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Monday Links

Calling it like you see them, the defense lost this one.

No, this one falls on the other side of the ball, and when the Bears look back on this season and wonder where it all went so wrong, they will look first to the defense, which was the strength of the team not so long ago.

To learn from mistakes, you have to be willing to admit you made them. Not everyone was in a willing mood after Sunday's game. The Seahawks' D.J. Hackett caught nine passes for 136 yards and a touchdown. He made Bears cornerback Charles Tillman look like a jersey hanging from a clothesline.

But that's not how Tillman saw it.

"I didn't struggle," he said. "I was cool."

Whatever you say. But all anybody needs to know is that, even though the Bears started rookie Trumaine McBride at the other cornerback spot, the Seahawks chose to attack Tillman.

Benson's big day derailed by poor coaching.

The burst everyone had been waiting for finally showed up on a 43-yard touchdown run on the Bears' first run from scrimmage. The emotion everyone wondered if Benson was capable of showing poured out of him like sweat after the most satisfying run of his NFL career.

By the time Benson had picked up 20 yards on his next run, it was beginning to look like Vindication Day, with Benson and Rex Grossman off to uncommonly good starts.

Then Turner remembered his plan. In executing it, it killed the Bears' running game.

"We were going to get Adrian in and give him a chance to play and get him in and going on the third series," Turner said.

Does it ever get tiring listening to Coach Smith dodge questions?

Anything Else For Coach?

There was. I got out two words - "Lovie, if ... " - before Smith said, "Thank you" and bolted for the door.

You will have to trust me when I say the question was going to be, "Lovie, if you say you're a running team, doesn't Cedric Benson have to get more than 11 carries?"

The Bears might argue Smith had already answered that question when asked to explain Benson's total carries considering he'd carried for 63 yards on his first two runs, including a 43-yarder that was his longest since 2004, when he was in college.

"Eh, I mean, how do I explain?" Smith said. "We probably should have given him the ball a little bit more. But I can't really complain about what we did offensively. We kept ourselves in the game. If you continue to run the ball, they'll eventually stop that."