Dan Pompei Misses the Point… Again

There is a giant gap between statistics and impact on the game. This was absolutely telling in the Bears debacle against the Arizona Cardinals and reviewing their offensive performance.

The most important part of the game was the first half. In the first possession of the game, the Arizona Cardinals drove the length of the field for a touchdown to make it 7-0. Harris was ejected at this point in the game, and although he certainly isn’t the force today that he used to be, it was a very ominous sign.

Uncharacteristically, the Bears came right back against the Cardinals. In an excellent drive, Jay Cutler took charge and in an all-passing series (since our running game cannot be counted on) he came right back for a touchdown, and the Bears tied it up 7-7.

After that, the Cardinals again came right down the length of the field for another TD, to make it 14-7. It was obvious to all of us in the cheap seats that the Bears defense was having a BAD day, and the offense had to pick it up a notch for us to have a chance to win.

So what did we do? Knox made a big kick return for 31 yards, and it looked like we’d go right at them to tie the game. But Ron became Ron again, and there was an idiotic hand off to Hester that resulted in a 10 yard loss, a single running play, some passes, and ultimately a short yard pass on third and 16 (CLASSIC Turner call) that, stunningly, didn’t get the first down, leading to a punt.

That series, right there, sealed our fate. We went from 14-7 to 21-7 as the Bears defense gave up 70 yards, another punishing TD drive, and now the game was effectively out of reach.

Of course we know the rest as the Bears were whipped the first half and although we made a bit of a run later in the game, we were NEVER in this game and were not going to climb out from under this type of deficit the way the defense was playing.

But let’s look at the way Dan Pompei sees the game. After the game, in which 100 of 100 fans would say that the Bears were stomped in an embarrassing manner, Dan Pompei gives the following grades to our offense in this article titled “Intensity Lacking on Defense, but Chicago Bears Actually Did Some Things Well Sunday“, where he “grades” the facets of the game on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the best:

Quarterback Grade: 8
This was one of Jay Cutler’s best performances of the season. Everyone in the stadium knew he was going to pass on almost every down, and he took some chances without making many stupid throws.

Huh? I can understand being a Cutler fan and know that he led the NFL that week with over 360 yards, but after the first drive, NONE OF IT MATTERED. This isn’t fantasy football, it is real football and this was a brutal loss, and probably even Cutler wouldn’t give himself that kind of grade since we DIDN’T make the yards when it counted. But given that he led the NFL in yardage that week, he certainly deserves something better than a 6 or so.

Running backs Grade: 8
It’s a shame the circumstances took the run out of the equation because Matt Forte looked like he had undergone a Benson-ian transformation. He carried only five times but averaged 6.6 yards per carry and had six catches for 74 yards.

What? The Bears running game only took off when the opponent was letting us run because it wore down the clock while we were behind by multiple scores, so they were happy to occasionally let us rack up a few meaningless yards. You can’t get a good score when your running game is ineffective, and it didn’t play a role at all when the game was up for grabs in the first half.

Offensive line Grade: 8
This was a very encouraging performance by the embattled unit. Could it be coming together?
Against a defense that knew it didn’t have to worry about the run, the Bears pass protected better than they have all season. It was not uncommon for Cutler to have close to four seconds in the pocket — which must have seemed like a calendar year to him.

While the offensive line wasn’t horrible an 8 would conceivably say that they were better than 8 of 10 other offensive lines out there. Uh, no. The Cardinals offensive line brutalized us in the first half when it mattered. It is true that it didn’t look like a jailbreak out there like it usually does with our porous offensive line, but that is a long way from an 8 out of 10.

I really don’t understand what Dan Pompei’s point is. He seems to be intent on taking an opposing view of reality just to show us dumb fans that we don’t know what we are talking about, such as insisting that Ron Turner is an unpredictable and effective coordinator or saying that in a game when the Bears suffered an historic, devastating defeat, that good things were happening right under our noses.

They weren’t. The defense sucked hard but the offense didn’t exactly help them out when it counted. Picking up garbage yards and scores when the game is effectively out of reach doesn’t make anyone in Chicago happy unless they picked these players for their fantasy football team.