And with that last painful loss, the Bears have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.  Not to say that anyone in their right mind thought they had a shot even if they somehow miraculously beat the Pack, but the reality of it is now undeniable.  So what does that mean for Bears fans?  Well it means the only value we get from our Bears is looking forward to the possibility of next year.  (And yes, I know I am not addressing the Bears-Packers game directly, its like looking directly into the sun, way too painful)  While there are a lot of things that appear to be positives for next season, I’m way too pissed about not having anymore meaningful football in Chicago this year to see the bright sides.  Thus, I’m going to shoot down every myth about how we are going to “improve” next season.

Lovie And Angelo will be gone and a new coach/GM combo will come in and turn things around: Wrong!  Cowher has basically said he would rather be a GM than a coach and Shanahan has no reason to come to a bad team when so many other teams have been reported to want him.  If the Bears get a new coach, it will not likely be one of those two names.  Even if it is (or they get someone else who is good), they will be unable to fix any of the problems the Bears have, since they are too stingy to get a big-name free agent and have no legitimate high draft picks to improve the team.

The Offensive Line Will Improve Now That They’ve Had a Year to Gel: I’m hoping no one really believes this one is a possibility.  Pace will be older (if that’s possible, I mean he already looks prehistoric).  Omiyale will be gone or just as bad.  Chris Williams was okay at best but nothing to get excited about.  Kreutz is small, overrated, and a terrible run-blocker.  To improve at the O-Line, the Bears would literally need to tear it down and reconstruct it from scratch.  Seems unlikely in only one offseason since they haven’t been able to do it in the 4 offseasons prior to this one.

The Defense Won’t be so Bad, Urlacher will be Healthy: Sure, Urlacher’s injury exposed the defense for what it was, an aging unit playing in an outdated system.  The question is, will his return really mean a return to prominence for the entire defense?  He sure hasn’t looked young the last few years and the rest of the defense managed to regress horribly in his absence.  Don’t count on him being a cure-all, the d-line is overrated, the secondary is nonexistent, and Hunter Hillenmeyer is, well, Hunter Hillenmeyer.

Matt Forte Just Had a Sophomore Slump: Come on now.  We are the fan base that lived through the Enis and Salaam disasters.  I know I tried to argue he was different earlier this season, but have you been watching the games?  He has no speed, average strength, and can’t seem to find any real holes (although to his credit, the o-line isn’t exactly creating the holes).  He’s an average back at best.  End of story.

Jay Cutler Will Know His Receivers Better: I don’t even know where to begin with this one.  I guess the first question is “What receivers?”  If your first thought when you think of receivers is “Who is our #1, Hester, Bennett, or Knox?” you know you have problems.  That being said, the rapport he has with his receivers now is non-existent.  Every single incompletion or interception raises the issue of who wasn’t on the same page.  It’s Week 13 for god’s sakes!  If they aren’t on the same page by now, they won’t ever be.  Is Cutler to blame in all this?  Probably, but those wideouts all suck.

Maybe Ron Turner Isn’t Retarded: Just kidding, I don’t think anyone believes this.  Turner is a complete moron.

Jay Cutler is bad.  Jay Cutler cannot live up to the expectations.  Jay Cutler is so arrogant he has never seen a pass he didn’t think he could make.  Am I missing anything?  Okay now that we have that covered, let’s get down to business.  The Kool-Aid is tasting a little sour the last few weeks, I’ll admit that.  But its still 10,000 times better than any QB-Kool-Aid I ever drank (besides Kurt Kittner in 01-02, but I digress).

Now there are 2 schools of thought when it comes to this Cutler situation.  The first is that Cutler is awesome, but he has no defense, offensive line, or wide receivers, so he is in an impossible situation.  The second is that, yeah, the rest of the team is bad, but that doesn’t excuse Cutler for being so terrible.  Both are correct to some degree.  Here is what I think is really going on though.

Jay Cutler came to Chicago with high expectations.  I mean he personally had high expectations for himself and this team.  He thought this was it.  He was one of the top quarterbacks in the league going from a sub-par team to a pretty good team.  He wanted to win bad.  Their was Super Bowl talk and contender talk and he, being the confident guy he is, thought he could make it happen.

Then the season started with that hiccup in Green Bay, but he bounced back from that.  Even though the Bears started winning, however, it became clear that the defense was rusty and aging and they would not be able to help carry the load.  So he started pressing.  And pressing.  And as the defense deteriorated into a worthless pile of shit, he began to revert to what he did in Denver, try to win games by himself.  While the offensive line does look like swiss cheese, it really doesn’t seem to affect Jay too much.  He is able to scramble and create time for himself (although the run game being shitty is a huge factor).  Thus we can’t blame them too much if that was what you were thinking.

So Jay’s bad performance, well that is on Jay, although I can understand why.  He DOES need to win games by himself on this joke of a team.  So while we should be pointing our fingers at him for being somewhat shitty and pressing, we should also do it while understanding that it’s not him giving away games we should win, but instead trying to salvage games that we most assuredly will lose.

H/T Picture: Sun-Times

I have one simple request.  Can everyone stop emailing, instant messaging, texting, and calling me to talk about or ask what I thought about last night’s Bears game please?  I don’t feel like talking about it.  You can all expect one or both of these 2 posts next week: Does Cutler Suck? And should the Bears fire Lovie?

Until then, here is a video from the telecast of the game last night.  It is the Micro Machines guy listing every Bears quarterback from McMahon to Cutler.  It’s a combination of sad and hilarious.  Enjoy!

h/t: Bear Goggles On

I had to take about 10 deep breaths before I started to write this, and that was still the most positive title I could come up with.  Cutler looked good, the O-line looked bad, and Ron Turner abandoned the run way too early.  I don’t care.  I want to bitch about the defense.  Every single person deserves blame, so we’ll start from the top:

Jerry Angelo: Trading more picks for useless garbage?  I have yet to see Gaines Adams do anything.  And remember how we used to love this guy for drafting so much defensive talent so late in drafts?  Been a few years since that happened, huh?

Lovie Smith: This is the official beginning of NQTC turning against Lovie.  I think he’s a great guy and his Cover 2 was a great system.  The problem with that sentence? WAS! Everyone gets it now.  The seams are huge, you don’t have the best personnel to run it, and you are too stubborn to mix in a few other packages to at least keep offenses a little off-balance!  If he can’t adjust to the NFL the way it is played today, then he needs to go.  There, I said it.

Bob Babich: I’m still unclear about what this guy’s role is, but whatever he is supposed to be doing I’m pretty damn sure he’s not doing it well.

Rod Marinelli: Fire up the goddamn defensive line!  Our front four get absolutely no pressure.  That is the main reason you were brought in to Chicago, to make the line play with more energy and intelligence.  Haven’t seen that in a month, at least.

Tommie Harris: Cut him.

Anthony Adams and Marcus Harrison: You were supposed to be run-stoppers.  That means you fill gaps and allow the linebackers to come in and make tackles.  Why are offensive linemen upfield laying blocks on our linebackers?!

Ogunleye, Brown, Anderson: DO SOMETHING! Honestly it looks like they aren’t trying, agreed?  They don’t run hard, and the second they get blocked, that’s it.  They are out of the play.  Keep f#$%ing fighting to get to the QB! After the snap, I could go make a panini on my George Foreman, come back and sit down and look up, and Kurt Warner would still be standing there looking downfield for receivers in a sparkling clean jersey.

Hunter Hillenmeyer: Gets the system, has ZERO talent.

Nick Roach: Has the talent, doesn’t get the system.  Oh and eat some Wheaties or something, you are way too small to be a linebacker in the NFL.

Lance Briggs: Step up!  Why can’t you play the middle?  Why? I don’t understand.  Do you not understand the Cover 2?  Are you that bad in coverage?

Afalava and Payne: I get it.  You guys are both run-stopping safeties and that’s why you SUCK in coverage.  Here’s the bigger problem than the coverage: You aren’t stopping the run.  Figure that out, okay?

Vasher and Tillman: Cut. Cut.

Danieal Manning: The best athlete on the team, huh? A smart football player, huh?  Stop going for the strip on every f#$%ing play, how about that? Here’s some advice: if a running back has both hands on the ball wrapped up tight and you are the only one in his way, go for the tackle.  I’m sick of hearing the announcers go “so-and-so dragged Manning on his back for an extra 9 yards on the play” because he was going for the strip.  Make the goddamn tackle!

Any other things that pissed you off?  I have about 20 more but I’m already in a bad enough mood.  The season is basically over and the most amazing thing about it is not how bad we are, but that somehow we have a 4-4 record even though we have an 0-8 defense.