The last four weeks of the Bears’ season have been like the four stages following a death. There was denial that the crushing Monday-night loss to the Minnesota Vikings meant anything drastic, anger over the loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in overtime, resignation with the loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and finally, last Sunday, acceptance after the loss to the Green Bay Packers. The Bears truly are as bad as they have seemed, and it is not solely Mike Ditka’s fault, or Jim Harbaugh’s, or Mike McCaskey’s, or the fault of that grimmest of sports reapers, old man age, but all of the above. Suddenly, everything is clear; there are no delusions. This hardly offers anything resembling peace of mind, but it does make a fan seem somehow settled.
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That’s it for the highlights, as they say on the Sunday-night sports roundups.
The Packers marched right back down the field in the opposite direction, with what has become disturbing ease to anyone who remembers the Bears defense of the 80s–or of any era. Really, even when the Bears were awful, during the 70s, they had a better defense than they have now. The reasons for their decline are many, but foremost among them is the aging of mainstays Richard Dent, Steve McMichael, and, of course, Mike Singletary. It pains a Bears fan to point this out, but Singletary is washed up. In recent weeks he repeatedly has shown up standing near a tackle, a few moments shy of being in on the play. After a groin injury slowed him for much of the late 80s, he rebounded in 1990 by slimming down and improving his anticipation. Yet this season even that great anticipation has betrayed him, as he has run himself out of plays while opponents cut back against the grain.
They didn’t need but eight seconds or nine. Favre hit Sterling Sharpe on the post pattern following a beautiful play-action fake–Favre had the ball curled up behind his back as he mimicked the handoff–and it was good for a touchdown.
The Bears again threatened to stop the Pack three and out, but on third and long–this time with the Bears not blitzing–Favre hit Harvey Sydney circling out of the backfield, and he bounced off two Bears to get the first down.
That was it for Harbaugh, and it might be it for him this season. Peter Tom Willis came on to cheers–that is, among the few fans left in the stands–and he moved the ball downfield three times, although he got nothing for his efforts. The first time, Keith Van Horne committed a holding penalty on a third-down-and-long-yardage completion. So Ditka sent in Stan Thomas to replace him and Willis completed an even longer pass for a first down and, a few plays later, a fluky tipped pass for an apparent touchdown to Wendell Davis. But Thomas was caught holding on that play and, with the touchdown called back, the drive fizzled.
