Critical Turnovers Still Haunting Jay Cutler and the Volatile Chicago Bears
Published by Zach Kruse on October 5, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Turnovers during the most critical times have become a losing habit Jay Cutler and the volatile Chicago Bears can’t seem to kick.
Thanks to three giveaways in the second half Sunday, including a bad interception from Cutler and a game-changing fumble from running back Matt Forte, the Bears saw leads of 21-7 and 24-21 evaporate as the Carolina Panthers dropped Chicago to 2-3 with a 31-24 come-from-behind win.
While the Bears built an early two-score lead thanks to 14 points off turnovers from their own defense, Cutler and the offense were more than willing to repay the favor in the second half. Two turnovers were especially important.
In the fourth quarter, the Panthers tied the game at 24 after intercepting Cutler for a second time. With the Bears near midfield and in position to seal the game, Cutler sailed a pass over the head of receiver Santonio Holmes. It landed in the waiting arms of safety Thomas DeCoud, and the Panthers proceeded to kick the game-tying field goal four plays later.
Forte’s fumble was even more crippling.
It was the most uncommon of errors. During his seven-year career, Forte has almost 2,000 career touches. He’s fumbled just 16 times total, losing only 11. Sunday’s fumble, which gave Carolina the football at the Bears’ 23-yard line inside five minutes to go, was his first of the season.
Greg Olsen, the Bears’ former first-round tight end, caught a touchdown pass six plays later to deliver the winning points. One final turnover—a strip-sack of Cutler delivered by Kawann Short and recovered by Charles Johnson—wrote Chicago’s third loss in five games to start 2014 in stone.
Sunday’s losing script is unfortunately a familiar one.
The Bears have turned the football over eight times during their three losses. In the two wins, the offense had just one giveaway. No one statistic can ever fully describe the fine line between losing and winning in the NFL, but a broad stroke of Chicago’s season paints a picture focused solely on turnovers.
In Week 1, the Bears had three turnovers, including a late interception of Cutler that allowed the Buffalo Bills to take the lead in the fourth quarter.
Last Sunday, the Green Bay Packers outscored the Bears 17-0 in the second half in part due to two Cutler interceptions. An offensive slugfest turned into a decisive Packers win when the Bears offense couldn’t stop shooting its own foot in the second half. Green Bay turned Cutler’s two interceptions into 14 points and a 38-17 win.
The Panthers outscored the Bears 17-3 during the second half Sunday. Over just the last two weeks, Chicago has allowed 34 points and scored just three during the second half.
Cutler has been an obvious—but no less frustrating—problem.
Again on Sunday, Cutler played winning football on 95 percent of his dropbacks. Early on, the Bears offense marched down the field at will against the Carolina defense, primarily using Forte as a receiver—he finished with 12 catches—and hitting on a few shots down the field. Cutler finished the contest completing 28-of-36 passes for 289 yards and a passer rating of 95.5—numbers indicative of a winning performance. But once again, his late interception tainted the performance.
Cutler’s season-passer rating sits at 95.1. He also leads the NFL in interceptions thrown with six.
Such is life with Cutler at quarterback.
On the flight home from Charlotte, the Bears will likely look at the team’s current 2-3 record and wonder how it doesn’t read 3-2 or 4-1. Good football teams aren’t supposed to lose at home in overtime or blow a 21-7 lead. A safer play here, or a better decision there, and the Bears likely would be 4-1 and atop the NFC North standings.
Instead, the Bears are facing harsh realities.
No season is over at 2-3. Not by a long shot. But seasons can certainly lose momentum or careen to a bad place with losses like Sunday’s, especially when those losses do not appear to have easy fixes.
Cutler, who is really just a more productive version of the quarterback he’s always been, remains at the root of the problem. His inability to protect the football isn’t going to suddenly vanish. His overall numbers may continue to approach “elite” levels, but Cutler will always be prone to the kind of unforced mistakes seen again Sunday.
His mistakes hurt the Bears. When Cutler throws two or more interceptions in a game, the Bears are now 4-18.
Forte’s late fumble won’t likely become a trend. Still, Marshall also lost a fumble in Week 1, proving that everyone involved shares in the blame.
The Bears are simply a team wholly dependent on safe-guarding the football on offense and taking it away on defense. If we can concede that as fact after five games, it’s also probably safe to consider the Bears as volatile a team as the NFL can offer from week to week.
By its very definition, volatile assumes unexpected change and often times unpredictable, undesired results. The Bears weren’t expected to lose to the Bills in Week 1, and for most of the first half Sunday, a blowout looked completely more likely than a Carolina win.
Turnovers remain the catalyst of change for the Bears in 2014. For Cutler and the offense, enacting negative change through giveaways has far too often factored heavily into the losing equation.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
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