Playing Only for Pride, Jay Cutler and Chicago Bears Prove They Don't Have Any

The stage was set for the Chicago Bears to make a statement.

For head coach Marc Trestman to prove he hasn't lost his team. For enigmatic quarterback Jay Cutler to prove he actually cares. For the Bears to prove they have enough professional pride to give their fans their money's worth.

They had a Monday Night Football national TV audience, a prime-time Chicago crowd and they faced a discombobulated New Orleans Saints team coming off a 41-10 beatdown at the hands of the then-3-8-1 Carolina Panthers.

Nope.

The pathetic non-effort the Bears turned in—in a 31-15 loss—had even ESPN commentator Jon Gruden, one of the most circumspect analysts in the business, savaging their play (via ESPN's Kevin Seifert):

Let's try and quantify the badness.

Cutler completed just 54.8 percent of his passes for just 194 yards, three interceptions and two garbage-time touchdowns. He was sacked five times. The Bears didn't score a point until the fourth quarter, long after the game was over, and they were penalized nine times for minus-74 yards. 

The Saints defense was allowing the third-most points per game in the NFL, 27.6, before holding the Bears to 15. They were ranked in the bottom third of the league in both sack rate and interception rate, per Pro-Football-Reference.com, but Cutler and the Bears made them look like...well, the '85 Bears.

None of those numbers, though, capture the profound sense of pathetic capitulation the Bears exuded from kickoff to whistle. Cutler's disaffected brooding and miserable play set the tone from the third play of the game, when he (what else?) threw a pick:

After the opening drive ended in that interception, the Bears' remaining possessions in the first three quarters ended like this: punt, punt, punt, turnover on downs, punt, interception, punt, interception.

As Rich Campbell tweeted during the game, it's hard to find fault with offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer's comments about the Bears feeling "buyer's remorse" over Cutler's contract:

"

Jay Cutler did nothing tonight to prove Aaron Kromer wrong. Nothing.

— Rich Campbell (@Rich_Campbell) December 16, 2014"

Bears tailback Matt Forte showed up. He gained an average of 4.88 yards across just 17 carries. The Saints defense couldn't stop him—but the Bears defense sure could.

After Cutler's opening-drive groaner, Saints receiver Nick Toon fumbled the ball right back to Chicago. The second possession ended with this crazy sequence:

That's two field-goal attempts; one aborted and replayed, thanks to a Jared Allen penalty, the second just plain missed.

After they finished shooting themselves in the foot, though, the Saints' next seven drives ended like this: Touchdown, punt, punt, touchdown, touchdown, punt, field goal. At the start of the fourth quarter, the Saints led 24-0.

With the Bears trying to close a massive deficit on the arm of a quarterback who couldn't seem to throw a catchable pass to guys wearing the same jersey, Forte—the only Bear getting it done on offense—was frozen out.

At no point did either Bears unit look like it came to play; Cutler certainly didn't. He didn't stick around long after the game, either.

Per multiple media reports, the live broadcast feed and social-media captures thereof, Cutler bailed on his postgame press conference before the local media showed up. They didn't miss much, judging by the quotes he gave to the handful of national reporters who were there before he ducked out.

"Just trying to get better for these next two games," Cutler said he hoped to accomplish in the last two games of 2014. "Just trying to get a good performance offensively." 

Brian Kersey/Getty Images

Yeah, that'd be nice. After signing a seven-year, $126.7 million contract with $54 million guaranteed, per Spotrac, "trying to get a good performance" seems like the least he could do.

General manager Phil Emery talked to Jeff Joniak of WBBM this week. Per Rich Campbell of the Chicago Tribune, Emery told Joniak he was "very angry," not to mention "disappointed and upset" with the embarrassing drama Kromer put the organization through.

In Emery's full statement, it was not hard to see the gathering doom over Trestman's head. His job was probably forfeit before Cutler even threw that opening pick.

Yet if Cutler, Kromer, Trestman and the Bears have a shred of unity left, or simply professional pride, they'd have put together and executed a much better offensive game plan against a wet-tissue defense with major personnel and scheme problems.

Instead, Monday Night Football audiences were subjected to one of the least watchable NFL games in recent memory—and the sparse, bitter, viciously booing Chicago crowd just might have seen the last of Marc Trestman on the sideline.