Thread: Bears need to get running game going to help their quarterback

Bears need to get running game going to help their quarterback

David Haugh In the Wake of the News

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – After one of the nine sacks of Jay Cutler in the first half of the Bears' 17-3 loss to the Giants on Sunday night, Cutler slowly got up and started walking toward the wrong sideline.

As Cutler wobbled, so did his football team.

What direction are the Bears headed now after such a lopsided loss to the Giants at New Meadowlands Stadium? After "How's Jay's head?'', that's the question of the week.

Depending on how quickly Cutler recovers from the concussion that forced him to miss the second half, the arrow of the Bears' season doesn't have to be pointed south. Not if the Bears learn from this humbling experience

It would be silly to overreact to one loss, even one this overwhelming, and underestimate a team that just beat the Cowboys and Packers in succession. Hasn't Chicago already made that mistake once about this team?

Yet for the Bears to make good on the playoff promise offered by a 3-0 start, they will have to figure out more ways to keep their quarterback upright and get their running backs moving downhill. They have to be more willing participants in handoffs. The running game doesn't have to be the Bears' 17th opponent this season.

Without improving on the ground, the Bears may want to keep the smelling salts handy.

"Embarrassing,'' running back Matt Forte said of the Bears' 59 rushing yards. "We couldn't move the ball and after awhile, they knew it and started blitzing every play.''

The sack after which Cutler appeared disoriented may have been the play that inflicted the concussion. Or it may have been one of the other times the Giants' defense turned the Bears' quarterback into a piñata in the pocket. There were so many collisions to choose from that Cutler's body language appeared to be saying, "Please, stop.''

When Mike Martz told NBC's Bob Costas before the game he hoped to "create our own history,'' Martz couldn't have meant setting a team record for most sacks allowed in a game (10).

"I'm not real sure what was happening,'' right tackle Kevin Shaffer said.

Evidently. Much has been made about how Martz's schemes have helped keep Cutler out of harm's way in September. But the only adjustment the Bears seemed to consider against the Giants was to Cutler's insurance policy. To the fault of everybody involved in the offensive game plan, Cutler was running for his life.

"Tough loss,'' Lovie Smith said.

Harder to accept, too, given the role play-calling played.

You could say Martz abandoned the Bears' running game, but that wrongly assumes he ever established the relationship. Martz's view from the sidelines must have obscured his view of the scoreboard because he was calling plays early as if the Bears trailed by three touchdowns, not three points. Against the 26th-ranked rushing defense, the Bears ran on seven of the first 27 plays.

Someone seems to have fallen in love with his passing game.

When Martz was forced to turn to backup Todd Collins, did anybody else notice how it forced the Bears to simplify their attack and think smaller? Had the Bears made a commitment at the outset to similar plays that respected the Giants' pass rush more, Cutler may have finished the game knowing what state he was in.

That approach worked well enough to slow down the pass rush of the Cowboys and the Packers, but Martz neglected it in a first half that humiliated his offensive line and hurt his quarterback.

No, Cutler didn't help matters by holding onto the ball too long and failing to show pocket presence as he did when his play deteriorated in 2009. And while there are ways Martz's play-calling could have improved Cutler's protection, on most sacks the Bears' linemen simply lost one-on-one battles.

There were so many sacks that the Giants should have broken their defensive huddles by saying, "Paper or plastic?''

Thanks to the NBC audience, the Bears' inability to protect Cutler had become a national concern by halftime. "Jay Cutler" was the top trending topic on Twitter across the country, followed by popular TV shows "Boardwalk Empire'' and " Desperate Housewives.''

The Bears only wish their troubles could be summed up in 140 characters or less.

If not for another inspired defensive effort, this would have been a blowout. The Giants' offense was bad, the Bears' was just worse. The score was 3-0 for so long this began to feel like a soccer game; no scoring and nobody using their hands for any apparent gain.

Yet a Chris Harris fumble recovery with 12 minutes, 5 seconds left kept it a one-possession game late into the fourth quarter. Then Zack Bowman, benched for Tim Jennings, responded the best way possible when he caught up to Ahmad Bradshaw to force a fumble with 6:50 left on a breakaway run that would have put the Bears away.

It didn't last. The feeble offense couldn't get a first down and the Giants scored an insurance touchdown on the next possession against a Bears defense that showed fatigue everybody but the guys in the huddle understood.

"Being worn down is not an excuse for defensive play,'' Lance Briggs said. "We deserve to be ripped just like our offense, we're a team. We prepare for games just like this.''

Unless the Bears develop a running game, their defense and everybody else better prepare for more