LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Kyle Orton was limping, and now, so are the rest of the Chicago Bears. Although they apparently suffered no breaks or tears, a 37-3 loss at Green Bay on Sunday left the Bears with one big bruise to the ego and the NFC North race a mudd
LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Kyle Orton was limping, and now, so are the rest of the Chicago Bears.
Although they apparently suffered no breaks or tears, a 37-3 loss at Green Bay on Sunday left the Bears with one big bruise to the ego and the NFC North race a muddled mess.
“We know what’s at stake, but you have to let this one hurt a couple days,” center Olin Kreutz said Monday.
Undefeated at Lambeau Field under coach Lovie Smith, the Bears had a chance to leave the Packers two games behind in the NFC North race. Instead, they’re tied with Green Bay and Minnesota at 5-5 and trying to pick themselves up after getting knocked around in every area.
“You have to move on, and that’s what we’ve done,” Smith said. “We have a six-game season starting up right now. Also a good thing for our football team right now is we’re in first place in our division.”
Here’s more good news for the Bears: They visit lowly St. Louis this week before going to Minnesota.
Then again, another meltdown could leave the door open for the Rams.
The Bears were simply brutal against Green Bay, and Orton couldn’t provide a spark after missing a game-and-a-half with a sprained right ankle.
He took a shot in the leg from Aaron Kampman in the first quarter and wound up 13-for-26 with 133 yards before Rex Grossman took over in the fourth. The wide receivers were non-factors, and the defense struggled again.
Over the past two years, the Bears have locked in linebackers Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs, defensive linemen Tommie Harris and Alex Brown and cornerbacks Charles Tillman and Nathan Vasher with multi-year extensions, but the payoff so far has been minimal at best.
Coming off a run to the Super Bowl, the Bears collapsed to 7-9 last season under the weight of injuries. A defense that expected to return to its old dominant ways hasn’t come close.
The Bears made some adjustments after a 21-14 loss to Tennessee, keeping Urlacher and Briggs off the line of scrimmage and giving Corey Graham more time at cornerback than starter Nathan Vasher. It didn’t matter.
The Bears again got picked apart by slants and could not get to the quarterback even though the Packers’ Aaron Rodgers was sacked four times each in back-to-back losses to Tennessee and Minnesota. But this one came with a new wrinkle: They got run over.
The defense got pushed around by the Packers’ line, allowing Ryan Grant to run for 145 yards and Green Bay to finish with 200 – the most by a Bears opponent this season. And when it was over, safety Mike Brown acknowledged the dominant form will probably never return.
“Everyone wants it to be what it used to be, and it’s not,” he told reporters after the game. “Once we come to grips that our defense isn’t what it’s supposed to be, we’ll all be better off. Our perception is that we have a good defense. The reality is we don’t.”
Smith insisted they could, though. “Yesterday,” he said, “we didn’t play good defense. That’s about the only thing that’s been decided, as I see it…Do I think we can be a good defensive football team? Yes, I do.”
For now, it’s just a frustrated defense. The Bears are a frustrated team, period.
“It’s tough,” Devin Hester said Monday. “We got embarrassed.” Hester was mostly a non-factor again.
Sure, he had a 31-yard kickoff return and ran back five for 114 in all, but he also had one punt return for seven yards and is still searching for his first TD return. On offense, all he had was one 7-yard reception.
Then again, the Bears’ wide receivers caught just four passes for 60 yards – including Rashied Davis’ 36-yarder – after being held in check against Tennessee. Brandon Lloyd had two catches for 17 yards Sunday after missing five games with a knee injury.
“If you look at our receivers throughout, they’ve been pretty good,” Smith said. “You go through spells where you’re not as productive as you would like, but in the big picture, we’ve gotten a lot of production from our receivers.”
But they have not gotten much on returns.
The Bears’ all-time leader with 11 kick returns for TDs entering this season, Hester averages 21.8 yards on kick returns and 6.3 on punts. Whether that’s because of poor blocking or his own ineffectiveness is open to debate.
“Has he been hesitant? I don’t know what word you want to give it,” Smith said. “We haven’t gotten a lot of production from our returns up to now. That’s the good part about having this six-game season starting up; hopefully, some of those things we can take care of.” AP
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