The Bears were awful Sunday.
This is unmistakably, unequivocally true because the headmaster of happy talk said they were.
“We feel like crap,” coach Lovie Smith said after the Vikings pounded his team 36-10.
Smith admitting the Bears played poorly is like China admitting a fundamental weakness. And hearing him use the word “crap” is like hearing Donny Osmond ask what a guy has to do to get a cigarette and a beer around here.
So here was final proof that the season is not just gone, but that it’s a disastrous, washed-out affair that should come with an ark and animals two by two.
Let’s be clear. Sunday wasn’t a surprise. Minnesota is one of the better teams in the NFL, and the Bears are one of the better teams in Lake Forest.
But still.
This was a first-hand glimpse of just how far the Bears are from true excellence. They looked at it up close and couldn’t possibly have recognized themselves in what they saw from first-place Minnesota. They are not an offseason away from the 10-1 Vikings. They’re a major rebuilding project away from the Vikings.
Forget what people tell you about the NFL being the incubator for amazing turnarounds from year to year. The Bears won’t be one of those stories, not at the rate they’re going
The offensive line can’t block.
The running back can’t run.
The coach … well, how many different ways can you say it?
The quarterback, when he’s not getting sacked, can’t seem to avoid mistakes.
On defense, the Bears picked their poison Sunday, choosing to focus their attention on running back Adrian Peterson. And so it was that a 40-year-old geezer with closure issues made them pay with 392 passing yards and three touchdowns.
“We took our chances to see if Brett Favre could beat us, and he did,” Bears defensive end Alex Brown said.
Favre is a very good quarterback whom lots of otherwise sane people wanted to see go away in the offseason. He has a bad habit of not being able to make up his mind, retirement-wise. He’s also having one of his best seasons. On Sunday, he played in his 282nd consecutive game. He went over the 500-touchdown mark, rushing and passing. Like Favre, I could go on.
But what’s the point? He has made all his critics look silly.
Oh, and that Bears’ choice of poison? Peterson might have been “held” to 85 yards, but the Vikings rushed for 159 yards.
“This is the most explosive offense I’ve seen in my entire life,” Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe said.
Speaking of blowing things up, let’s move on to the Bears coach and general manager. Whoever holds those positions next season will spend most of their time deciding how to begin.
Quarterback Jay Cutler has talent, but it’s buried underneath the rubble of this season. He looks like a shell of what he was in Denver, both physically and mentally. He has very little in the way of help.
The red-zone problems continued Sunday. The Bears opened the second half with Johnny Knox’ 77-yard kickoff return to the Minnesota 8. They settled for a field goal.
“On second down, we call a pass play, and his primary receiver that he’s looking to ran the wrong route,” offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. “He gets sacked. It’s a matter of us executing better offensively, giving him an opportunity. When you give him an opportunity, he’s a hell of a player.”
That’s an overstatement, but protecting the quarterback is part of the deal with the Bears organization. Some outsiders, including Fox broadcaster Troy Aikman, believe Cutler is pressing.
“He’s at a point now where he’s just trying to be perfect,” Aikman said before the game.
Cutler sure has a funny way of showing it, what with the 20 interceptions.
The Bears are 4-7. Smith has said that seasons are decided in November, and in this particular November, the Bears are 1-4.
Someone ought to see whether the Bears can end this particular season right now, whether there might be a little-known NFL bylaw that would allow them to just, you know, stop this nonsense.
Playing football, I mean.
I’m kidding. Everybody knows that if the Bears were to drop out now, they most likely would be ineligible for next year’s draft.
What’s that?
Oh, yeah, they don’t have a first- or second-round pick next year. So if I’m hearing this correctly, the only thing to look forward to is whether the Bears can get LeBron James through free agency in 2010.
As intriguing as it might be, the idea of a truncated 2009 season isn’t going to fly, and so the final five games will have to be played.
There is nothing that happened Sunday, nor in six of the last seven games, that would suggest this is a good thing.
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
