MVN - Most Valuable Network

An introduction and overview.

My name is John, I was born and raised in Chicago and I am currently having my heart stomped on by the Bears this year. Maybe stomped isn’t the right word though, since stomping would indicate that the team’s legs were moving off the ground at some point in time.

In the seven or so years that I have followed the Bears passionately, not since the Curtis Enis era have the Bears had such a pathetic running game. People seem to blame a lot of the Bears woes on the quarterback situation and, granted, that’s no better. But the difference between where the Bears are now and where they were last year falls directly upon the failure of the running game and, in what would probably be the last place Chicago fans should have to worry, the defense.

I won’t lie; when the Bears traded away Thomas Jones, initially, I wasn’t worried. I tend to like young, upstart players with a lot of potential over good but not outstanding seasoned players anyway. I had all the confidence in the world that Cedric Benson would put the team on his strong, albeit inexperienced, shoulders and at least keep the Bears afloat when Rex Grossman went on his unavoidable turnover sprees.

Boy was I wrong.

Instead what we got was a running-back with an identity crisis; a running back in denial. If you watch Cedric Benson take a handoff, you’ll notice that he rarely lowers his shoulder and powers through the line like he should. Instead, he tip-toes, runs east and west and tries to finesse his way into the open field. The problem with this is he’s not a finesse back. His agility is limited and he has almost no break away speed. Combine this with his apparent field vision blindness and you’ve got a recipe for a bust. Sure, he had a huge run against Seattle last weekend but a yards gained per play average hovering around three yards, putting him dead last among starting running backs in the NFL, speaks all kinds of volumes, mostly that his attempts at finesse don’t work.

As Bears fans, we never expect the passing game to lead the offense. It’s always been the hard nosed, typically successful running game that has carried the offense in its best times. But with a power running back who seems to want to fool himself into thinking he’s a finesse back, the Bears are going to continue to devolve into a team with a running back impotence on par with Curtis Enis’. Makes me miss what Thomas Jones might have done.

The defense has probably been the biggest let down of the year though. Granted, injuries to Mike Brown (again), Nathan Vasher and Tommie Harris have plagued the Bears this year but it’s still a helpless feeling to watch one the most celebrated defenses in football fall so far from grace over one year. Now, I could have told you Mike Brown was going to get hurt just as surely as the sun rises in the east. An injury to Mike Brown is like the Bud Billiken Parade: it happens every year and urges the youth (in this case, Danieal Manning) to learn what it can by all means. And Manning (along with Trumaine McBride, filling in for the still injured Vasher) has done what he can but sometimes it isn’t enough. All too often he looks lost in coverage. Couple this with the complete ineptitude of Adam Archuelta and you’ve got a boatload of trouble in pass coverage. See: Loss to Seattle last week, 337 yards passing.

But that’s only the tip of the iceberg at this point. What’s most startling about this defense is the fact that they are ranked 26th in rush defense this year. They gave up 103 yards against Seattle last week and that was without Shaun Alexander. Maurice Morris? Really? How the front seven went from one of the best to one of the cellar dwellers in a matter of a year is startling. Maybe getting rid of Ron Rivera wasn’t such a great idea after all.

And of course, there’s the ongoing quarterback issue. The Bears haven’t had a “franchise” quarterback since the days of Sid Luckman. That was before most of us were even sparkles in the sparkles of our grandfather’s eyes. But I’ll elaborate on the Bears ongoing QB search in a later article. But in case you’ve been living under a rock for the last 57 or so years, this just in: the Bears need a quarterback. If you know of any good prospects, email me.

At this point in time, I’d be more than happy if the Bears were stomping on my heart. At least then I could look at a positive and say they aren’t dragging their feet. But right now, the Bears are in the worst of situations: too bad to make the playoffs, too good to get that high draft pick. All we can do at this point is sit back and watch the agonizing madness unfold. The way it’s panning out, with yet another QB void on the horizon, a running back without a clue and a defense that seems more sluggish than ever before, the Bears might be headed back to the not so good-ol’-days when the punter was the Bears’ most valuable player.

Excuse the yearlong bitterness. It’s a Chicago thing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 25th, 2007 at 1:05 am and is filed under Transactions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.