The Bears managed to pull off yet another spectacular come-from-behind victory against the Packers in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. But I kind of wish they hadn't. Now, I'm going to be subjected to yet another 2 1/2 quarters of awful, depressing Bears' football next week.
This was the 7th such 4th quarter comeback this season, and it really does beg the question of whether the Bears are genuinely good, or if they are just lucky. Their play for the first 2 and a half quarters of football all year long has been abysmal. Fumbled snaps, penalties, receivers running the wrong routes or dropping open passes, and a defense that lets opponents march down the field with little-to-no resistance. At least special teams has been playing competently in the later stretches of the season. Cairos Santos has been reliably making his field goals, and the coverage teams aren't giving up huge returns or scores.
But then the end of the 3rd quarter rolls around, and the team goes into Madden-esque "turbo mode", and can suddenly do no wrong.
Photo credit: NFL, Amazon Prime.
Don't get cocky.
I love football. But as much as I love football, I hate watching bad football. I'm the kind of football fan who, while everyone else is clapping and cheering, I am actually yelling "What are you doing?!" at the other team when they do something stupid. Everyone else seems to think these Bears games are "thrilling"; I just think they're ugly. If this sort of thing happens once or twice per season, that's one thing. That builds character, and shows grit and determination. When almost half of the season is games like this, that signals that there is something fundamentally wrong with the team or its coaching. Just ask Vikings fans how easily this sort of "luck" can swing the other way in just a single season.
If this Bears team were genuinely good, I feel like they should be playing more competently in the first half, and then going "clutch" in the 4th quarter to seal the win. I would not expect a good team to be going down 21-3 at halftime, game after game, and relying on a fluke missed extra point to force the opponent to have to score a touchdown or bust in the closing minute to retake the lead.
If both defenses were playing great, and the halftime score were more like 10-3 or 13-6, that would be one thing. But the Bears' defense doesn't look great. They look like the proverbial stick of butter being bisected by a hot knife. The whole season, the defense's play has basically boiled down to "turnover or bust". They lead the league in takeaways, but if they don't get those takeaways, they typically give up a score.
And the offense has struggled to keep pace. Despite hearing every week from the analysts and commentators that Ben Johnson is a "creative play-caller" and an offensive mastermind, the offense is perpetually unable to execute in the first half of games. Often, they'll move the ball on their first possession, and then go three-and-out for the rest of the game until late in the 3rd, when they suddenly wake back up.
Having watched the Bears as much as I could all season long (most of their games are not televised on the west coast), I would not expect the Bears to be the 2nd seed in the playoffs; I would expect them to have the 7th or 9th overall draft pick. I am confident that they are better than the worst teams in the league. They are better than the Raiders, the Jets, the Titans, and the Cardinals. They are probably better than the Giants, Browns, Commanders, and Saints (all of whom they beat in the regular season). But are they better than the likes of the Dolphins, Colts, Cowboys, Falcons, Buccaneers, or even (and I can't believe I have to say this) better than the 6-11 Chiefs? I honestly cannot say that they are. I feel like if they played any of those teams, they would go down by multiple scores in the first half, and would have to get lucky to engineer a 4th quarter comeback.
Photo credit: Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Photo credit: Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Honestly, I might be more happy that the Packers lost, than that the Bears won.
That luck has got to run out eventually. It's been working for most of the season, as the Bears have beaten a lot of bad and mediocre teams. Their only true signature win was beating the Eagles on Black Friday. But they aren't playing the Vikings or the Giants or the Browns anymore; they are in the playoffs. And next week, they're going to have to play the cream of the NFC crop: the 49ers or the Rams. And just as we saw in the penultimate weak of the regular season, they cannot rely on luck to carry them through a genuinely good team like the 49ers -- let alone on the road against the Seahawks.
I worry that this team is going to get cocky, and that cockiness is going to carry over into next year, when they will have a much harder schedule. This team needs to get its shit together and start playing decent football in the first half. Or else next year, the season will be over by Halloween, and they'll likely be sitting at home in their pajamas when playoffs roll around in January.