Feel Like Booing Chicago Bears Fans? Look No Further Than the Sidelines!

Despite the great performance given by the players last night, it was all kind of brushed under the bus by inadequate coaching down the stretch.

As we have seen time and time again this season, Lovie Smith and Ron Turner cannot manage a football game, especially with a lead.

Without sound like a hypocrite; what were we doing in the second half of that game playing with such carelessness for the football?

Last week, I will admit, that I said we went into a shell offensively against Jacksonville when we got the lead. But, that is not to say that against the Saints, one of the worst rush defenses in the NFL, that we neglect the run all second half!

Why does it seem our coaches have everything backwards when it comes to play calling? We have no courage to make the tough decision to go for it when we should, but at points in the game where we just need to punt or take a field goal, we all of a sudden find courage to go for it!

Against the Packers, a terrible rush defense, we chose to throw it all game! Then we have Minnesota, a great rush defense, and we chose to run for most of the game in key situations. Then against Jacksonville, in the second half, who had a weak secondary, we chose to run all second half.

Now against a terrible run defense in the Saints, we chose to pass all second half giving Drew Brees at least two more possessions than he should have had!

Our offense again after playing a good first half, only mustered three points in the second half again!!!

So let’s recap the horrendous decisions/execution coming from the sideline in the second half.

First, we chose to pass way too much! We only ran the ball five times; yes, five times the whole second half, while throwing the ball 23 times. That is 23/28 or 82 percent of the time throwing the football.

Could somebody remind me again what the Chicago Bears are based upon? I thought it was smash-mouth football. To run the ball and control the game and play the field position game and let you defense give you opportunities? But I guess I could be wrong.

Maybe now we have turned into the New Orleans Saints, who rushed 17 times in the second half and only threw the ball 20 times. Now, that is what we call balance 20/37 or 54 percent of the time throwing the football.

And let’s not forget, the Saints are built to throw 80 percent of the time, but their coaching staff established balance and time of possession by running the ball in the second half. Whereas the Bears coaching staff became one-dimensional!

So, at halftime, the game was 21-7, and the Saints had not once taken the ball from outside the Bears 50 and scored. They only scored because of a fumble on the one-yard line by Orton/Kreutz. 

In the second half, what most people would do as coaches is control the clock. Lovie Smith and Ron Turner decided to come out throwing! Did they possibly forget they have Matt Forte? One of the best backs in the league!

He only ran the ball 11 times all night. You have to be kidding me. We only had 227 total yards of offense, why? Because we were pass happy!

You cannot control a game and sustain drives without a running attack. If it wasn’t for two pass interference calls on poorly thrown balls by Orton, then the Bears would have lost last night!

Ok, so the Saints came out in the second half with the ball and we forced them into an interception. Then we drive all the way down the field for the first time in the game and “butterfingers Davis” drops the pass again (why is this guy playing?) and it gets intercepted.

Huge change in momentum, going from taking a 24-7 lead or 28-7 lead to now giving the Saints great field position at the Chicago 45 with the score 21-7.  The Saints punched it in and now it is 21-14 with 3:44 to go in the 3rd Quarter.

Next possession, we ran the ball a little right? No, we ran once and threw twice, forcing a 3 and out and taking a whole 1:36 off the clock! Wow, what time management.

Saints took the ball down the field, for the only time all night from the NO 25 to the Chicago 12 and were forced to a field goal. Again, the first time all night they were able to sustain a drive over 50 yards and come away with points!

Now, there is 9:07 left in the game. We will certainly run it now and control the clock right? No, we run once (on second down every time) and take a whopping 1:16 off the clock! But wait, there’s more!

Instead of punting from our own 47, we call a fake punt, what? The pass lands incomplete, don’t like the rule for why it was incomplete, but that’s another article!

Is this guy Lovie Smith seriously a coach in the NFL? You have a 21-17 lead with 7:48 to go in the game, and have the ball at your own 47 and you call a fake punt?

Especially when your defense has only given up three points all night long when the Saints have a long field? The game is probably over if we punt it deep inside the 20.

So now the Saints take over at the Chicago 47 with 7:31 to go in the game. 1st down; five yard rush: second down; four-yard pass: 3rd-and-1 now approaches, Anthony Adams gets a huge push and stuff the fullback dive!

Now i'ts 4th-and-1 and the Bears defense gang tackles Thomas in the backfield for a five-yard loss giving the Bears offense the ball back with just 5:29 to go at the Chi 43. Remember the saints burned two timeouts early in the half so they only have one left!

Certainly this time, after all the mistakes, we have learned our lesson, and we are now going to run the ball and pin them deep right?

Nope. Instead, on first down, drop back and throw an incompletion. Then on second down, clearly we will run? Nope. We throw again, and it is intercepted and returned to the Chicago 31.

If only we had ran the ball on 1st down taking the clock from 5:29 to approximately 4:45. Then, run the ball on second down taking the clock from 4:45 to about 4:00.  Then, run on third down and get the Saints to use that final timeout!

Then there would have been about 3:50 left and we could have punted it inside the 15! They would have had to drive 85 yards for a touchdown with 3:50 left and no timeouts. And that’s considering the fact we can’t get a first down rushing!

Remember, the saints only had one drive all night over 50 yards that resulted in points and it was only a field goal. By the way, that drive took over seven minutes!

So now the Bears defense is put in another terrible position and they can’t come through twice in less than a minute! The Saints score a touchdown and take their first lead of the game.

I remind you that if we would have only ran the ball on 14 of our 28 second half plays that would have taken approximately five to six minutes off the clock!

Think about it, nine additional runs to get to 14 rushes. That’s nine plays and 40 seconds on the play clock which is 360 seconds or six minutes! The game would have been over!

Our offense did then rebound though, and then came possibly the worst coaching job in the game as far as clock management!

We had the ball at the NO 25 after completing a first down pass to Brandon Lloyd, and we had two timeouts and 0:55 left in the game! We chose to run another play instead of calling the timeout.

Then only leaving us with 0:30 before the snap and 0:19 after the Olsen catch. Then we called the timeout! Now, instead of having 0:40 seconds on 2nd-and-four from the 19, we now have a 2nd-and-4 from the 19 with 0:19 left in the game!

We get all the way to New Orleans' nine with a 1st-and-goal, but now there is only 0:12 left in the game, there is no time to run three plays even to try and win! Now, if we had called the timeout that would still leave 0:33 left on the clock, so we could run, pass, do anything!

Now we only get one shot at the end zone. Interference should have been called on the play, but it wasn’t. Even if it was there was only 0:07 left and not enough time to run a play, just too dangerous with the playoffs on the line!

In the end, the Bears won the game in overtime. I just hope Jerry Angelo is watching these tapes at the end of the season! Because this Bears team is good, very good.  And if they had a better coaching staff, they would already have 10 or 11 wins this season.

The coaches repeatedly don’t learn from their mistakes and cannot make good/smart game time decisions or manage the clock at the end of the game.

Kyle Orton should have known to call the timeout, but I think they told him on the sidelines to run another play instead of taking the timeout.

The game should have been won more than three or four times in regulation, but due to poor coaching  and decision making by Orton, in the second half we almost squandered a 14-point lead again!

The defense looked amazing last night, only hurt by bad play calling which lead to interceptions and putting them in bad positions! This team needs to make changes on the sidelines next year or we will continue to not live up to our potential!