Here
we go again… Good Jay, Bad Jay. Eagles Beat Bears 24-20.
Before
you roast him, you have to give
Jay Cutler credit. He has given the Bears numerous opportunities to
win in the last few moments of several games. He has made it exciting
at times. If he had made those connections instead of interceptions,
we would be praising him and wondering just how far the Bears would
have gone this season.
Tonight,
three of his misses against
the Eagles could have and should have been touchdowns -- back-to-back
throws from the Eagles' 27 to Greg Olsen and Devin Hester at the
start of the second quarter -- and a third-and-5 throw to Johnny Knox
on the Bears' second-to-last possession.
The
throw to Knox should have been a
70-yard game-winner.
Another
late game winning drive goes
for naught.
The
Bears had one more chance to come
from behind. With 1:51 remaining and no timeouts, and five plays
later, they faced a second-and-10 from the Bears' 37. Cutler threw
for a well-covered Olsen. The ball was tipped by linebacker Tracy
White and intercepted by safety Sean Jones.
"They
brought the house and Jay
didn't have time to set his feet," Knox said. "It was a
good throw, it just got caught in the wind."
It
was Cutler's only interception of
the night.
"I
missed some throws early,"
Cutler said. "I missed Greg and then Devin on the slant and go.
We can't have that. We only get down in the red zone a few times. We
have to hit them."
"No
timeouts, we were trying to
make a play," Cutler said. "The throw gets batted up, you
never know there." Game over.
Missed
them? They were not even in the
same time zone. The feeling is Cutler was playing it safe and
avoiding the dreaded turnover. Truth is, if he connected on these
passes, the game would have been a runaway.
There
were 19 incompletions in all
against the Eagles by Cutler. Some sailed high. Some nose-dived low.
Others were too far left or right.
Another Team Loss…
Don’t put all the blame game on Cutler.
Jay
Cutler wasn't the only problem in
this game. The Bears held a 20-17 lead in the fourth quarter after
Cutler hit Kellen Davis on a 15-yard score for the Bears' only
touchdown, and finally a trip in the “Red Zone”.
The Bears
defense ran out of steam and gave up an 11-play, 62-yard drive after
a Robbie Gould field-goal attempt was blocked. The drive ended with a
10-yard touchdown run by LeSean McCoy that ultimately was the
difference in this game.
"We had a lot of chances to get
off the field and we didn't do it," Bears linebacker Hunter
Hillenmeyer said.
"You get down there you have to hold
them to a field goal and give our offense a situation where we could
win it in overtime."
The
defense again was off to a slow
start..again. The defense performed poorly early, allowing the
Eagles to convert a third-and-1 with a 34-yard run by Michael Vick.
The play set up a field goal that gave Philly a 3-0 lead.
Twenty
penalty yards by the defense
helped set up their next score, this one a 13-yard screen pass from
Donovan McNabb to Jason Avant. The Eagles somehow got four offensive
linemen out in front of Avant on the play.
The Bears continued
their mistake-prone ways with seven penalties for 64 yards.
The Play of the Game.
Bell
makes immediate impact in his
first game.. and first handoff as a player.
Two
days after being promoted from the practice squad to the 53-man
roster, Kahlil Bell made history—and a strong first impression.
“It
just pretty much opened up,” Bell said. “The offensive line did a
great job of clearing the guys out of the way. I didn’t really have
to do much except just find a hole, and when they make holes like
that, anybody can look good. I never thought my first NFL carry would
be like that. If I had scored, it would have been a little better—I’m
not the fastest guy in the world—but it was exciting.”
Bell’s
72-yard run was the longest on the first carry of an NFL player’s
career since Alan Ameche’s 79-yarder for the Baltimore Colts in
1955.
He brought it all the way to the
Eagles' 10, but the Bears still couldn't get a touchdown out of the
deal. They had a 1-yard completion, a Matt Forte run for minus-1
yard, and an incompletion before they settled for a 28-yard Gould
field goal.
"If I had a little more speed, I might have
been able to shake off that last guy," Bell said.
Now, Playing for Pride
The
Bears have little, if no hope to
reach the post season again for the third straight year. Time to work
on getting things to click, maybe taking a few chances and see what
works. It will have to be a team effort.

© Oak Park Journal photo
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