Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune describes the up and down nature of the game yesterday:
“I thought the game was over early when the Bears pounded the Jets all over the place. Did it with all their units, too.”
“Then I thought it was over when the Jets scored three straight touchdowns, keyed by Tim Jennings’ dropped interception after Jay Cutler threw a pick six.
“Then I thought it was over when the Bears seized on a failed fake punt — what was Rex Ryan thinking about? Don’t answer — with a bomb to Johnny Knox followed by Devin Hester’s big punt return and eventual TD catch to the put the Bears up 31-24.
“But the Jets came back. The Jets always came back. But so did the Bears.”
And that’s the key.
The Bears have been criticized repeatedly for beating up on bad and wounded teams. Fans would say, “Yeah, but the had to play with their third string quarterback.” “Yeah, but this guy was injured.” “Yeah but (insert excuse here).” Up until now the Bears signature win was the one against the Eagles. But even with that game the Eagles came out flat and didn’t play well.
That wasn’t the case yesterday. Yesterday the Bears played a good football team who played like a good football team. They came through with their best performance to date.
If they want to go deep into the playoffs, the Bears need to keep improving. This was a very, very good example of how that is continuing to happen and if it does, no one is going to want to play them in January.