Bears Blitz

Published by Dan Boone on May 21, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.  ~Philip K. Dick

Hopes are high, high, high in sweet home Chicago but expect reality to bite the Bears badly as usual.

Since their last Super Bowl appearance, the Bears have been a sad bad bunch.

Since Lovie Smith fired defensive coordinator Ron Rivera after their Super Bowl sojourn the defense has been in decline.

Lovie replaced Rivera with a crony, then canned the crony, and replaced him with…himself.

Still the defense is bad and each year seems to get even worse.

Perhaps Lovie can make a mini me, complete with mini play sheets to shield his calls from mini Lovie lip readers, to run the defense then everything might be right in Lovie Land.

Gale Sayers is right; Brain Urlacher is going down the mountain of his career and sometimes that ride is a fast, ugly trip.

The Bear’s secondary is a shambles but Smith seems to think a third round safety, Major Wright, and a recycled Bear, Chris Harris, will save them.

Perhaps but Lovie’s, and General Manager Jerry Angelo’s, player picking skills have been found wanting.

Most ex Bears get better when they leave the organization.

Is that coincidence or coaching?

The big Bear buy is defensive end Julius Peppers, a pure pass rusher in his thirties who has always played his best in his contract year.

The dream is that Peppers will provide a pass rush that will hide the secondary’s woes and revive slumbering Tommy Harris who has not been the same since he injured his knee and, or, signed a huge contract.

Is Peppers the perfect seasoning to save the secondary and salvage the sinking defense? Time will tell but Peppers, not a run stopper, is not a championship type impact on a defense with more holes than the sinking Bismarck.

But the defense is not the teams biggest ill. The Bears offensive line has been horrid the last few years.

The bad backed, first round tackle, Chris Williams, has been mostly a disappointment and the star center, Olin Kreutz, is aging quicker than Urlacher. The rest of the line are journeymen fill ins who have been found wanting.

If the offensive line fails the team fails.

Jay Cutler was not very good last year but Johnny Unitas would have floundered behind that bad Bear line. And that Bear line has the same faces as last year except for an Abba loving line coach called Mike Tice.

Maybe Dancing Queen is the motivation the big boys need. That and a back up blocking tight end from San Diego is all the help they are going to get.

Cutler’s wide receiving corps does not have a true number one, some would say not even a true two, wide receiver.

Lovie Smith’s fiddling with David Hester has wrecked havoc with his stellar return skills. He has turned a hall of fame return man into a below average wide out. Hester has lost his mojo, maybe lost it forever. 

It’s a harsh reality Charlie Brown and day dreams die hard. Lucy is pulling up the football on Lovie again.

Super Bowl windows slam shut like lightening in the NFL and it seems the Super Bowl window in Chicago slammed shut several seasons ago.

If one does not hear a window slam, or covers one’s ears to ignore the sound, does not mean it isn’t closed.

Reality bites hard and it will be a bitter bite to the Bears when the teams flaws become fissures.

Perhaps the fractures will be enough to even make the McCaskey’s notice. Or maybe they already did and just did not want to drop a ton of bucks on a new regime, while paying the old ones contracts, before what could be a long lock out.

Something in Chicago has to give or at least win. And with a deeply flawed team and organization wins do not seem seem a likely thing.

And Jerry and Lovie, at long last, likely will be blown from the Windy City.

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