Ineffective QB play? Where have Bears fans heard that before?

Stop if you've heard this one before; the Bears offense wasted a great effort by the defense due to ineffective quarterback play and it led to them being in too deep a hole to get out of and that's why they lost Sunday. That's sooo 1989-2008. However, this time no one is clamoring for the Bears to solidify the position with a draft pick or trade. We have our guy, and luckily until yesterday, the back up hasn't been needed in a dire game. Unfortunately for the Bears, Caleb Hanie wasn't quite ready yesterday, but it's not too late for him, or the Bears.

It's been nice that for the last two seasons the Bears haven't had to worry about the QB position. Finally after years of ineptitude, uneffective play and general suck, the Bears landed Jay Cutler, and so far so good, until that fateful thumb injury last week.

Hanie basically sunk the team with those three first half INTs. I mean, arguably, he didn't, because the Raiders could only turn that into six points on their way to a 12-7 halftime lead but if he had protected the ball a bit better, the Bears would have been in much better shape.

I kept thinking, as the Bears went three and out, or threw a pick that, time after time the Bears defense held the Raiders in check, that the defense was going to get worn out. There was no way the Bears defense could keep this up for 60 minutes.

I was right. On the Raiders' second-to-last possession they finally got into the endzone, for what wasn't the final nail in the coffin, but the writing was on the wall.

The Bears got the ball back with 3:47 to play and needed two touchdowns to win, and credit Hanie, he almost did it, but he couldn't quite get us there.

The game ended on that final, weird intentional grounding call (which, I was very angry about but I guess it was the right call since I've seen no one complain about).

Hanie will learn though, this was his first start, on the road, against a good team, in a hostile environment. I think he'll bounce back this week at home against the Chiefs. Have you seen Tyler Palko play? Yeesh!

Had Hanie had a better first half, things wouldn't have been so bad, but it was such a shame to sit back and have to look at the outcome and say "Damn, if only we had a good quarterback." Just like 2008.