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Dan Peters Sports Editor
Suburban Journals of Chicago

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.




 


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