable coordinators willing to come in facing the possibility they might be done after only one year.

“How are we going to convince someone to come here to coach the Chicago Bears, our offensive positions, defensive positions?” Smith said. “Believe me, people will want to come here.

“Coaches don’t deal in long-term commitments and things like that. It’s about getting the job done right away. There will be a lot of candidates that will come and want to be a part of what we’re going to do next year.”

Names have been bandied about, although General Manager Jerry Angelo said no contact has yet been made with potential candidates. Coaches with ties to Smith naturally come up. Like his former boss in St. Louis, Mike Martz, who told Chicago ESPN radio Tuesday that he would be interested in the position. Former Buffalo Bills interim head coach Perry Fewell would be another with ties to Chicago, as Smith’s defensive backs coach in 2005.

“We have a good nucleus of players here that they all see,” Smith said. “I think an offensive guy would want to come here and have a chance to work with a Jay Cutler, and have a chance to mold some of the young receivers and get the offense back on track.

“I think a defensive guy would want to come here and coordinate a defense with a guy like Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, and guys like that, and fix some of the third downs. I think he is going to look at and he’s not going to see a lot of big holes, he’s going to look at us tightening up a couple bolts to get back. Somebody will want to do that.”

The Bears finished 27th stopping third down conversions this season (41.2 percent) and 17th in total defense. They were blown out of games with Minnesota, Arizona, Cincinnati and Baltimore.

“I’m concerned that there were games this year that were over at halftime,” Angelo said. “All right. Part of that, a big part of that, was our defense. I’m concerned about that. We have issues that we have to deal with on defense: scheme, personnel. Yes. We don’t have as many dominating players on defense to do what we did in past years.

“Are there some things that maybe we could do from the scheme perspective to maybe help better the players that we have? I’m sure Lovie and the staff are going to look at that hard. So it’s probably a combination of the two.”

Angelo thinks the team can find the talent needed to get back into the playoffs. Even though the Bears lack a first- and second-round draft pick and the free agency pool might be dry because of an uncapped year approaching without a collective bargaining agreement.

He also said there could yet be changes in his own scouting and administrative staff.

“I’m not going to sit here and make any determinations right now,” he said. “We’re still going through our evaluation process. Our calendar works differently than the coaches’ calendar, so everything will be addressed at its proper time given the evaluation.”

The personnel calendar usually run through the April draft and ensuing rookie camp.

Angelo himself was closely scrutinized. Angelo said Phillips gave him a “vote of confidence” and then gave one to Smith.

The one who didn’t get the vote of confidence was Turner, whose offense finished tied for 19th in scoring (20.4 ppg) and 23rd in yardage (310.3 per game).

“I’m not going to sit here and say everything that went wrong with this football team was because of how we ran our offense,” Angelo said. “No. That’s not accurate either. It’s a combination of a lot of things here and nobody has 100 percent the answer. Nobody. There’s no guarantees on anything.

“Everything evolves. These are decisions. There are a lot of grays in these decisions. You (media) have opinions. I listen to your opinions all the time. If you were held accountable, some of you on some of the opinions you give, you would have a crayon in your hand.”

Smith and Angelo have to hope the decisions they make this year are right.

Another losing season would be the first consecutively since Smith became coach and most likely signal the end of a regime that started in 2004, after Dick Jauron was fired by Angelo following two straight losing seasons.

“I know some may disagree, but I believe that the fastest way to improve is to keep the continuity that we’ve had with both Jerry Angelo as our general manager and Lovie Smith as our head coach,” said Phillips.

The Bears’ president has a stake in this now, too. Even though his contract runs to 2013, he has now put his chips firmly on Smith and Angelo.

2010 promises to be a high-stakes season for the Bears.

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Chicago Bears Play The Waiting Game With Lovie Smith and Staff

LAKE FOREST — The Bears made everyone wait until the season’s final two games to see the true potential of their offense.

A day after the season ended they were still making people wait — this time to learn the fate of the coaching staff. Players cleaned out their lockers Monday after meeting with coaches, and it seemed like business as usual for the last day of a season with one exception.

Instead of holding a Monday post-season press conference, the team pushed Smith’s and/or general manager Jerry Angelo’s annual exit Q and A back to Tuesday at 2 p.m.

It could have significance in terms of the coaching staff’s fate after a third straight non-playoff season. Then again, it could be a matter of the entire organization meeting Monday to get their stories straight on how best to present a course of non-action to the public.

If the organization has decided to eat the final two years and $11 million in salary on Smith’s contract by dispatching him, it didn’t show when coaches met with players Monday.

“Lovie talked to us like we expect everything to be the same next year, like what our goals need to be for 2010 and what we need to do in the off-season to get there,” linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer said. “I know that across the locker room you’ve heard it from a lot of guys, that we think that he should be here.

“I’m under the impression that he will be. I certainly hope he will be, and that’s the way he talked to us today.”

Following Sunday’s 37-23 season-ending win at Detroit, players made it clear they want Smith back. They continued issuing pleas for retention Monday by absorbing blame for their second 7-9 record in three years.

“I believe in coach Smith, so I think when you have people who believe in each other that’s a good start,” linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa said. “That’s one of the big reasons I’m here, so I’m an advocate for Lovie. So I’d be surprised if he’s not here.”

Defensive end Adewale Ogunleye, who like Tinoisamoa ended up on injured reserve, thinks Smith can still guide a rapid turnaround. “Anything can change in a heartbeat,” Ogunleye said. “And next year could be the year. So for the way that he’s taken this organization to the Super Bowl and to the NFC championship, I think he deserves a little bit more credit than he’s getting.

“We’re not going to be on top all the time. Even if you’re Bill Belichick or Lovie Smith, you’re going to have your ups and downs.”

The team’s late-season two-game winning streak may or may not weigh down on Smith’s side. The Bears did not lose to a single losing team this year, although five of their seven wins came against the dredges of the league: Seattle (5-11), Cleveland (5-11), St. Louis (1-15) and Detroit (2-14) twice. That’s a 15-65 combined record.

Their losses included two defeats by Green Bay and one each by Minnesota, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Baltimore and Arizona. All were playoff teams.

Missing the playoffs even after bringing in quarterback Jay Cutler may come down harder in favor of getting rid of the offensive coaching staff, or at least coordinator Ron Turner.

With Cutler throwing eight touchdown passes the final two games and wide receiver Devin Aromashodu coming on strong at season’s end, it might look on the surface like Turner’s offense and a line with three new starters finally started to gel.

Then again, maybe it would have happened earlier if Aromashodu had been playing more and the coaches had identified the need to bench left tackle Orlando Pace while moving Chris Williams to left tackle.

Unlike with Smith, no one rushed in to throw their support behind Turner or even quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton. In fact, after Sunday’s finale, Cutler went out of his way to compliment his receivers while still getting in a perceived jab about how they need to be used in a different way.

“I think it’s a bunch of good guys who can grow together and kind of complement each other,” Cutler said of his receivers. “If we get D.A. (Aromashodu) over on the weak side a little bit more with his big body and let those other guys run underneath, it’s going to be fun.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who can take the top off the defense and stretch the field.”

The issue of which players return now comes into play, as well. Speculation has it that center Olin Kreutz could be cut with Josh Beekman waiting in the wings at center, or that defensive tackle may be on the way out.

It’s also possible the team might not pursue free agent defensive end Adewale Ogunleye after Mark Anderson had two sacks, three hurries and a couple tackles for loss in the final two games playing for Ogunleye.

“At the end of the day, I would love to be here in Chicago,” Ogunleye said. “That‘s definite. I love the city. The fans are the best in the country.

“But I don’t beg. I know the kind of player I am: a great leader, a great defensive end who still has a couple years left in the tank. For anybody, I‘m going to be an asset. Hopefully it‘s here. I pray it‘s here. If not, I know that‘s the way the business goes.”

Tinoisamoa, who had signed only a one-year deal, didn’t express as much uncertainty.

 “There’s probably a good chance I won’t be here,” he said. “This is just the business.”

It seems certain he isn’t alone in thinking this. Now the question is whether some of those who think it are coaches.

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McCashkeys Need No Urging To Keep Lovie Smith As Bears Head Coach

LAKE FOREST— Bears defensive tackle Tommie Harris expressed the viewpoint on coach Lovie Smith’s future held by every player in the team’s locker room.

“I know he’ll be back,” Harris said Wednesday. “He deserves every reason to; we just went to the Super Bowl a couple of years ago.

“He’s done some great things and Monday night everybody played their heart out and we’re going to do the same on Sunday.”

When it comes down to it, the Bears’ 36-30 overtime win over the Minnesota Vikings probably saved Smith’s job.

Players think the matter of retaining Smith goes beyond one victory over the NFC North champs.

“His scheme, what he believes in, and also his players,” Harris said. “The players believe in him, he’s got great players that play well and guys play hard for him.

“I just think he believes in what he teaches and he sticks with it, that’s what makes him great.”

The same could be said about plenty of fired coaches in NFL history, though. In 2003, Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs and Olin Kreutz made the exact same case for coach Dick Jauron.

It made no difference. Jauron got fired because Jerry Angelo wanted his own coach in place and got it.

Now, the simple and plain truth behind it all is the team’s McCaskey ownership never did want to eat $11 million by dispatching Smith, and Monday’s win gave them exactly the argument they needed to keep him.

This may not be what the majority of Bears fans want to hear.

Immediately following the win Smith was peppered with questions from reporters about why the team could look so good one night and then look disinterested, unmotivated, and unprepared in four blowout losses. That’s the kind of questioning which deserves an answer, but all it drew were some shrugging and a few platitudes.

The Bears might be a community trust of sorts, but the ultimate decision makers are the McCaskeys and it’s very apparent from the comments and actions they’ve leaked over the past few weeks that they just needed something, anything to use as ammunition to keep from wasting their $11 million investment in Smith.

Jay Cutler and Devin Aromashodu gave it to them Monday.

Bears general manager Jerry Angelo had said prior to the Baltimore Ravens game that the way the team played in the final three games was important. When they stunk it up against the Ravens, he was livid. He was sitting behind reporters that day in the press box and fighting to keep from erupting.

If they had come out and played poorly against Minnesota, then a good argument could have been made for firing Smith regardless of what happened against Detroit this Sunday. Now the mere fact that the team is still together behind Smith enough to beat a team many think will play in the Super Bowl is certainly argument enough for the powers that be.

This is not a team that has quit. At least it wasn’t Monday. It’s hard to see them going to Detroit and stinking it up against the team Matt Millen wrecked.

“He’s always been able to keep us together,” LB Lance Briggs said of Smith. “That’s never been a problem with him.

“Lovie is great with keeping us together as a unit no matter the problems or anything that’s going on.”

Even an unlikely loss to Detroit couldn’t really derail Smith. Now he has the perfect excuse of injuries.  

The Bears are missing their best cornerback, Charles Tillman, due to broken ribs and a lung contusion. When they had Zach Bowman guarding Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson in the first game against Detroit, he had five catches for 119 yards. He then made only three catches for 14 yards when Tillman got moved to cover him.

They also lost wide receiver Johnny Knox, who actually sprained both ankles in the game Monday and defensive tackle Israel Idonije (foot injury).

While it would be difficult to see Smith getting fired, the same is not necessarily true for offensive coordinator Ron Turner and his staff.

Quarterback Jay Cutler has repeatedly been given the opportunity to back Turner and never has fully given such support. On Wednesday, he again found a way to express dislike for the Bears’ current offense.

Cutler was gushing about how well the moving pocket fits his game and was asked by reporters why the Bears hadn’t used it much prior to Monday night.

“This offense, sometimes it’s geared for it, sometimes it’s not with our power running game and more downhill style,” Cutler said. “It’s not really that zone [blocking], getting everyone to move and get outside the pack. But there are definitely times and places for it, and we’ve tried dialing it up as much as possible.”

A true zone blocking scheme like Cutler had in Denver would be ideal for getting misdirection going on bootleg passes so he can get out in the open on the move, or for using play-action passes and moving Cutler around.

That’s not what they’re getting now.

One of the chief arguments against bringing in a new offensive coordinator and system is the fact Cutler would be playing in his third offensive system in three years, which is never good. But even Smith wouldn’t call this a bad thing Wednesday when asked whether it could be a problem.

“In an ideal world, of course, you would like to be like Peyton Manning, be in one system the entire time,” he said. “Most of the time from high school to college, college to the NFL, guys normally don’t have that luxury. But when you go from system to system, a lot of times it’s just [different] terminology that you’re dealing with.”

Turner has one year left on his contract but offensive coordinators’ salaries are a lot easier to eat than $11 million worth of head coaching salary.

The cash-wise move here is dumping Turner and bringing in someone with an offensive system that uses zone blocking and is more conducive to the skills of a quarterback who just got a contract extension that includes $30 million of new money.

Money talks, especially with the McCaskeys.

Or is it McCash-keys?

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Q and A With Bears GM Jerry Angelo: What’s Coach Lovie Smith’s Fate?

In a wide-ranging interview with media Sunday afternoon prior to the Bears-Baltimore Ravens game, Chicago general manager Jerry Angelo answered questions about the team’s disappointing 5-8 season and some about the future.

Angelo suggested that a Comcast Sportsnet report saying Smith would be retained might be premature, and that an evaluation process will be made with the final few games having an impact.

The Bears’ general manager said the $11 million still owed to Smith over two years and injuries the team suffered this year, like the early season-ender to linebacker Brian Urlacher, will have no impact on decisions about the team’s head coach. 

Angelo confirmed Smith will have final say in who will go and stay on the coaching staff, provided he is still head coach next year, and expressed disappointment in the way the offense has played around quarterback Jay Cutler.

Here is what Angelo said: 

Q: With the season lost, when does the evaluation process begin for coach Lovie Smith and his staff?

A: At the end of the year, obviously, we’ll sit down and we’ll talk through everything like we have every other year, so the protocol in terms of how we go about our evaluation won’t change, and that’ll be at the end of the season. You know Lovie and I talk predominantly about our players/personnel during the year, focused on each and every week, winning the game so to speak, as well as talking about some of the younger guys, particularly now, where we’re at, out of the playoffs. So that’s been our dialogue through the season and no more than really what it’s been in every other year.

Q: Lovie is owed a lot of money for 2010 and 2011. Will money factor into the decision on his future?

A: I’m not going to get into that. At the end of the year we’ll talk. We have three football games left, I know we’re not in the playoffs, obviously we didn’t meet expectations, but when we sit down and we go through everything that we need to talk about because we did have some problems, and I want to make sure that I focus on, first and foremost, to make sure we understand what went wrong, and then what we need to fix it. I don’t look at money in those times. It’s not about money, it’s about doing what we feel we need to do to be a better football team.

Q: There was a report with unnamed sources that Lovie would definitely be back next year, was that inaccurate, premature, accurate … ?

A: I don’t know where the report came from, I heard that, again speculation, I’m not dealing with. At the end of the year, we sit down, we talk as I’m saying, so I’m going to keep circling back to this because that’s what we do. I understand where you guys are going. I’m not going to talk about anything prematurely. It makes no sense to do that, we’ve never done it in the past, we’re not going to do it regardless of how the season went.

Q: Does this team need to be competitive in the final three weeks?

A: I fell very much so. We need to get a win, that’s very important right now, and I feel like we’ve been competitive, we just haven’t been able to win, and that’s the bottom line in our business as we all know.

Q: In retrospect, did Lovie’s duties as defensive play caller hurt him as a head coach this year?

A: I can’t answer that. Again, I want to talk to Lovie about a lot of things. I’m sure that’s going to come up and then we’ll see. Things didn’t come together like we wanted and there are a lot of reasons why. It’s not just any one thing and he may bring that up, I don’t know. All this is premature, but we could get a real laundry list of things that didn’t go quite the way we wanted them to go this year.

Q: Does the roster have to be better?

A: I like our roster. Your record is your record. This is who we are. I’m not going to get into that game. We didn’t play well as a team this year. We were inconsistent. We just seemed to never get the offense and defense playing well on the same Sunday. That’s very hard to do and win if that’s not happening. So we like the roster, we have a good nucleus of young players. So pretty much our roster will be intact next year. But I look at that as a positive, not a negative.

Q: What is your biggest concern about this team?

A: It’s the consistency. We just didn’t have the consistency throughout the year. Again, I have my thoughts and at the end of the year, I’ll share them with Lovie. And you have to be able to do that. And we had some veteran players so it wasn’t that we had too many young players, but we just weren’t able to get that week in and week out. So for the most part it didn’t bode well for us on Sunday and we just weren’t able to finish.

Q: You’ve been here a while, is this the most frustrating season?

A: Any time you lose it’s frustrating. Is this any more so than that? I don’t know. Maybe it is if I really sat down and thought about it. But again we’ll address everything that needs to be addressed at the right time and we will get our problems fixed.

Q: Does Brian Urlacher’s injury impact on the decisions you might have to make about the future of the coaching staff? Does it have to be taken into account when reflecting on what happened?

A: Everybody has injuries. I’m not going to blame injuries on our season. For the most part we stayed pretty healthy. Losing Urlacher right at the beginning was big, sure, but we were able to overcome that. Like I said, injuries are a part of the game. If you have a rash of injuries that’s one thing. We never really had a rash of injuries.

Q: Do decisions about the future have to be based on how best to build around QB Jay Cutler?

A: It’s our starting point, yes. It is about our offense. We came into this year and we felt like we were going to have a pretty good offense or have the ability to be a pretty good offense this year. I should say it that way. We had young receivers, it was a new system. I said this way back when, that there going to be some growing pains and it was a process. So things didn’t quite come together on offense. Things didn’t quite come together on defense like we wanted either. That’s an important part of what we need to make happen to have the success that we all want.

Q: Considering reports about Lovie Smith the last few weeks, can you clarify what his status is from now going forward?

A: Well, he’s here. He’s our head football coach. I don’t know what else is there to clarify.

Q: Bringing in a Pro Bowl QB and having an offense stagnant indicates to some that there’s a big problem with the offense, not just one or two people. Is there validity to that argument?

A: Yeah, there is. Anytime you don’t see progress throughout, it’s not just one thing. We have our issues as a football team and certainly we do as an offense too. But again, we’ll evaluate those things. I’ve been doing that. I have my thoughts. I feel very good about going into the offseason, but I want to see these next three games. I’m not going to minimize these three games and see how we continue to develop.”

Q: Fans see an unprecedented quality of head coaching candidates available like Bill Cowher, Tony Dungy, maybe Mike Holmgren and Mike Shanahan. Does that have any impact on your decision-making process as far as what to do with Lovie?

A: No, it doesn’t. Not at all. We’re going to do what we feel we need to do to win and become the kind of team that we know we can be. We’ll go through an extensive evaluation process like we have every year. There probably will be more things to talk about this year in the offseason, yes, I’m not minimizing that, and we’ll do that and we’ll do that rightly.

Q: Everyone is talking about Lovie’s situation and his evaluation process. What about your own evaluation process, how will that go? Will that be any different than in any previous year?

A: I’m evaluating myself too. But I do know this: We all share into what happened this year. I’m not going to sit here and put blame on any one thing. When we sit down and visit and I talk to ownership as well as the coaches, our personnel people, it will be an organizational decision on what we do going forward on everything. I can’t say any more than that, because we haven’t made any definitive evaluations on anything right now. All this right now is premature talk. I understand these questions are out there. I’d like to give you answers right now, but I can’t because we still have some football left to play.

Q: Does Lovie have control over who he keeps and who goes on the coaching staff?

A: Lovie has always had control of his staff, determining his hires, and I have always felt that the head coach has to have that autonomy with his staff. That’s never been in question. Do I have input? Yes. Like Lovie has input on personnel, he’ll ask, as he has in the past, about assistant coaches that we’ve brought in. That won’t change, I’m sure, because we’re working in unison on that.

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What a Fine Mess Lovie Smith and His Staff Have Made of the Chicago Bears

CHICAGO— Once the thought of Bears coach Lovie Smith losing his job seemed ridiculous.

After 13 games, though, and Sunday’s 21-14 defeat by the Green Bay Packers, nothing seems out of the realm of possibility: from Smith and his staff getting the ax to general manager Jerry Angelo and his staff joining them.

It would be difficult to imagine this happening if they win two of their final three.

However, if they manage to lose all three, including the season-finale at Ford Field against the woebegone Detroit Lions, it’s time to at least get the guillotine out and dust it off if not merely for the sake of showing what awaits if this type of play goes beyond 2009.

On Sunday, the Bears displayed some of the similar problems they’ve had all year.

They fell behind 13-0 at the outset. Someone is either outmatched our out-game planned—or both—from the start each week. The Bears have had only two leads after first quarters all year.

They fought back, and in the process saw wide receiver Devin Aromashodu make eight catches. This is a receiver who sat on the bench and rotted all season while Devin Hester struggled, especially the last four games.

The eight catches represented Hester’s career high and Aromashodu did it in his first Bears start, his second overall.

But then again, Aromashodu didn’t get a $40 million deal and have his position changed from all-time great return man to wide receiver by this coaching staff and this management staff.

“You think that if Devin Hester was up, maybe he would have had a day like that today,” Smith countered. “The last time we played the Packers we were able to do some things in the passing game, too.” I don’t think you can look at it that way.

“As far as we’re concerned it’s a guy taking advantage of a great opportunity and it’s always good to see players step up, similar to how Jamar Williams did last week. You get your opportunity to step up and he did.”

All of which leads us exactly to Jamar Williams.

The week after the backup linebacker made 20 tackles subbing for Lance Briggs,  most for a game by any Bear except Brian Urlacher in Smith’s tenure as coach, Williams found himself back on the bench behind Nick Roach and Hunter Hillenmeyer.

They just couldn’t get Williams on the field.

And on the first play from scrimmage, Hillenmeyer got blocked. Roach got taken out of the play completely. The Packers’ Ryan Grant ran 62 yards for a touchdown despite facing the Bears’ “elephant package,” an alignment with an extra safety and only one cornerback designed to stop the run.

For some reason, when opponents come in with special alignments like the Packers’ or Bengals’ inverted wishbones or the Bengals’ unbalanced line, or the 1-5-5 alignment Green Bay’s defense used Sunday, it works. When the Bears try an elephant alignment or a fake field goal, it blows up in their faces.

How can a team constantly fall behind early in games and get burned by opponents’ innovations every week?

Coaching?

There was also the little matter of 13 penalties for 109 yards, including three key screw-ups by Angelo’s last first-round draft pick, left tackle Chris Williams.

“We haven’t been a team that’s been penalized that much,” Smith said. “Some of them were in critical situations for us.

“Whenever you lose yardage like that on a day like today of course it hurts you quite a bit.”

Smith apparently has a habit of not seeing laundry strewn about the field. The Bears haven’t been a team penalized much?

They are now fourth in the NFL with 91 penalties and third in penalty yards with 761. They were fifth in 2007, fifth in 2006 and fourth in 2004 in penalties under Smith. And last year a penalty on cornerback Charles Tillman against Tampa Bay probably cost them a playoff berth in the end.

Penalties are caused largely by lack of discipline, according to Smith. Discipline is something coaching can impact.

The coaching staff impacted the game in a few more messy ways Sunday.

Facing fourth-and-one at the Packer 45 with a 14-13 lead and 1.5 minutes left in the third quarter, Smith opted to punt.

This is a 5-7 team at the time, needing to win the worst way to remain in playoff contention, and lacking one this year over a single winning team. In the worst way they need a big first down.

At 5-7 against your biggest rival and with the playoffs all but gone, the ship is kind of leaning there Lovie, and Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio are scrambling to get to the high end. It seems like as good a time as any to take a chance and put the pitiful 2009 season on the line by taking a chance.

“It was a full yard,” offensive coordinator Ron Turner chipped in with protection for his boss’ decision. “If it was half or something like that but it was a full yard, still a lot of time left, we had the lead and I don’t think we were across midfield.”

A full yard. Wow. Thirty-six inches. That’s a lot. Well, it is to a team ranked 31st in rushing. It seems like the last time the Bears converted a big third-and-one, it was Thomas Jones carrying the ball.

“It was a difficult decision,” Smith said. “But at the time we were playing really good defense and thought we could pin them down there and really go from there.”

“Those are always good decisions. We’ll be a little bit more conservative in those situations based on how we’re playing at the time defensively.”

So Smith played it conservative because he had faith in his strong defense. This defense hasn’t stopped a good offense when it really mattered since the second week of the season. And when that happened, it was Pittsburgh’s offense, and the Steelers aren’t even a winning team now.

Smith also brushed off inquires into why the Bears called timeout and then before the next play asked for a review of a dropped pass by tight end Greg Olsen. They wound up needing the timeout later, but Smith only said things were hectic and messed up on the sidelines and they needed time to sort something out before they could waste a timeout with a stupid challenge that no one in the stadium could realistically thing they would win. He wouldn’t explain what the exact problem was on the sidelines when asked.

Somehow, that explanation seemed plausible.

It’s very easy to believe things were messed up on the Bears’ sidelines.

It probably happens a lot.

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Ugly Bears Victory Does Little Beyond End Losing Streak

CHICAGO — To find truth in the Chicago Bears’ locker room, one must go to defensive players, and particularly, the defensive ends.

Alex Brown has the right team-oriented attitude, but usually will not look through the same rose-colored or Lovie-tinted glasses that everyone else does. He didn’t Sunday.

“We can’t play the way we played today and expect to beat a Minnesota. But it is good to get a win,” Brown said. “It’s great to get a win. I can’t express how good it feels just to win.

“We’ve lost so much this year.”

Obviously winning is more fun, and the Bears hadn’t done it in a month until they registered an uninspiring 17-9 victory at Soldier Field over the moribund St. Louis Rams.

But Brown shed the proper light on the win with his first sentence. You can’t beat Minnesota with a game like that.

In fact, you can’t beat a lot of teams like that.

When they beat the Cleveland Browns at home on Nov. 1—in a manner nearly as unimpressive—the Bears acted indignant over negative media and fan reaction.

That was a game in which their offense collected red zone possessions like Bernie Madoff collected retirement accounts, but then treated the goal line like a force field.

So hearing one player acknowledge a win by a touchdown and two-point conversion, over Steven Jackson and a bunch of department store dummies wearing millennium blue and new century gold, was unimpressive seemed a step in the right direction.

Because nothing could be truer than to point out that even in victory Sunday, the Bears found plenty of ways to remind everyone of their inadequacies.

For one, the offense, which only managed only two yards against Minnesota last week, put up 131 passing yards in the first quarter. And, oh by the way, they threw for 12 more yards over the next three quarters.

“I dinged my hand a little bit the first half,” said quarterback Jay Cutler, who wouldn’t explain what exactly “dinged” meant. “Part of (the passing failure) was with the way our defense was playing we didn’t feel like we had to make some big plays or throw the ball down the field.”

Apparently this Bears offense is so good it can pick and choose when to score.

Another problem the Bears had was the running game—again. Eventually they got Matt Forte heading toward 91 yards, his longest effort since they beat Detroit on Oct. 4.

Their 120 team rushing yards doesn’t sound bad until you realize six straight opponents had run for more yards against the Rams’ defense.

“My performance today was decent,” Forte said. “There are a lot of things I can do better. The first drive I gave the ball up. As a running back you can’t ever do that.

“I think there were a few runs where maybe if I make somebody miss, I could have some more yards.”

Wasn’t that exactly what Brian Urlacher said which irritated Forte last week?

Smith was his usual vague self when asked about the success the defense had with Kevin Payne playing strong safety, Al Afalava moving from strong to free safety, and Danieal Manning moving from free safety to nickel back.

“We’ll go back and evaluate it,” Smith said. “We thought it would be this type of football game (with the Rams running a lot).

“Kevin down at the strong position and putting Al back, that combination gave us our best chance to be successful today.”

It was Payne who gave up the game-winning TD pass to Green Bay in the season-opener, and he was immediately banished to the bench. 

The problem is, Payne actually looked better defending the pass Sunday than most Bears defensive players. He knocked down two passes, including a touchdown-saving diving deflection in the fourth quarter.

Perhaps it’s a case of the coaching staff misidentifying the talent they had, and Payne can actually play better than he initially got credit for—like that’s never happened (Cedric Benson, Justin Gage, Chris Harris, John Gilmore, etc.).

The Bears’ special teams looked surprisingly poor with three returns for minus-three yards and a couple muffs by Earl Bennett and Johnny Knox, who had to replace Devin Hester due to an injured calf muscle.

The Bears even had a trick special teams play explode in their faces when tight end Greg Olsen got caught from behind on a shovel pass out of field goal formation.

“At the time I thought our defense was playing pretty good, so if we didn’t get anything we at least had them down at their end of the field,” Smith offered.

Those three points the Bears passed on in favor of a failed gamble would have made for an awfully easy feeling by the late fourth quarter. Instead, the Bears had to get a Hunter Hillenmeyer interception and a fourth-down incompletion on St. Louis’ final two drives to reach the end of their four-game losing streak.

“It’s been a while since we talked about our win, but the guys did what they needed to do,” Smith said.

The Bears did what they needed to do to get a win over a team staggering around in a three-year slump, but not what they needed to do to instill any confidence that something good might come out of their home field rematch with Green Bay next Sunday.

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Injured Chicago Bear Brian Urlacher Should Focus on Rehab, Not Analysis

It’s been quite a while since linebacker Brian Urlacher played in an NFL game, and he’s acting like he’s been away forever.

Urlacher’s comments in a story written by Yahoo Sports writer Michael Silver on Monday sounded like something a fan watching a game from the outside would say, rather than an actual team member.

Through the course of watching the Bears get blown out by the Minnesota Vikings with a bunch of Urlacher’s friends, Silver detailed Urlacher’s comments that sounded like something you’d expect from someone on the outside looking in. And while he isn’t playing, Urlacher is still at Halas Hall and around teammates while doing his rehab from a dislocated wrist.

So he should know better.

The most ridiculous comment Urlacher made focused on quarterback Jay Cutler and former quarterback Kyle Orton.

“Look, I love Jay, and I understand he’s a great player who can take us a long way, and I still have faith in him,” Urlacher told Silver. “But I hate the way our identity has changed.

“We used to establish the run and wear teams down and try not to make mistakes, and we’d rely on our defense to keep us in the game and make big plays to put us in position to win. Kyle Orton might not be the flashiest quarterback, but the guy is a winner, and that formula worked for us. I hate to say it, but that’s the truth.”

Hel-lo, earth to Brian…The Bears have not changed their offensive focus to become a passing team from a running team. The entire “get off the bus running” reputation coach Lovie Smith tried selling to the media over the past five years has been nothing but a myth anyway.

No NFL team gets off the bus running or run anywhere for that matter. Maybe the 1985 Bears did, but that was a long time ago.

The Bears have always wanted the running game to be a major part of their attack, though, and still do.

And the focus this year has been to establish a running game just like they did when Kyle Orton played here. However, they can’t run. Their offensive line and running back Matt Forte haven’t been able to establish dominance on the ground over any team except Detroit.

The Bears are very close to being on pace for the fewest rushing yards in a 16-game schedule in their franchise history (1,330) and are almost certain to set a franchise record for fewest rushing attempts, but it’s happening because they can’t run. Not because they have changed philosophies.

There are two factors at work here which Urlacher should have a better grasp of than what he showed in his comments to Yahoo. One is the running game. The other is his own defense.

The Bears come out trying to run like always, but Matt Forte has 23, 24, 90, 33, 41, 34 and 27 yards in the last seven games as the team slid from 3-1 to 4-7. The 90 yards came against Cleveland, which is an NFL franchise only by technicality.

If Forte could actually gain yardage, they’d run more. He can’t. The line doesn’t block well enough. Forte has appeared a step too slow all year, possibly due to being out of shape because he missed all of June OTA workouts and almost all of preseason.

Forced to pass, Cutler has been easy pickings for a lot of defenses.

Meanwhile, when the Bears can’t run and execute a simple game plan, they fall behind because their defense is nothing like it was in the Super Bowl XLI season, and without Urlacher, it has faded even more.

Urlacher has missed 17 full games since Smith became the Bears’ coach. The Bears defense gives up 24.8 points, 354.6 yards and forces 1.5 turnovers per every game Urlacher has missed. In the 75 games Urlacher has played for the Bears under Smith, however, they allow only 19.1 points and 311.3 yards per game while forcing 2.2 turnovers a contest.

So his impact—or in this case absence—is obvious.

The other missing part of the Bears defense is a pass rush from their defensive line. It’s just not consistent enough for a cover-2 team to be effective without blitzing. And when they have to blitz or even focus on something else besides pass rush, such as Adrian Peterson’s running Sunday, the cover-2 can’t be played.

They wind up in zone blitzes and variations of such, and it’s not something they’re suited to playing. Vikings coach Brad Childress even commented Sunday after the game that the Bears were in “fire zones” and it was leaving some wide receivers wide open as a result. Brett Favre had plenty of time to find those open receivers.

So the Bears can’t run, they fall behind because they don’t play defense well, and then they have to pass because they’re playing from behind. Cutler throws interceptions because he’s under excessive pressure and the end result is six losses in seven weeks.

Now explain how that shows they’ve willingly gone away from being a running team because they no longer have Kyle Orton.

“I’m not taking a shot at Jay. I’m not one bit taking a shot at Jay, he throws it better, right? And we haven’t tried to run the ball as much. That’s true,” Urlacher said. “But Kyle has won games. His formula works. So I’m not taking a shot at Jay or Kyle.”

Orton won games in Chicago when there was offensive line play good enough to run the ball effectively. With Orton behind this offensive line, with this running attack, the Bears would be 2-9 instead of 4-7.

They only won seven games in 2007 and the object then wasn’t to come out throwing. They wanted to run with Cedric Benson. They couldn’t run until late in the season and had to pass and then came up with the fewest rushing yards in team history to go with a 7-9 record.

But they did begin to run better near the end of the season and Orton came on to quarterback them the last three games when the running attack had actually improved.

“I think right now at this stage, everyone is frustrated with where we are and everybody will speak their mind,” Smith said today at Halas Hall. “Brian Urlacher is a team guy, like all of our players are, and they will voice their opinion. I would like all comments to be positive toward what we’re doing but guys have a chance to voice their opinion.

“I can’t do a whole lot about that, I just know that Brian is a team player. He’s behind everything that we’re doing.”

Translation: Shut up Brian.

It’s bad enough playing with no running game. Having to face criticism about why you’re not running more from a guy who is getting paid to do rehab, watch football on television at home and run his mouth is probably more than anyone should have to bear.

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Minnesota Vikings Dominance Hands Chicago Bears a Large Dose Of Reality

MINNEAPOLIS — The best thing you could say about the Bears after Sunday’s 36-10 loss to the Minnesota Vikings was coach Lovie Smith didn’t fill the air with ridiculous ideas about winning out and going 9-7 like Arizona did last year to make the Super Bowl.

Brett Favre and the Minnesota Vikings all but eliminated the Bears from any type of wild card pursuit with a machine-like 537 yards of offense and 31 first downs.

The Vikings were so impressive that even two more Jay Cutler interceptions, for a personal worst 20 on the season, seemed like just a couple more logs on a bonfire.

The Bears’ defense was beaten so badly that they gave up more yards than in any game since Lovie Smith became coach. They gave up more yards than any game Dick Jauron coached. They gave up more yards than in any game Dave Wannstedt coached. They hadn’t given up that many yards since Mike Ditka’s first year, a Dec. 26, 1982 loss to the Los Angeles Rams (583 yards).

“It’s tough. It’s tough with as good of a football team that I think we have in here, to go out and week after week not live up to our own expectations,” Cutler said in the locker room after going 18-for-23 for 147 yards, including his first touchdown to a wide receiver since Oct. 25.

Expectations Sunday from those outside the locker room were greatly diminished after the Bears had lost five of the previous six.

They didn’t disappoint in this regard.

“We weren’t effective at all,” said linebacker Lance Briggs, who suffered a knee sprain and had to leave the game.

The Bears chose the lesser of two poisons by trying to stop Adrian Peterson (85 yards, 25 carries), but quarterback Brett Favre showed he can still administer punishment at age 40 by completing 32-of-48 for a season-high 392 yards and three touchdowns.

“They didn’t run the ball very well, I don’t think,” said defensive end Alex Brown, after the Bears held Peterson to his lowest total in five games against them. “Brett Favre, it’s weird when you go into a game and you want to stop Adrian and you say, ‘We’ll take our chances and see if Brett Favre can beat us.’ He did.

“He threw for a bunch of yards today, he threw for some touchdowns. He’s good. He’s a Hall of Famer. That’s a good team out there. They have a lot of weapons. They built a very strong team. We didn’t measure up.”

Reality has set in for the Bears. They won’t cash it in and start experimenting, although they did do a bit of this to some extent by starting Frank Omiyale again at left guard instead of Josh Beekman. Omiyale is bigger and generally regarded as a stronger pass blocker.

The line did protect Cutler fairly well until the game got out of hand, but they did nothing in the run game again and for the sixth time in seven games, Matt Forte failed to rush for more than 41 yards. He had 27.

Even with better blocking for Cutler, he threw interceptions. Even if it probably didn’t impact what eventually happened, Cutler’s first interception was just one more end zone disaster.

He underthrew Knox greatly and Cedric Griffin had an easy pick to prevent the Bears from pulling within 17-14 or 17-10.

“The one he threw in the end zone that was picked, we had a run called,” offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. “It was a bad (defensive) look for us, so he audibled (to a pass).

“The corner bailed out. He’s (Cutler) just got to get (the ball) out there more.”

Turner jumped to Cutler’s defense by pointing out he had little to do with the second interception, which was tipped and wound up in Jared Allen’s hands.

The Bears had another chance to start the second half after Johnny Knox returned a kickoff 77 yards to the Vikings’ 8. They wound up going backward 13 yards and kicking a field goal.

“On second down we call a pass play and his primary receiver that he’s looking for, he ran the wrong route,” said Turner, who wouldn’t identify the primary target. “So (Cutler) is looking for a guy who is supposed to be there who would have been wide open. He’s not there so then he (Cutler) gets sacked.

“It’s a matter of us executing better and giving him an opportunity. When you give him an opportunity, he’s a hell of a player. But we’ve got to give him a chance on each and every play. we didn’t do that today.”

At this point, the excuses are getting repetitive, whether some are legitimate or not.

The Bears have the St. Louis Rams coming up and facing a dome team in December cold at Soldier Field is normally an opportunity they cherish.

“We’ve got to go back and just get one win and build on it from there,” Brown said.

They’ve been saying this six of the past seven weeks, the most losses they’ve had in any seven-game stretch since Smith became head coach and the most by any Bears team over seven games since 2002.

So even a struggling dome team playing outdoors can’t be overlooked.

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Chicago Bears Unwilling to Look at New Talent With Season Lost

When a football team is 4-6 and looking forward to a January of watching the playoffs on television, playing for the future only makes sense.

The Chicago Bears will never do this under coach Lovie Smith. They never have, and never will.

Already, we’re getting indications Smith will stick with his usual philosophy of winning as many games as possible rather than looking at some young talent.

On Sunday night, running back Kahlil Bell stunned everyone with a 72-yard burst between left guard and tackle on his first Bears rushing attempt since being promoted from the practice squad as injured Garrett Wolfe’s replacement.

It was stunning to see a running back actually stick with the blocking scheme and give it a chance to develop. Matt Forte has gotten into a habit of trying to cut back against the flow and into the teeth of the defensive pursuit.

It was the longest run by a Bears running back in 20 years. At the very least you’d think coach Lovie Smith would put out the idea of giving Bell plenty more chances.

After all, what’s wrong with trying to light a fire under a player like Forte when it looks like he could use one?

Forte has had only one game with more than 41 yards in the last six, and that shouldn’t count because the 90-yard effort came against the Mistake by the Lake, the Cleveland Browns.

So does Bell have the chance to take some carries from Forte, Smith was asked Monday at Halas Hall?

“I don’t think (so), first off, you know Matt did some good things last night,” Smith said, alluding to Forte‘s 14-carry, 34-yard effort. That’s 1,224 inches for you small thinkers.

“I know his yardage, the rushing total didn’t say that,“ Smith continued. “But I liked the way he hit the holes, but just talking about Kahlil, Garrett Wolfe was a part of our rotations. He’s out, Kahlil has taken his place.

“You need more than one good running back. We’ve even played three good running backs around here, so to answer your question, I do see Kahlil continuing to be a part of our offense, and with production like that, why not?”

So he’s going to get Wolfe’s number of carries, or about three or four a game.

It almost sounded like former Bears goof, er, coach Dave Wannstedt when James Allen had run for 163 yards against the Baltimore Ravens in 1998.

Wanny said,  “Let’s not put Tremayne Allen in the Hall of Fame yet.” Couldn’t even get the guy’s name right, confusing him with a backup fullback-tight end who was a wasted draft pick.

Then there is the continuing saga of wide receiver Devin Aromashodu. At 6-foot-2, with long arms and good vertical leaping ability, it would only seem plausible that a team with so much trouble in the red zone on offense might give him a good look.

Last week Jay Cutler said he wanted to see Aromashodu, particularly near the goal line. When Cutler’s comment was brought to Smith’s attention late in the week, the Bears coach laughed.

“Aromashodu has been around here for a while. We endorse him like we always have. No more than that,” Smith said.

And that was that. Aromashodu was invisible again Sunday night and Cutler found Devin Hester four times for a whopping 18 yards and Johnny Knox twice for 16 yards.

What in those totals said Aromashodu just can’t play here?

Nothing.

The team’s first draft pick in 2009, Jarron Gilbert, hasn’t been seen or heard from in seven games. He’s been active in two games and played special teams in his only appearance this year.

What’s wrong with getting him snaps at this point? After all, they’re letting defensive end acquisition Gaines Adams play.

Morticia Addams looked more like a football player than Gaines Adams does. She had a more solid physique, but then again, she wasn’t acquired in a trade by general manager for a second-round draft pick who could have been used next year to bolster a poor offensive line or improve a struggling secondary.

There are even veterans who they should probably take a look at just for the sake of the future. Kevin Shaffer has been on the sidelines almost all year but it’s hard to see how he could be worse at tackle than Orlando Pace.

At least they haven’t given up entirely on the idea of changing around players. Corey Graham is going to get to continue playing nickel back now even with safety Kevin Payne returning from a back injury.

This means Danieal Manning will stay at free safety all the time, which is probably better because he’ll get to focus on one position rather than play nickel back part-time and safety part-time.

That’s about as far as you’ll see Smith go with experimenting. Even when the team is officially eliminated from playoff contention, expect them to continue using this conservative approach.

They refused to get Josh Beekman playing time his rookie year of 2007 and last year wouldn’t put wide receiver Earl Bennett on the field.

Then again, with this regime’s record for failing to draft well, why take a good look. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

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