Mike Singletary marched proudly onto the new Soldier Field for pregame introductions Monday night, hoisting a football toward a crowd hoping for a night of magic.
Other Bears greats like Dick Butkus and Dan Hampton followed closely behind. By design, Brian Urlacher was the last, sprinting out of the tunnel and onto the field. This was supposed to be a celebration of Bears old and new, an opportunity for the franchise to find some direction in its tradition.
Turned out the Bears do not yet have a present worthy of their past.
For the third straight game, the Bears looked overmatched in a 38-23 loss to the Green Bay Packers. They didn’t stop the run, didn’t protect the passer and didn’t play like a team that had worked on correcting its problems over the past two weeks.
Only a resurgent effort by running back Anthony Thomas in the fourth quarter prevented Bears fans from going home without feeling good about something. Thomas broke the 100-yard rushing barrier for the first time this season.
With 12 minutes 36 seconds left in the game, Thomas squirted through the line of scrimmage and sprinted 67 yards for a Bears touchdown. The longest run of Thomas’ career made it 24-16 and suddenly the fans were waving orange pompons again.
But seven plays later, it was eerily quiet. The Packers marched right down the field, giving the impression that whenever they wanted to move the ball, they could. Whether it was Ahman Green breaking loose for a 32-yard run or Brett Favre capping the drive with a 9-yard touchdown pass to Javon Walker, the Bears lacked answers on that final, fateful drive.
It was a recurring theme for the Bears.
A little more than three minutes into the game, the Packers exploited a weakness against the run that the Bears spent the past two weeks shoring up. Green, the man every Bear identified as the player to stop, scored on a 60-yard touchdown run around the left side that quickly took the crowd out of the game. Before people had settled into their seats, it was 7-0 Packers.
On second-and-9 from the Bears’ 47, Packer quarterback Brett Favre threw an apparent incompletion but outside linebacker Bryan Knight was flagged for defensive holding. The Packers got an automatic first down and Ryan Longwell kicked a 34-yard field goal six plays later.
It just kept getting worse. As the first quarter ended, Bears fans unleashed 20 months’ worth of frustration with a chorus of boos.
