Because when Lovie Smith was giving that sound bite I heard so many fans, and read so many wishy washy columnists saying something along the lines of, 'this is the 21st century we need to throw the ball' or 'this ain't the 1950's you need to throw the ball to win'. Bears fans and media types that cover the team are a funny group. Not all of them, but a good vocal majority of them are.
Sometimes I wonder if they remember some of their gripes about Ron Turner. Or John Shoop, or Terry Shea, or Gary Crowton, or any of the other offensive coordinators the Bears have had in the recent history of the team. Matt Forte had 11 yards on 8 carries on Sunday. The Seahawks play the run very well. But let's keep pounding away. The definition of insanity is...
Or is it a 50/50 run/pass balance they are calling for? Should they just stick with the running game regardless of results? Because I remember a lot of times Lovie would give us some mumbo jumbo about sticking with the run, albeit unsuccessfully, and the call for him and his archaic ways to go would fill talk radio. Seattle is 2nd in the league vs. the run and they are 3rd worst vs. the pass. But the call from so many is to run the ball? Seriously?
Hindsight is always 20/20, and it's convenient to jump to the conclusion that it was the 80/20 pass/run ratio that doomed the team. Especially after how well they ran against the winless Carolina Panthers, that give up 134 yards per game on the ground. (I'm actually surprised they threw as much as they did in that game with as bad as Todd Collins looked.) But anyone that points to that 80/20 ratio as the reason the Bears lost must not have noticed the lack of a pass rush from the Monsters of the Midway. Or the poor pass coverage that was the result of the lack of pressure? Or the fact that Jay Cutler completed less than 50% of his passes, one of the worst games percentage wise of his career. Was it the rust from the week off or was his brain not fully healed after the concussion?
I'm not trying to absolve Martz and his play calling from the loss. Because I do think he could have called a better game. But to think the lack of a run game or the lack of a "threat" of a run game was why they lost makes no sense. Martz does have to chill out on some of the deep drop stuff, but when a deep drop is called there are still hot reads that Cutler and his receivers have to see. And talking about those blitzes...
Olin Kruetz fell on the sword for the offensive line, but all those sacks weren't on him. True, he makes the line calls, but to expect him to see a DB sneaking up outside the tackle is ludicrous. Kreutz did what a veteran leader does and accepted the responsibility for his teammates. Those DBs coming clean off the edge could have been the pick up of the tackles, but they very well could have been the responsibility of Cutler or the backs. The receivers also could have missed the read, and not adjusted their route accordingly.
The way the line blocked down tells me the tackles were expecting the backs to pick up the DB. The line could have slid protection to the potential blitz, but then you may have someone coming clean up the gut. Pass protection has to be an inside out concern. The players closer to the center are a bigger threat to the QB than a guy coming off the edge. With the Over/Under 4-3 look Pete Carroll likes to use, they essentially have 5 guys on or near the line of scrimmage, then you add a blitzer and you have to account for at least 6 defenders. I'm not saying the line is totally without blame, but I'm saying there are other ways to pick up a blitz. And unless they come out and tell us exactly what was supposed to be done on each play we'll never know.
And we'll never know if the Bears would have kept running the ball if they would have finally cracked through with some big gains. But I'm fairly certain that if the Bears would have run the ball more, yet still lost, all we'd be hearing about is, 'the Bears should have thrown more'.