Familiar Horrors Haunt Cutler, Bears in Discouraging Season-Opening Loss
Published by Zach Kruse on September 7, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
The horrors that haunted the Chicago Bears‘ season-opening loss to the Buffalo Bills should feel all too familiar in the Windy City.
Career gunslinger Jay Cutler set up a Bills touchdown with a first-half interception and killed a fourth-quarter drive with another ill-advised pick. Fred Jackson later sliced the Bears run defense wide open in overtime, setting up Dan Carpenter’s game-winning field goal with a 38-yard romp that saw the NFL‘s oldest running back stiff-arm his way through the embarrassing tackle attempt of safety Chris Conte.
Combine the two—untimely mistakes from Cutler and a shaky run defense—and the Bears now find themselves 0-1 and the victim of one of the more eye-opening upsets in Week 1. Carpenter’s chip-shot kick gave Buffalo a 23-20 win.
For Chicago, Sunday represented the re-opening of wounds many believed were closed.
Cutler, who threw 12 interceptions over 11 games last season, completed 34 of 49 passes for 349 yards and two scores. He spread the football around to eight different receivers, managed 19 passing first downs and led the way to Chicago’s 427-yard offensive output.
But his two mistakes will stand out as turning points in the game.
Cutler’s first interception was woefully underthrown to tight end Martellus Bennett, which allowed former Bears cornerback Corey Graham to undercut the route and pick off the pass. Graham returned the interception 45 yards, and a penalty on Alshon Jeffery for illegal use of the hands tacked on another eight yards and set up Buffalo at the Chicago 7-yard line.
A play later, Bills running back C.J. Spiller was in the end zone to put Buffalo up by 10 points, 17-7.
Cutler’s final interception was just as costly.
With the game tied at 17 and the Bears driving in the fourth quarter, Cutler rolled to his right and attempted to throw back across his body to the middle of the field. But Kyle Williams flashed in front of Bennett and made the easy interception, giving Buffalo possession with under eight minutes to go in the contest.
“Probably should just throw it away,” a visibly grumpy Cutler said post-game.
If he had thrown it away, the Bears could have attempted a field goal of roughly 50 yards. A make from Robbie Gould would have given Chicago a three-point lead and put added pressure on E.J. Manuel and the Bills offense to produce on the next series. Head coach Marc Trestman might have also entertained the idea of going for it on fourth down, in an attempt to set up a better scoring opportunity and melt more clock.
After the interception, Manuel led the Bills 37 yards over eight plays to set up a field goal.
To his credit, Cutler came right back on the next series and marched the Bears down the field for a tying field goal.
Chicago’s offense made moving the football look so easy for long stretches of Sunday’s opener, which is no surprise given how effective Trestman’s bunch was during the 2013 season. But the Bears managed just 20 points, in part, because turnovers—the two from Cutler and a fumble from Brandon Marshall—halted drives and swung momentum. The three giveaways resulted in 13 points for the Bills.
Trestman put the blame on the offense (via the Chicago Tribune‘s Rich Campbell):
Cutler is no stranger to interceptions, especially late in games. His 75 interceptions rank as the fourth-most in the NFL since 2009, with 26 of those picks coming in the fourth quarter or overtime.
While Cutler made a few more head-scratching mistakes, the Bears run defense looked strikingly similar to the 2013 unit that allowed 161.4 yards per game and 5.3 yards per carry.
The Bills finished the game with 193 rushing yards on 33 carries, good for an average of 5.8 yards per rush. Three different rushers went over 50 yards for Buffalo.
Spiller ground out 53 yards over 15 carries. Anthony Dixon needed just five attempts to gain 60 yards, with the majority of the damage coming on a 47-yard scamper late in the second quarter.
Jackson had a team-high 61 yards. His biggest rush came in overtime, when he split a huge gap in the Bears defense and then stiff-armed Conte to the ground to set up the Bills with first down at the Bears’ 1-yard line.
Take away Buffalo’s two long runs, and the Bills would have still rushed for over 100 yards.
Failures in stopping the run all but eliminated the Bears last season. Over the final 10 weeks of 2013, Chicago allowed 1,971 rushing yards. The Bears went 4-6 in those games.
Embarrassments against the run included allowing over 500 combined rushing yards in back-to-back losses to the St. Louis Rams and Minnesota Vikings, and a 289-yard effort from the Philadelphia Eagles during a Week 16 loss.
Sunday’s defeat wasn’t nearly as cringe-worthy, but the Bears clearly have more work to do in becoming competitive against the run in 2014.
Expectations for the Bears were understandably sky-high entering this season, in large part due to Trestman’s work with Cutler and the commitments made by general manager Phil Emery in fixing the defensive front-seven. The bad decisions were supposed to continue decreasing from Cutler, while the additions of Lamarr Houston and Jared Allen in free agency brought much-needed talent to the defensive line.
The Bears didn’t get the expected results from either player Sunday. Now, the sting of an 0-1 start could be compounded by a Week 2 trip to San Francisco and an early schedule that includes four road games sandwiching a home tilt against the Green Bay Packers over the next five weeks.
It’s gut-check time.
Are the 2014 Bears just a new version of old failures? Or will Chicago finally bury the horrors that once again haunted the club Sunday?
The Bears must answer those tough questions against arguably the most stressful portion of their 2014 schedule.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
Read more Chicago Bears news on BleacherReport.com
