A Fan’s Non-expert take on Bears Week 7 Loss to Skins
Oct 20, 2013; Landover, MD, USA; Washington Redskins cheerleaders dance on the field against the Chicago Bears at FedEx Field. The Redskins won 45-41. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Sucks the big one. I had my Bears going into the bye at 5-2, didn’t you? The Detroit Lions lost yesterday to the Bengals so I get a little morphine. I knew that the Green Bay Packers were going to weasel their way to the top of the NFC North as well. I don’t like the standings right now at all. The biggest Redskins fan I know, Stephanie St. Clair, has to be pretty happy about her team moving forward. It looks like they got their mojo back.
The Bears are not a shootout team. I can only think of two games in the past several years that were high scoring affairs for both teams. One against the Vikings in our house when their QB was Gus Frerotte. Orange jersey game, (I liked those better than the throwbacks.) Our defense played terrible, but we managed a win 48-41. Also, just before the bye.
The other was more recently in our house against the Jets while Mark Sanchez was still playing well. Again we managed a win, 38-34. These were both wins for us and yesterday wasn’t. Plain and simple. Did you think we even had a chance when Cutty went down? We did, and our defense couldn’t hold down any of our leads that we had in that game.
The team that beat us was not the 1-4 woeful team in disarray, they were the team that went from worst to first, and won their division last year. They started to come back last week against Dallas, and used our poor defense and some very motivated fans to complete the rest of their rehab.
I could write all about how our season’s over and how our defense sucks and how we should fire Mel Tucker and all that stuff but I won’t. It is what it is and I can’t do anything about it. Neither can you, so here we are. Stop crying, look at the girls in the picture, and go to your happy place.
But I can’t ever remember my Beloved losing a game and still feeling OK about it, but I do. Here’s a few reasons why.
1. The Bye week. We can’t lose this weekend and it give’s our team a chance to get healthy. Some half-season adjustments are in order here. I’m not quite ready to give up on our whole defense, yet. How many times have they bailed us out in the past? I still see glimpses of greatness there, it’s just masked by the fact that they are giving up big plays. I don’t know who’s responsible. Not everyone knows what an opposing team is going to do on a play before they know it. We had a guy like that on our team, Brian Urlacher, and the Bears treated him like a busboy, and he’s gone. They come around about as much as Haley’s Comet.
2. We scored 31 points without our starting quarterback. How many teams could do that? When Jay Cutler went down 5 minutes into the second quarter, I imagined that was it for us, it wasn’t. Hester answered our prayers with a return touchdown and I saw amazing play from 34-year-old backup QB Josh McCown. He finished the game with a 119.6 passer rating. Let’s just hope his appearance won’t be the only good outing in this stretch as our starter, (see Caleb Hanie, NFC Championship game.) Also, Matt Forte, Thanks for your three touchdowns too.
3. We are still tied for the lead in our division, regardless of the standings. The teams tied with us don’t exactly have their stuff altogether either. I read a bunch of comments about our team last night. Nice attitudes. Very positive. I’m glad I don’t have to go into combat with some of these guys. We are 4-3. I can think of 18 teams that would be happy to have that record. I know we have lost three of our last 4, and it hurts. But I’m not losing hope, (cue National Anthem) and neither are you. I won’t let you. Go into the bye, think about all the sacrifices that were made so that we could enjoy this game. Think of it as the gift that it is to be able to watch football on Sunday and complain about your team losing on Monday. Only then, can you realize the part it plays in being an American.