Mike Mulligan brought up a point for the Chicago Sun-Times that I know is probably running through many people’s minds this morning.
“But the thinking was the Bears were beyond this sort of game, yet another in a series of historic losses. It has been going that way for the Bears the last couple of years.
“They don’t just lose; they set some kind of record for futility en route to disaster. It happened last year against Cincinnati and Arizona and earlier this year when they gave up an NFL- record nine sacks in the first half of a road loss against the Giants.”
This is something that the Bears seem to struggle with. All teams have bad games but when they do it, everything seems to collapse at once. I can’t believe that there weren’t signs that this was coming last week. Perhaps the players were too tight or too loose in practice. Perhaps they didn’t appear to be focused. Whatever the signs were, the Bears coaches obviously missed them or, if they didn’t, they didn’t do anything about it.
Players as individuals have to get themselves ready to play but getting the team as a group prepared to play is Lovie Smith‘s job. He’s got to recognize when a large percentage of the team doesn’t appear to be ready to play. Right now he should be questioning his evaluation when performances like yesterday’s come along with no apparent warning. Good teams with good coaches just don’t lay eggs like yesterday’s.
Smith has a lot of former head coaches on his staff. Perhaps a talk with them is long overdue. At minimum, its time for some self evaluation.