There are inconsistent teams in the league. The NY Jets going from handing Tennessee their first lose of the season to getting beat handily by Denver. The Raiders beat up Denver and then go out and get blown up by the Chiefs. For my money though the Bears are the most inconsistent team during a game. Literally from drive to drive we don't know what team we are going to get and that is on both sides of the ball.
The Bears go from 0 to great in 6.5 seconds. The problem is they also go from great to suck in 3.2. Orton goes from throwing nice touch passes all over the field to hitting Vikings receivers right in the numbers. Bears receivers go from making finger tip catches to not catching the ball when Orton all but walks it over to them. The defense looks fired up on one drive only to let Peterson carry the entire defense for 10 yards. Ron Turner has one drive that is inspiring, so he takes the rest of the night off. FOR THE LOVE OF DICK BUTKUS CAN SOMEBODY TEAR OUT THE PAGE THAT HAS MCKIE UP THE MIDDLE OUT OF HIS PLAYBOOK!!!!! (I've been corrected. It wasn't McKie, but it was the same ignorant play)
First let us get the good thing out of the way. Congrats to Matt Forte for crossing the 1000 yard mark and having possibily the only good game amongst all the Bears.
OFFENSE
Ugly or Pretty or Loopy or lucky as it may have been to get there, there was a time in this game where the Bears could have gone up on the Vikings 14-3. They were at the goal line and Turner thought going up the middle into the teeth of the Vikings on 3 plays was a good idea. Surprise, that didn't work. I'm going to take a bit of blame on this one. I foolishly thought everybody had heard this, but apparently not, so I am going to say it out loud. If the Williams' are in the lineup you run the ball anywhere but up the middle. Run it off tackle. Try to break it outside, just don't put your head down and go at them.
As mentioned despite the Vikings having a great run defense Forte had a very good game. He ended with 96 yards and a 4.4 average. He also had a receiving TD.
After him it is all down hill. Kyle Orton did have 153 yards and 2 TDs, but he sprinkled in 3 INTs at the end.
Hester had 67 yards receiving on 3 receptions. Problem is 65 of them came on 1 catch.
Jared Allen ran over John St. Clair all night long.
The really, really, really great thing about this is that we went from thinking we have our franchise QB, back to not having any clue what we have.
DEFENSE
I'll give these guys some credit. They did play hard. They were put into some really bad spots, but the offense. They were moving around, making some plays and generally hustling out there. Tillman had a bad night. He screwed the pooch on the play to Berrian for a 99 yd TD and then followed that up with a horse collar tackle to extend a Vikings play.
The Bears looked good early and were getting good pressure on Ferrotte, but that lasted about 8 minutes and they went back to the same old overpaid and non-producing defensive front we have come to know.
OVERALL
Right about now I am going to stop and open it up to you. I am at a loss to figure out where we are. We still can make the playoffs. We have a lead on the Packers and the Vikings have a much harder schedule and I am also not endorsing the lose for a better draft pick theory, but really what is this team and what can they do in the playoffs when they can't even get out of their own way?