One of the most fun things for Packer fans following wins over the Bears or Vikings is to read the outraged, or resigned, or disgusted reactions of the Chicago and Twin Cities press corps.
It’s as if the Chicago sports media feels personally offended at a Bears loss, and that the media fully expects the Bears to lose every single game the rest of every single NFL season. You expect that of fans; you do not expect that of media professionals, who should be able to view wins and losses with more perspective, and who get paid the same (assuming they’re full-timers and not stringers) regardless of how the team they cover does.
We begin with the Chicago Tribune:
At least the on-field camera for this nationally televised game didn’t capture Jay Cutler shouting vulgarities at his offensive coordinator. …
The NFL hyped the matchup of Cutler and his Packers counterpart Aaron Rodgers, but he was dreadful against Green Bay again.
With an upgraded offense that was supposed to be ready to match firepower with the Packers, the Bears fired only blanks. …
It will only add to questions for Cutler, who didn’t take kindly to inquiries during the week about why he struggles against the Packers. …
One evaluation is simple: Cutler is not in a class with Rodgers. He was intercepted four times, twice by Tramon Williams, and completed 11 of 27 passes for 126 yards. A 21-yard touchdown pass to tight end Kellen Davis with 6 minutes, 49 seconds to play was set up by a Tim Jennings interception. Cutler was sacked seven times, 3½ by Clay Matthews, and his passer rating was an anemic 28.2. The offensive line, without the seven-step drops, was overrun. …
Cutler now has a 58.9 passer rating in eight meetings, including last season’s NFC championship game. He has thrown eight touchdowns and 16 interceptions.
The Tribune’s Brad Biggs has 10 things to say, including …
Cutler took seven sacks which is the second-most in his career behind only the nine-sack meltdown in the first half of the Oct. 3, 2010 game against the Giants in East Rutherford, N.J. …
Outside linebacker Clay Matthews had 3½ sacks to give him six for the season and match his output from all of last year. … Matthews was far too much for Webb to handle and when the NFL finishes reviewing the replacement referees, they will see multiple holding penalties that Webb got away with. There was a two-point takedown that went uncalled at one point. …
What is most disappointing is the new playbook that was supposed to create a sturdy pocket for Cutler looked a lot like the old one. Sure, circumstances conspired against the Bears when they fell behind by two touchdowns, but this was ugly all the way around and Cutler isn’t going to be taken to the turf repeatedly and not act out. …
The offensive line is largely responsible for seven sacks and Cutler is to blame for four interceptions for bad mechanics driven in part by ego. When he throws off his back off, as he did repeatedly, bad things can happen. They tend to in bunches against the Packers. …
The Chicago Sun–Times’ Rick Morrissey adds:
Did somebody say something about offense? A new, improved, unstoppable, quite possibly otherworldly Bears offense? …
It’s not quite all that you, I and Jay Cutler made it out to be.
The Bears need blocking. They need an offensive line, in the exact way the Bears have needed an offensive line for about 10 years. They don’t need bad penalties and wretched interceptions. There will be games this season in which they’ll get away with some of that. This wasn’t one of them, not even close.
Cutler threw four interceptions and was sacked seven times in a 23-10 loss to the Packers, and it was every bit as bad as those numbers suggest.
There’s a good chance an apoplectic Cutler burst blood vessels in his eyes. In the second quarter, Packers linebacker Clay Matthews blew past Bears left statue J’Marcus Webb and took down Cutler like a rodeo calf. Cutler got up and screamed bloody murder at Webb.
Forget about Cutler’s bad body language issues of last season. That was nothing. The Bears had a crazed quarterback on their hands. He lurched between snapping at teammates and spraying poorly thrown passes all over the field. …
What a sudden, distressing loss of cabin pressure this was from the victory in the opener. After one quarter, Cutler was 1-for-3 for minus-2 yards. As a team, the Bears had zero yards of total offense. That’s hard to do. By the time it was over, Cutler had a passer rating of 28.2. Also hard to do.
You see where I’m going with this: nowhere, just like Mike Tice’s offense. …
Bears right statue Gabe Carimi had a rough night in front of fans who liked him at the University of Wisconsin and positively loved him inside Lambeau Field.
“The protection isn’t what it needs to be,’’ coach Lovie Smith understated. …
In six games against the Packers going into Thursday, Cutler had thrown seven touchdowns and 11 interceptions and was sacked 19 times. That’s called “having a history.’’ This was history repeating itself.
It was as bad a game as the Bears have had with Cutler as their quarterback, though I’m sure I’ve purged some memories just out of self-preservation. …
Cutler had said “good luck’’ at a news conference this week when the topic turned to the Packers’ habit of pressing receivers man-to-man. Cutler liked his odds with the 6-4 Marshall and the 6-3 Alshon Jeffery.
The Packers travel to Soldier Field for a rematch Dec. 16. After what we saw Thursday, there’s only one thing you can say to the Bears.
Good luck.
About the fake field goal (who knew Mike McCarthy had that in his playbook?), the Sun–Times’ Mark Potash writes:
The Bears gave new meaning to the age-old football warning, ‘‘Watch the fake!’’ Thursday night.
That’s exactly what they seemed to do, as the Green Bay Packers’ Tom Crabtree took a shovel pass from holder Tim Masthay on a field-goal attempt and went 27 yards untouched into the end zone for a discouraging touchdown that gave the Packers a 10-0 lead with 1:50 left in the half.
It was a rare mental breakdown for the Bears’ vaunted special teams and coordinator Dave Toub. But it typified a disappointing night of errors and missed opportunities. …
It looked like a minor victory for the Bears — going into halftime down 6-0 after a poor first half marked by negative plays. But long-snapper Brett Goode snapped to holder Masthay, who shoveled a pass to Crabtree, a tight end who burst through a huge hole in the coverage on the right side of the field for the touchdown. The play worked so perfectly that the Packers were celebrating almost as soon as Crabtree got the ball.
The play put the Bears on tilt.
The Arlington (Ill.) Daily Herald is even more pointed about the Bears’ performance:
For the second straight game the Bears’ offense got off to a disjointed, ineffective start.
This time it never got any better in a pathetic, demoralizing offensive performance that resulted in a 23-10 loss to the Packers that left both NFC North foes at 1-1. …
Cutler was bad, but so were his teammates. He lambasted his offensive linemen during the game and then afterward, when he was asked about it.
“I care about this,” Cutler said. “This isn’t just a hobby for me. I’m not doing this for my health. I’m trying to win football games; I’m trying to get first downs.
“When we’re not doing the little things consistently the right way, I’m going to say something. If they want a quarterback that doesn’t care, they can get somebody else.”
All this means that until the rematch in Soldier Field Dec. 16 …
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
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