When an NFL team allows 55 points, even grandmothers who have never cared to watch a down or casual observers to whom the game’s intricacies are no easier to decipher than the Dead Sea Scrolls can handle the expert analysis: The defense stinks.
Hard to argue with that succinct opinion. Except . . . maybe that answer is too obvious and the heart of the Bears’ problem is lying around in plain view like Edgar Allan Poe’s purloined letter, so easy to see that everyone misses it.
By tacit admission, unloading on the defense is letting the offense off the hook. And it’s about time someone holds the Bears’ chameleon offense to the light of day and wonders if this season figures to be any better than last season when the offense was a drag on the team’s forward progress.
If this offense is no better than last season, when the Bears were the league’s sixth worst, you will have further proof that designation of “Windy City” has nothing to do with the weather.
If owner Michael McCaskey has designs on moving, it better be to a city that has never seen or heard of Dan Marino and John Elway, a town that likes football played without frills.
All training camp the propaganda out of Platteville has been how well the passing game looked, how promising the rushing will be now that Rashaan Salaam spins a fresh perspective, how lucky it is to have two starting quarterbacks, how nice to have an offensive line settling into a second year with the same starters.
Guard Jay Leeuwenburg isn’t afraid to tackle the task of honesty. He looked with a keen perspective at the offense after Monday’s 55-13 drilling in Cleveland, a long way to travel for dental work. He found it wanting in the most basic respects.
“We need to find a way to make some plays early,” Leeuwenburg said. “That’s a key for this offense. It seems you have this wait-and-see (attitude) at first and then the urgency.
“We need to establish something right out of the box. We need to be able to have those eight-, nine-play drives to start with.”
The Bears’ first drive Monday was three downs and out, two runs and an incomplete pass. Down 6-0, the Bears’ second drive was three downs and out, a run and then two incomplete passes.
The Bears scored in the second quarter, losing now 13-7. The next two drives for Chicago in the half ended in interceptions. The Browns got touchdowns from one of those interceptions, scored again following a Bears kickoff return fumble and scored another time off an interception early in the third quarter.
So let’s subtract these 22 points the offense handed over and the score midway through the third quarter would have been 16-7. The defense could have played better, but much of the downfall here was the offense’s self-destruction and inability to respond to adversity.
“It’s not against one guy, but we had a 50- or 60-yard pass play early that should have been completed,” Leeuwenburg said of a ball Michael Timpson had in his hands on a diving play and dropped. “It could have changed the tide. You never really know which play it is going to be that does that.
“It’s a team game. Last year the defense pulled us out of the fire several games. It might be this year we need to do that for them.”
Is that possible? When have the Bears last had an offense that could consistently save the day when the defense struggled?
It is asking a lot of rookie running back Salaam to make up the difference this season. His 60 yards on 14 carries Monday were promising, but again the best part of Salaam remained his honesty, wishing he had more chances to run against the top Browns defense than the subs.
All you need to know about the Bears offense you can find in the record book. The offensive records are dominated by names from the past.
Under receiver records, you see Johnny Morris, Mike Ditka, Dick Gordon and Harlon Hill. At quarterback, strangely enough, Jim Harbaugh shares time with Jim McMahon and Bill Wade and Sid Luckman. At running back, there are only two who have ever counted-Walter Payton and Gale Sayers.
Let’s focus now on the Bears’ first two regular-season opponents this year: Minnesota Sept. 3 and Green Bay Sept. 11.
Last year, the Vikings outscored the Bears 75-41 in the two regular-season games. The Packers outscored them 73-9.
So maybe some armchair grandmothers or Sanskrit scholars can explain again why the Bears are so well-liked they are picked to be Central Division champions in some voting districts?
Neither the numbers, nor the performances, support that claim so far. Seems to be a better chance McCaskey will be elected mayor.
