A FAMILIAR STORY
Bears fans get a healthy dose of Jay Cutler
By Nate Kreckman
Watching your team lose is never any fun. As a fan, you prepare to watch a game with a certain level of excitement, anticipating great plays from your favorite players and hoping for the jubilation of victory at the end. Sometimes, it goes as planned. Other times, your team falls short and loses, although despite the disappointment of defeat you’re still treated to an entertaining time watching the action with all its inherent ups and downs. And then still other times, your team gets pounded. Slaughtered. Killed. Embarrassed.
That’s what I dealt with Sunday afternoon. As a native of the northwest suburbs of Chicago, I’m a lifelong Bears fan. They’re my team. I’ve stuck with them through thick and thin. And boy, the Bears laid the thin on awfully thick Sunday afternoon, getting blasted 45-10 by the Cincinnati Bengals with former Bears running back Cedric Benson racking up a career high 189 rushing yards and a touchdown in the blowout.
Now, you may be wondering why someone is writing about a game between the Chicago Bears and the Cincinnati Bengals on a web site called milehighsports.com. Look, watching your team get shellacked is universal for sports fans. What Broncos fan can’t relate to a humiliating blowout after sitting through the 41-7 beat down at New England last year and the 52-21 embarrassment at San Diego that got Mike Shanahan fired? That’s not even to mention 41-3 against San Diego and 44-7 at Detroit in 2007, plus the shame of Super Bowls XXII and XXIV. All fans know the feeling of a blowout, and it stings the same for all of us.
My Sunday afternoon Bears game experience started pleasantly enough. The Steelers scored a pair of defensive touchdowns to beat Brett Favre and the Vikings in a rather enjoyable game giving the Bears a shot to gain some ground in the NFC North. I had my snacks and beverages spread out across the coffee table and a comfy spot on the couch ready to go. It wasn’t Monday night, but I was ready for some football.
One of my good friends is a Cincinnati-area native now living in Denver, and for the sake of this story, we’ll call him “Glenn,” in honor of his favorite song “The Heat is On” by Glenn Frey. Text messaging is a great invention, and one of its best purposes is for talking smack to your buddies during a game. Glenn and I got it going early.
Nate: “Steelers take care of business against the Vikes, now it’s up to the Bears. Bungles suck.”
Glenn: “You’re gonna miss Cedric by the end of this. Cutler’s crying already. Bunch of pansies.”
The Bears cutting Benson loose and Jay Cutler’s toughness and manhood would be frequent topics of discussion in our text message battle during the course of this game. Right off the kickoff, Carson Palmer directed an eight-play, 77-yard drive resulting in a nine-yard touchdown strike to Chris Henry, quickly putting Cincinnati up 7-0 just four minutes in.
Glenn: “You like that?”
Nate: “Holding. Missed flag.” Yes, my response was to complain about the officiating.
Glenn: “You whine like Cutler.”
Despite the quick and easy score, I was still confident the Bears would be able to move the football and score some points against Cincinnati’s fairly pedestrian defense. Cutler and the Bears rewarded my confidence with an inept 26-yard drive resulting in a Brad Maynard punt. Again, Palmer takes the Bengals right down the field, this time finishing it off with an eight-yard touchdown to Chad Ochocinco. 14-0 Bengals with a minute to go in the opening quarter.
Glenn: “Kiss the baby.”
Glenn: “Child please.”
These are apparently Ochocinco’s catch phrases, a fact I may have been familiar with if I hadn’t made a conscious decision in my life a couple years ago to ignore all things Chad Johnson. I’m still awfully happy with that decision. Like a pro wrestler or sitcom character, Ochocinco has catch phrases, something that delights Bengals fans and puzzles the rest of us.
The Bears open the second quarter by going three and out, capped by Cutler failing to catch a snap and having to pick it up and run for just two yards. Another punt. Bengals offense gets right back to work as if the Bears defense isn’t even there, going 63 yards in seven plays with a three yard touchdown pass from Palmer to journeyman tight end and practice squad specialist J.P. Foschi. 21-0 Bengals four minutes into the second quarter.
Glenn: “Don’t even know that dude and he’s scoring on you.”
Nate: “Wow.”
Glenn: “What’s that? Can’t hear you over all the celebrating going on at my place.”
Nate: “It’s a text message. Makes no sound.” That’s right, at 21-0 I have resorted to pointing out errors and technicalities in my buddy’s smack talk to make myself feel better.
A first-down pass from Cutler to Earl Bennett on third and 10 on the next Bears possession gets me a little fired up. The flames are quickly doused when Devin Hester fumbles the ball away two plays later.
Glenn: “Got to hold on to the ball.”
Nate: “Can’t hear you over all the crying at my house.” This Bears turnover was enough to make me embrace Glenn’s erroneous logic.
Again, the Bengals cruise right down the field for a 66-yard drive and another Palmer touchdown, this time for eight yards to Laveranues Coles. Now, it’s 28-0 Bengals with roughly three minutes left in the first half. Nearly completely despondent and obviously in denial at this point, I choose to direct my anger towards the Fox Network’s graphics as they go to commercial.
Glenn: “Wow.”
Nate: “I hate that stupid robot and his line-dancing.” In my defense, can someone please explain to me what a cartoon robot has to do with football? And for that matter, what does a purple dinosaur have to do with baseball? But I digress.
The next Bears’ drive lasts just two plays ending with Cutler’s first interception of the day into the hands of Bengals’ cornerback Leon Hall. Bengals take over deep in Bears territory but stall out. Shayne Graham kicks a 29-yard field goal. 31-0 Bengals with a minute left in the half. With football smack talk no longer being fun for Glenn, he chooses to point out other areas where he feels the Bengals are superior to the Bears and the rest of the NFL.
Glenn: “Best uniforms in football those Bengals.” Celebrating color scheme domination to the rest of the league is really only something you do when your team is up 31 before halftime.
The Bears do manage a 22-yard Robbie Gould field goal before the half to make it 31-3.
Glenn: “Chin up buddy. Got 3.”
Nate: “Comeback is underway.” At this point, delusion is at an all-time high.
I try to cheer myself up during halftime by doing a Google search and reading about the Bills’ comeback against the Oilers in the 1992 playoffs. The Bills trailed by 32 points early in the third quarter but came back to win 41-38. If Frank Reich could do it, so could Cutler and the Bears!
Or not. The Bears are forced into a fourth-down situation early in their opening drive of the second half after Marvin Lewis challenges the spot on a Greg Olsen catch that was ruled a first down. Lewis wins the challenge, pushing the Bears back short of the marker. EVERYTHING is working for the Bengals at this point, even ruining the Bears fortunes when they got the pity spot.
Down 28, the Bears go with the hurry-up offense. Unlike the 2009 Colorado Buffaloes, the Bears don’t have a backup quarterback who serves as a no-huddle specialist. Cutler remains in the game. No Caleb Hanie, yet.
Later on the same drive, Cutler drops and fumbles yet another shotgun snap. His arm may be stronger than Elway’s, but his hands are worse than Darius Watts’. The drive ends with Cutler’s second pick of the game, an up-for-grabs, back foot, pop-fly intended for Earl Bennett that is hauled in by Leon Hall.
Glenn: “Where’s the chinstrap temper tantrum after that one?” This is of course a direct reference to Cutler’s angry snap-off of the chinstrap he made famous in Denver, typically after poorly run routes by Clifford Russell or Eddie Royal (and never bad throws by Cutler).
Right on cue, Palmer ambles his offense back down the field and finishes it off with a 13-yard touchdown to Ochocinco, his second of the day. Ochocinco gets back to his grammatically incorrect Spanish roots by doing some sort of Samba dance. 38-3 Bengals.
Glenn: “Hmmm.”
Nate: “(Bleep) me.”
Yet another Cutler pick on the next drive (his third of the day and 10th of the year) gives the ball right back to the Bengals. Texts from my angry Chicago buddies flood in, most of which could not be reprinted for this family column. One in particular from my friend “Rob,” (named so because of his love of the seminal 1988 hit “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock), summed up the hopeless feeling of the game.
Rob: “So… like… you seen any good movies lately?”
Ironically at this juncture of the blowout, I was giving serious consideration to flipping over to channel 3 to watch the Christian Slater disenchanted youth tale “Pump Up the Volume.” I figured I hadn’t seen this movie in a good 16 years, and after all, Slater’s got a radio show in this one (just like me!). However, my blind allegiance and general lack of self-respect forced me to keep it on Fox with the obnoxious robots and the bad football team that I root for.
Cincinnati finishes their next drive with a one-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter by Benson, galloping through as if the Bears’ defensive line wasn’t even there. 45-3 Bengals.
Glenn: “That’s a lot of points.”
Nate: “That is one bad football team.” Smack talk has diminished to me agreeing with the insults of my Bengals’ fan friend.
Because the rules require that all 60 minutes be played and that the scoring team kick the ball back to the opponent, the Bears continue with Cutler trudging back onto the field on the next possession with all the excitement of a 50-year-old man headed in for his first colonoscopy. The Bears actually score on this drive with Cutler hitting Hester for a five-yard garbage time touchdown to make it 45-10.
Nate: “Here we come. Get nervous.” Responding to such nonsense is below Glenn at this point.
The Bears’ embarrassment is compounded when J.T. O’Sullivan, playing for his eighth NFL team, replaces Palmer at quarterback. A new low is hit when the Bears defense forces Cincinnati into their first punt of the day (in the fourth quarter, mind you) and Chicago special teamer Jamar Williams gets flagged for running into the kicker. The Bengals drive continues, but they eventually turn the ball over on downs. Former CSU Ram Caleb Hanie comes in to finish things off for the Bears at quarterback with Cutler having done all the damage he could do for one afternoon.
Fox play-by-play man Sam Rosen hits the nail on the head with time winding down saying, “This has been a forgettable day for Lovie Smith and the Bears.” That’s the understatement of the day. Palmer throws five touchdowns, Benson embarrasses his former team, and the Bengals cover the total on the game (42.5) by themselves. And I sat through it all.
As sports fans, we get excited for our teams to play and have hope for a win every week (except Raiders fans). Sometimes, we get the positive result we were hoping for, and sometimes we don’t. And then sometimes our teams just get creamed. But you can rest assured I’ll be back on that couch next Sunday when the Bears play the Browns, ready for a win and ready to talk smack with all my loser friends from Cleveland.
