The players made enough plays to get the Bears an early lead. As they were about to push it to double digits, something went really wrong. The coaching.

That was evident throughout the night. When the Bears had goal to go in the 2nd quarter, the playcalling was shocking. They ran Forte up the middle on 2nd Down.  Jason Davis–Jason Davis–was easily stopped on 3rd down on “Turner’s Favorite”, a/k/a the Fullback Dive. Why, oh why would you try to run it up the middle there? And with Jason Davis? David Haugh says it best:

“There should be a rule that no player who has been on the 53-man roster less than 48 hours can carry the ball with the division title on the line. Davis moved the ball nearly as long as this sentence, setting up fourth-and-goal.”

Then Forte was stuffed again on 4th down. The look on Lovie Smith’s face said it all. What his face said was similar to what fans were yelling at their TVs–”What are you doing, Ron Turner?”. So instead of being up 14-3, the Bears then allowed the huge 99-yard pass to Berrian for a TD and it’s 10-7 Vikes. But it was really game over. You knew it, and so did I. The Bears had 9 second-half possessions. Three ended in interceptions and four ended in punts. It clearly affected them. I’m not blaming Ron Turner for Kyle Orton’s picks nor Charles Tillman’s wrong read on the Berrian bomb. But 3 runs interior runs on the goal line against the Vikings? In Minnesota?

Playing on the road in Minnesota is very difficult. But the Bears blew it, and it was hardcore.

Other aggravations:

Rashied Davis. 2 memorable drops. On one of them a Vikings linebacker said something to him after the play. I’m pretty sure I know what it was because I was thinking it too. It had something to do with him being a chicken-something. Weaksauce. More after the jump…

Devin Hester. The TD was sweet. But the overall picture is this: Hester looks slow and he also seems afraid to endure contact. When defenders near, Hester dives toward the ground. It’s also apparent he still doesn’t have a solid grasp on all the nuances of being a receiver. One of Orton’s picks was headed Hester’s way, and I wondered if Hester broke on the route incorrectly. On another pass Hester wasn’t even looking for the ball and it hit him in the arm and fell to the ground.

Lovie Smith. Again Smith proved to the world that clock management is not his strong suit. Why are they calling timeouts with so much time left in the half? Let it get to the warning before you start to burn your timeouts. It is not fait accompli–especially with this defense–that you will stop them. So what ends up happening? The Bears let them convert on 3rd down and then the Vikings scored again. The Bears got the ball back with :48 and no timeouts. Oops. Down 17-7 at the half. It still might have been that way, but Orton could have mustered something to provide some momentum going into the 2nd half. Instead, the Bears slunk off to the locker room frustrated and defeated.

Kyle Orton. Picked the worst week to come out and start throwing picks.

[tags]Chicago Bears, Kyle Orton, Lovie Smith, Matt Forte, Devin Hester[/tags]