Morning Box Score: Bears Sacked By Pack
By Benjy Lipsman in News on Dec 14, 2009 4:00PM
Upon his introduction as Bears head coach back in January 2004, Lovie Smith said his two goals for the Bears were to win a Super Bowl and beat the Packers. In his first season at the helm, they went 5-11 but he beat Green Bay in his second game and thus ingratiated himself quickly into the hearts of Bears fans. In every subsequent season, Lovie Smith has managed to win at least one game against the rival Packers... until now. The Bears, who lost to the Packers in week 1, found themselves on the short end of a 21-14 game, and dropped the season series for the first time under Smith. Perhaps that's yet another sign it's time for a change on the sidelines for the Bears.
The Bears did manage to make the game competitive - for a while, anyway. It didn't look like that was going to be the case initially, when the Bears went three-and-out on their first possession while the Packers' Ryan Grant broke off a 62-yard touchdown run on their very first offensive play. The Bears continued to have trouble moving the ball while the Packers added field goals on their next two possessions and it looked like a blowout in the making. But Jay Cutler led the Bears 80 yards down the field before finding Johnny Knox in the end zone with under two minutes left in the half to send the teams to the locker room with a 13-7 score. In the third quarter, the Bears turned a Green Bay fumble into a touchdown and took a 14-13 lead when Cutler connected with Devin Aromashodu (who caught 8 passes for 76 yards in his first start) and shifted the game's momentum in their favor. That lasted for almost a quarter, until an I'll-timed Jay Cutler interception quickly turned into the go-ahead touchdown for the Packers.
While the game looked to be in reach for much of Sunday's action, in a recurring theme of this season, poor decision making and stupid mistakes cost the Bears yet again. Thirteen penalties for 109 yards helped kill drives and aid the Pack's attack, while a bizarre decision in the fourth quarter costs the Bears two of their three timeouts on one play. On a pass to Greg Olsen ruled incomplete, Jay Cutler called a timeout before Lovie Smith had a chance to challenge the play. Rather than using the first time out to determine the challenge wasn't likely to go their way, he tossed his red flag, the review went against the Bears, and a timeout was lost. Down by seven in the waning minutes of the game, that timeout might have proved critical. While we realize that the team has been limited on the field due to injuries on defense and Jerry Angelo's inability to provide critical components on offense like a solid line and actual receivers, these issues suggest the coaching staff is to blame for the Bears disappointing season. With the playoffs officially, mathematically out of reach it's time to start planning for the future. That future most certainly doesn't include Ron Turner. It shouldn't include Lovie Smith either, although the cheap McCaskey family will probably keep him around to keep costs down.
For those who still care, the Bears face the Baltimore Ravens next weekend. A better place to be is on a beach south of the border, making no effort to locate a cantina with access to the game.