Say Cheesehead!

"All right Sunday night, here we go. The stage is set for the ultimate show..."

The hype was there. The fans were there. The team... well, wasn't. The Bears seemed to start off this season right where they left off, losing. There was an unbelievable feeling of disappointment after this one. Now you could try to pinpoint some of the obvious reasons why we didn't come out on top, but it might not be possible. However, I am going to attempt to do so.

There may be a lot of finger pointing at Jay Cutler for throwing a career-high 4 interceptions but lets zoom out one second. We all knew that when the Bears acquired Jay that he was going to force some throws and make some bad decisions. Two interceptions a game would not be so uncommon. If you take a step back, you'll see, he technically gave you exactly what was expected. Lets say the first interception wasn't. He was no where close to a target on any of his few throws before the pick and you have to question, what was Ron Turner thinking? Your quaterback almost just threw 3 straight interceptions, why do you keep making him throw? Why not run the ball to help take some pressure off? The second interception by Jolly, lets be honest, was a spectacular play by a defensive tackle and any quaterback would have gotten picked off there. His third interception I'm going to put on him also. The pressure was in his face, and Johnny Know wasn't even looking back for the ball. Bad throw, bad result. The last interception was a desperation throw on another bad route by a Bears receiver.

Bad routes killed us. I'm not sure what was going through all the receiver's heads but for some strange reason, they kept breaking off their routes and wouldn't even look for the ball. Desmond Clark had several plays in which he looked like a rookie and not a 10 year veteran. Earl Bennett made some bad plays but was able to bounce back in the second half. Amazingly it seems like Devin Hester was the only player who really had his head in the game for almost the whole time.

Bad playcalling all around is my pick for why we lost this game. The defense started strong and held true through most of the game. It was obvious to see how Rod Miranelli has completely changed out defensive line. There was pressure almost all night on Rodgers and it was starting to show. BUT early on we saw the Packers trying to stretch the field and barely missing deep and their receivers were open. I told my dad and I told my friends, the Bears better fix that because eventually Rodgers isn't going to miss and the Bears aren't going to be ready for it. When Tinoisamoa went down on the first play I said, its ok, we have Nick Roach. But when Brian Urlacher went down I said #$%^ we're in trouble. Everyone in the stadium knew Hunter Hillenmeyer was going to get picked on, and we still couldn't pick the right plays to help him stop the run. Offensively, I was dumbfounded the entire game. We did not come off the bus running like Lovie Smith promises and we didn't call very good plays. Forte didn't have a ball thrown his way all night and Greg Olsen only had 1 catch. Just by the way, those two lead our team in receptions last year. Forte had 25 rushes for 55 yards, want to know why? Because on about 17 of those rushes we ran without a fullback or we ran plays to the outside. (In a 3-4 defense the holes are mostly up the middle, especially with a lead blocker)

The bonehead play by Pat Mannelly was nothing more than a bonehead play. Yes it cost us the lead but its really not such a bad play....if he would have snapped the ball 10 seconds earlier, it would have been a 1st down at around the 40 yard line.

What baffled me the most was both of Lovie's challenges. The first maybe would have made sense if it was more obvious that Williams fumbled the ball and then it rolled out of the end zone. (Which obviously wasn't the case) That challenge not only didn't help us, it actually made it worse because the ball was spotted at the 3 yard line before the challenge, the moved to the 1 after the challenge. Then, I understand Lovie, that you don't want to make any of your players look bad, but after what Pat Mannelly did, let him think about it a little more, feel bad about it but most importantly SAVE THAT TIMEOUT!!!

It looked like another unprepared Bears team in Lambeau Field and frankly, I'm tired of it. We've given Lovie everything he needs to win games (a pro bowl quaterback, a stellar running back, his old friends as coaches, a new contract and a #1 ranked special teams unit) and yet somehow he still can't get us wins. I will say this, if the Bears don't play drastically better against a Troy Polamalu-less defense next week and struggle in Seattle the week after, don't be surprised if our head coaching spot has a sudden vacancy by the bye week. And if that turns into the case, we may start interviewing for a new General Manager as well. I want to see a better prepared football team when we open at Soldier or this could make for a long long season.