Chicago Bears: Defense and Special Teams Underperform in Recent Losses

During the high that was the Chicago Bears’ midseason five-game win streak, a rematch with division rival took place. During the game that saw a Bears defense look like the great stoppers of old, the TV announce team quoted Brian Urlacher as saying he wasn’t concerned about stopping Matthew Stafford and the Lions offense because the defense was going to go out there and simply take the ball away.

And take it away they did, to the tune of four interceptions and two of those were taken back for six.

That win was followed up by a solid victory against the San Diego Chargers and right when it was looking like the Bears were revving up for major playoff push, Cutler goes down with broken thumb.

Bears fans shook their hands in defiance at the pigskin deities then settled down a bit, as they realized that there were very winnable games left on the schedule.

Beating Oakland was plausible and beating Kansas City seemed likely. The offense was a bit more limited without Cutler, but the defense and special teams were still light years ahead of both opponents (as with most opponents).

Against the Raiders, the Bears D kept Oakland out of the endzone for the most part, but could not stop Sebastian Janikowski from nailing six field-goals. Hanie looked very shaky with three INTs, but started to put something together in the fourth before he ran out of mojo.

The Kansas City game was deemed Caleb Hanie’s bounce back game. He was going to make all of the necessary adjustments and pick apart one of the league’s most anemic teams. Then Forte went down.

Bears fans were now screaming curses at the football deities as Forte left the field carrying what was left of fans’ playoff hopes.

It was understood that with Urlacher and Briggs anchoring a defense that had been stellar as of late and with Hester still fielding kicks, the Bears had at least four wins left in them to take a wild card berth in this year’s playoffs.

Combine that with a possible Cutler return and it wasn’t too far-fetched to think this team could get hot again and make a deep playoff push.

Well, unfortunately, the defense and the specials only played okay. And, unfortunately, the Bears needed more than okay from them. The Bears had only one take away from Oakland in their 20-25 loss and none against Kansas City in their whimpering 10-3 losing effort. The additional stinger in the loss against the Chiefs is that the difference turned out to be a divinely answered halftime Hail Mary.

It sounds crazy to say that the defense was part of the letdown considering they helped Hanie keep pace with Oakland, and held Kansas City to just 10 points. But remember, for the past two weeks, Lovie and company have been talking about being confident in Hanie and how the other two phases would more than chip in their fair share to help keep the Bears on the winning track.

Well, there are four games left and it seems like Chicago will have to win out in order to keep their playoff hopes alive and with Green Bay being one of those four, the uphill climb seems a bit steeper.

Chicago would be in a much more comfortable position if they took advantage of the still slipping Detroit Lions and closed out two very winnable games. But since the other two phases (which are also the better two phases) have failed to turn it up like they said they would, the Bears can only hope for Detroit to continue to backslide while somehow getting it together for the remaining weeks.