Bears wasting a good defense with Glennon

During the Bears loss to the Packers on Thursday night, a thought occurred to me.

What if this team is actually good but we can’t see it?

I don’t know who is still for supporting Mike Glennon at this point. Eight turnovers in four games is Jay Cutler stuff and he isn’t giving the team any of Cutler’s good qualities; scrambling ability, ability to improvise, make difficult throws, etc.

But this isn’t just about Glennon being a horrific starting QB, this is about the defense.

The strength of this Bears team is the running game and the defense. That was what the belief of fans an analysts before the season started and that has been the case through the first four games.

The defense has been pretty good. There have been several ridiculous breakdowns at inopportune times that have resulted in huge plays but overall I think the secondary has been better overall than expected, breakdowns and all.

Even last night, the longest play of the game was a 58-yard pass to Jordy Nelson, Aaron Rodgers was pressured, stepped up, and under-threw the pass to Nelson downfield, who made a good adjustment while Markus Cooper, who had pretty good coverage, slipped on the wet field because he was surprised to have to have to stop on a dime.

Cooper was keeping stride with Nelson and expected to be able to have to make a play stride-for-stride with Nelson but the ball was under thrown and Cooper couldn’t adjust on a wet field as quickly as Nelson. Kyle Fuller then came over and tripped over Cooper while trying to assist the play.

Other than that play though, the Bears played a pretty solid game.

The Packers had two long touchdown drives: the opening drive of the game and their drive after the Conner Barth missed a 43-yard field goal.

That accounts for 14 of the Packers’ 35 points. The other 21 points came on drives of five plays or less and all came off of Bears turnovers.

Rodgers threw four TDs with less than 180 yards passing for the first time since Jay Cutler and the Bears defeated the 49ers in 2014. It’s happened just 31 times since 1950, according to Pro-Football Reference.

This was the first game since 2012 that the Bears were beaten while holding their opponent to less than 260 yards, again from PFR.

The defense forced four Green Bay three and outs but it’s deadly setting up Rodgers with a short field. The Packers began two drives in Bears territory and two others near their over 40 yard line (one on the 40 and one at their own 37).

These short fields put the defense as a big disadvantage and only worked to exacerbate the team’s other issues.

The Bears are currently ranked 10th in yards allowed per game, even with playing one more game than most of the rest of the league.

This defense has been playing top 10 football but their QB isn’t allowing them to stay in games.

It’s time for a change because this team is clearly being held back by their quarterback. The rushing attack, even with stacked boxes, ranks 10th in the league with 117.5 yards per game on the ground.

How much longer can the embattled John Fox and GM Ryan Pace look at these stats and continue to trot out the obviously struggling Glennon?

For way too much of the team’s history, the Bears have fielded good defenses held back by bad offenses. The Trubisky pick was supposed to close the chapter on that.

Let’s turn the page. It’s time.