A team in mere disarray would be an improvement at this point. The Bears’ defense is inept, rendering their offense useless even on its good days, and the coaching staff is clueless. The season is in tatters.
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Monday we again made an attempt to immerse ourselves in the game, watching the line play first and foremost and following the ball as an afterthought. When the Bears were on defense, play after play was the same. The Bears’ pass rush went nowhere against the Lions’ offensive line. Detroit quarterback Scott Mitchell had all the time he needed to pass downfield. And the Bears were so intent on their pass rush that when Mitchell handed off to Barry Sanders, the Lions’ dangerous lone running back, he knifed through huge holes in the line. That, of course, was when the Lions felt like playing old-fashioned strategic football, helmet on helmet. More often than not they simply contented themselves with what the Bears’ so-called soft-coverage pass defense would give them.
The Bears have been playing the same way against the pass all season long, with the cornerbacks deep off the line of scrimmage, allowing the other teams’ wide receivers ample room to maneuver in order to stop the long bomb at all costs. But this has left the Bears open to short turnaround passes under the coverage and slightly deeper square-out patterns gaining 10 or 15 yards a pop. That’s what the Green Bay Packers used to defeat the Bears in the second game of the schedule; it’s a large part of what kept the Saint Louis Rams in the game in the fourth week; and it’s what allowed the Pittsburgh Steelers, Packers, and Lions (twice) to rack up huge yardage in outscoring the Bears in the last few games.
The Lions then went three straight times to Moore–once he simply ran five yards or so down the field, stopped, and stood waiting for the ball as if it were an overdue bus–to move deep into Bears territory. Mitchell threw wide right to Perriman incomplete, wide left to Moore incomplete, and then under to Sanders circling out of the backfield, and he scored almost untouched down the middle. It was 21-0 at halftime, and as Hub Arkush said on the WGN radio coverage, it wasn’t even that close. The Lions had outgained the Bears 241 yards to 65. Moore alone had caught nine passes for well over 100 yards and a touchdown.
