Talk about winning ugly. I guess if you are going to have a bad game do it against a 1-5 team. In a lot of ways this game mirrored the Lions game in reverse. In the Lions game, it felt as if the Bears were always in control, but the score never reflected it. In this game it felt as though the Bears kept trying to give this game away, but the score never reflected it.
For most of the 1st Quarter, it looked like the Bears were going to run away with this game, literally.
Running game was gashing the Panthers early on with a lot of nice runs. Most of them seemed like sweeps to the outside. Even though the Bears first drive ended in an interception of an under thrown Jay Cutler pass, the offense seemed to move at will. After the Bears scored on a Matt Forte run, where he pretty much walked into the end zone, you just had the feeling this was going to be a rout.
Then came the sacks and the fumbles and the Bears ended up with 3 first half turnovers and negative passing yardage. Meanwhile, the Bears defense was letting up too many points. The Panthers had 3 consecutive scoring drives in the first half, but to the defenses credit, the score remained a reachable 13-7. Throughout the game, the defense seemed to do just enough to keep the game within reach. I want to give this group the benefit of the doubt and I'll blame the amount of scoring on the Panthers ability to slowly break down this older Bears defense, due to the offense's lack of ability to give the defense any rest on the sideline.
The offense was completely ineffective most of the game until the last couple drives. The turning point was the Panthers punt of 6 yards. After the punt went out of bounds, I just kept staring at the ref who kept on moving up the field until he got to the Panthers 38. Speaking of special teams, the Panthers made an effort to avoid Hester, and it finally backfired for them on this drive. For most of the game, Carolina kickoffs limited any return and were more effective when coupled with a Bears offense which couldn't move the ball. Carolina was more cautious this year than last year when Hester returned a punt on them. On the Bears side of the ball, Podlesh had a few good punts which pinned the Panthers pretty far into their own territory. This was important as the Bears were not doing much to change field position throughout the game.
Back to the end of the 4th quarter. Cutler was able to engineer a drive which started on the Panthers 38 and ended with a 12 yard pass to Kellen Davis for a Touchdown. Cutler was mostly in the shotgun on this drive. On the next Panthers possession, Cam Newton passed it to a wide open Tim Jennings for an interception return. I couldn't believe it when it happened. You have to remember, I'm seeing the game at a bar in Somerville, which is playing the Patriots game so I'm listening to Patriot game audio. At the time, nothing was really happening in the Patriots game so for such a swing to happen was shocking. I remember thinking, "Wait, we are up now?" On the play, Steve Smith slipped and fell, leaving Tim Jennings an open interception and route to the end zone. Better lucky than good.
The drama wasn't over as the Bears went for two and Cutler was intercepted. I didn't know the NFL rule about converting 2 points and thought that the Panthers had just taken a two point lead on us, until someone at the bar said don't worry about it. Remember, I can't hear the audio so it wasn't clear what had happened when they went to commercial. The Panthers on the ensuing possession were able to drive down the field and kick a field goal to retake the lead. In my mind, this was the biggest disappointment as I had hoped the Bears defense would be able to stop the Panthers in the clutch. But once again, maybe they were just gassed.
When the Bears got the ball back I had a bad feeling. I thought of multiple games in 2009, especially the Green Bay game and the Atlanta game, where Cutler had the opportunity to complete the two minute drill and put in the game winning score, in both cases the Bears lost. A lot of time has passed since then but the memory remains. I previously have doubted the offense's ability to win games. This seems like a front running offense good with the lead, questionable without it. But Cutler and the offense proved me wrong and came through in the end of a game which the Bears should not have won.
Last week, I said, "I don't think we'll learn much more against the 1-5 Panthers. We'll hopefully only learn that the Bears are a veteran team that will take care of the games they are supposed to win." That was mostly true, but if we did learn something out of this stinker, it is that the offense can win a game in the end. In the greater scheme of the game, the offense did not win the game, in fact it merely saved a game it almost threw away, but the offense, led by Cutler, was able to muster the necessary points in the 4th quarter; first with a TD then with Robbie Gould's game winning field goal as time expired.
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