Welcome to Round 1 of the NFL playoffs between the Bears and the Cardinals.
The winner between the NFC’s last two Super Bowl losers keeps hope alive that 2009 will matter. The loser spends the next two months figuring out who to fire.
According to coach Lovie Smith’s calculations, of course, this is only the Bears’ fourth game of the second quarter with an entire second half of the regular-season left. But that’s fuzzy math, like equating pay day with the other six days of the week for a guy who has been out of work.
Without a victory over the Cardinals, the Bears’ playoff equation becomes nearly impossible for logical football people to compute. This is what NFL reality tells you that Smith won’t: Given the schedule, the underachieving Bears need to enter December no worse than 7-4 to harbor any realistic playoff hopes.
Sure, three teams in ’08 started 4-4 and still made the playoffs — the Vikings, Dolphins and Colts. But those teams had clear identities. As midseason hits, the Bears still couldn’t tell you their Social Security number as a football team.
They must win three of the next four tough games against the Cardinals, the 49ers on the road Thursday after a shortened week, the Eagles at home and the Vikings in the Favre Dome. That requires a leap of faith in a Bears town that hasn’t exactly shown a good vertical lately when it comes to Smith.
A loss to the Cardinals would give no objective soul reason to think the Bears could turn around and win three straight against the quality of opposition.
Thus Sunday becomes more important than any other Sunday so far for the Bears and as pivotal as any regular-season game in the post-Super Bowl XLI era of average. Smith never has needed a victory worse than he needs this one.
To listen on the radio or at the coffeehouse, a majority of Chicagoans trust their parking meters more than Smith. If he were a credit card this week, he would be denied. Smith seemed genuinely dumbfounded by the local reaction to a 24-point victory over the Browns, which only made him seem more out of touch.
In a league where Browns owner Randy Lerner set a startling precedent Tuesday by giving two unhappy fans an audience for two hours, it might behoove Smith to pretend to care about public opinion once in awhile. Before Virginia McCaskey opens her living room to a longtime season-ticket holder who is also president of the Bill Cowher Fan Club.
If Smith wanted to preach against labeling wins “ugly,” he should have started in his locker room. Bears players were the first to acknowledge the 30-6 victory last Sunday at Soldier Field wasn’t suitable for framing.
Most of those players realized the value in being held accountable for an effort that won’t be good enough against the Cardinals.
At the rate Kurt Warner is giving the football away, his right arm will qualify for 501c status by Thanksgiving. But he’s still Kurt Warner. The future Hall of Fame quarterback — yes, a spot in Canton awaits the former grocery stock boy — can forget last week’s five-interception game as quickly as Larry Fitzgerald can get open.
If the Bears’ past performances against receivers in the same echelon such as Calvin Johnson and Chad Ochocinco are any indication, Fitzgerald will be open earlier Sunday than your corner bakery. Fitzgerald is the best of three Cardinals wide receivers who would be the Bears’ No. 1.
One of those receivers, Anquan Boldin, will wait until game time to make a decision whether he can play on a sprained ankle. The guy played through a broken face in 2008. Don’t underestimate the healing powers of the chance to play against the Bears secondary.
Linebacker Lance Briggs wants us to believe the Bears would rather play the Cardinals with Boldin than without him. Nonsense. Nobody gets points for machismo and there is no tiebreaker for excuses.
The only way the Bears should want to see Boldin play at Soldier Field is in a home uniform next season. The only way they can stop Boldin from helping ruin this season is to get to Warner before he sets his 38-year-old feet.
The Bears need a defining game like the last time they played the Cardinals in 2006. Adewale Ogunleye believes the 35-point loss to the Bengals can serve a similar purpose this year. But can you have a winning season borne out of such a lousy, losing effort?
Sunday gives the Bears a chance to bond over a more positive moment that restarts their season. Or they can become just another team headed nowhere in just another year.
There really is no in-between.
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dhaugh@tribune.com
Bears need to improve in red zone, not scale back offense. Dan Pompei, Page 7
