Thread: Everyone needs to relax a little

Yea, the Bears lost.

They lost to the Packers.

The offense looked bad in a loss to the Packers.

But you know what? I am not upset at all over this loss. Sure, we had the golden opportunity to knock our hated division rival out of the playoffs and laugh as their fans had to sit back and watch as we move on and attempt to make our second Super Bowl in four years.

Did the Bears look bad in this loss? That depends on your perspective.

The defense sure looked good. They held a good offense to only 10 points. They stopped the Packers on the first and goal from the one yard line the first time they got one, but not on the second. The defense showed up to play, and did more than enough to win that game. Other than the secondary looking beatable, the defense never gave up a devastating play. I have no complaints about them whatsoever.

The Special Teams was a non factor. How many times in the past four years has this ever been an issue? The Packers kicked towards Hester, and because their punter continually hit inside the 10 or the five, Hester did what he was supposed to do and let it go. Was the Special Teams play "exposed"? Hell no, we just ran into a punter who had an immensely power and accurate leg. The Bears lost the field position battle in a bad way, and Maynard did all he could to help out with some powerful kicks. The Bears gave up one long return which led to the touchdown, without which this game very well could have went to overtime.

The offense was the issue for the night. But how much of that was truly their fault? Honestly, most of what happened falls on the offense. But when you are constantly pinned against your own end zone and needing to drive 90 yards while being next to damn perfect until you get your first first down of the drive, mistakes will happen. Thankfully, though in the long run that didn't really matter, Cutler and the Bears did not make any horrible mistakes.

All in all, this game was the perfect storm for the Packers, where just about everything went their way. If two things went different, the Bears could have/would have won.

1. Lovie's unquestioningly bad timed time out. On third and 15 with one second left on the play clock, which either he or his assistant called a time out, which negated a 15 yard rush by Taylor. With some players stopping on the whistle, you can never know what would have happened if there was no time out. But this looks like it was a fatal blow that was a momentum changer.

2. As mentioned before, the long return by the Packers.

If one or both of those plays go the Bears way, the Bears win. So relax. Losing the final game, a meaningless game at that, is not the end of the world. The Bears get a week to sit back and relax, get their heads together for a game against either the Saints or the Eagles. Neither of those two teams have looked good in recent games, and they both need to play and possibly get banged up.

Bears have the defense to keep up with any team we face. They can limit any team to a low enough score for even the Bears less than stellar offense to beat them.

The Special Teams will not be held in check again like they were this past game. The field position battle will once again swing in the Bears favor setting up a shorter field.

The offense has never been anything overly special, but Bennett should be ready for the first playoff game. The Cutler and the rest of the offense will not have their backs against the wall again either. Plus, we found our running game.

Will we win the Super Bowl? Maybe, maybe not. But our team is good enough to reach Dallas. They are as good, if not better, than any team in the NFC.

So relax, enjoy the football next week. Enjoy the breather.