Rex Sux, Bears Clinch Anyway

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Dec 4, 2006 2:10PM

Chicagoist gets our fill of hearing leaders professing the importance of "staying the course" when we're watching MSNBC — we don't need it on ESPN, too! Yet that's what we got from Bears head coach Lovie Smith, who insisted in his post-game press conference that he's sticking with Rex Grossman as his quarterback.

Rex is our quarterback. We didn't get the job done and we turned the football over. We have won with him. The reality is, we are 10-2 and won the division with Rex as our quarterback. We're not changing. With the offensive production we had today, it's hard for me to sit here and say all the things he has to improve on. If we win the division title, I'm not going to sit here and tell you about all the things we're going to do to change what we have going right now because there's not a lot.

Sure, the Bears won their game against the Vikings 23-13 on Sunday. Sure, they sit atop the NFC with a 10-2 record — a full two games better than any other team in the conference. Sure, they clinched both a playoff spot and the NFC North crown on Sunday.

But did Rex really do anything to help the cause? He finished Sunday's game with a 1.3 QB rating. Yeah, 1.3. Hell, for most of the game he had a rating of zero! Even Kyle Orton's worst QB rating for a game last year was 14.7 in his five-interception performance against the Bengals in Week 3.

Grossman completed just 6 of 19 passes for 34 yards and 3 interceptions. Grossman's reckless passing has hurt the offense — they're not scoring points, and they're losing the time-of-possession battle. Keeping the Bears defense on the field leads to a tired defense, and a tired defense is more likely to give up points.

For at least another week, however, the defense played well and even outscored the offense 9-7. Ricky Manning Jr. ran an interception back 54 yards for a TD, and the defense also recorded a safety.

Another highlight came from the special teams, as Devin Hester ran back yet another punt for a TD. That's his third punt return for a TD this year, and fourth return TD including his 108-yard field goal return.

Now that the Bears have locked up a playoff spot, they need to address the issues that will prevent them from getting to Miami. The defense is playing pretty well. The special teams has been special at times. The running game has gotten progressively better as the season has progressed. The passing game is clearly what needs work.

We will again say that we think it's time to make the switch to Brian Griese. There are four more regular-season games to play, so give him a couple starts. See how he performs. If he plays better, stick with him. If not, go back to Rex. But make sure that the best QB's on the field come playoff time. Lovie's "We're sticking with Rex because we're 10-2 with him" is BS. If that's what mattered, then we should have entered this season with Kyle Orton atop the depth chart.

Photo by REUTERS/Frank Polich via Yahoo! News.