Chicago Bears Insider: A Timeline of No Respect
Published by Bryan Dietzler on November 30, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
It’s hard to believe, but the Bears are 8-3 and leading in the NFC North.
Prior to the start of the season, you could hardly find one prognosticator that would pick the Bears to make the playoffs, let alone be in the lead in the NFC North at this time of year.
If they knew then what they know now, they would surely be surprised.
The naysayers never quite let the Bears alone as the season progressed. They said that Chicago got “very lucky” in winning their first game against the Lions with a controversial call.
Of course, I am referring to the call in the end zone for Lions’ wide receiver Calvin Johnson’s no touchdown. That was the right call.
When the Bears met the Cowboys, no one gave them a chance to win. After all, it was America’s Team.
They were Super Bowl-bound this season, right? And despite winning a nice game there, the Bears still didn’t get any respect.
Would respect come with a win against the Packers on Monday Night Football? After all, it was on the national stage against a division rival.
A win would surely cement them as one of the top teams in the NFC—if not the NFL—and make believers out of many.
Once again, the Bears passed the test and beat the Packers, but didn’t get the respect that they deserved.
People said that the officials won the game for the Bears (the Packers committed some 17 penalties during the game), but we all know that is nonsense. The Bears won the game in a fair fashion and moved on to a still-not-so-much-respected 3-0.
Then the wheels fell off the Bears’ wagon. They met the New York Giants on Sunday Night Football the next week.
After nine sacks on quarterback Jay Cutler (who left the game with a concussion), it was clear that the Bears may have a long way to go yet on offense. The defense looked solid, but couldn’t last without support from the offense.
The Bears lost this game, making them a 3-1 team.
Chicago went into Carolina the next week without Cutler at the helm. Even though the game was one of the sloppiest the Bears have played in a while, they still managed to win the game and move to 4-1 on the year.
The next two games for the Bears—the first against Seattle and the next game, against the Redskins—were games that the Bears should have won but didn’t. The offense could not get much of anything going in both games, and the Bears made some critical mistakes at important points in each game.
The tide for the Bears would start to turn during the second half of their game against the Redskins. Following a horrible first half blocking, the offensive line suddenly seemed to find themselves started to play much better.
Offensive coordinator Mike Martz simplified things a little bit in the second half as well. Things didn’t look too bad for the Bears.
Well, almost not that bad. Cutler threw some interceptions, including one that was returned for a touchdown.
The Bears lost that game, but the seeds for what we are seeing now were planted in that second half of the Washington game.
The Bears had a bye week after their loss against the Redskins. During that week, several things must have happened.
The Bears must have worked on their offensive line and their play calling because they came out of the bye week pretty solid in those two areas. They must also have decided to reduce Devin Hester’s snaps on offense because they started using him much more on special teams (and a little less on offense).
What did these changes do? They helped make the Bears better and helped them set sail for what has become an ongoing four-game winning streak.
Following the bye week, the Bears travelled to Buffalo to take on the winless Bills. Buffalo played them tough—as they did in their two games before that—but the Bears were just too much and they won the game.
They now sported a 5-3 record, but didn’t gain much respect from the win.
Division-rival Minnesota came into town the next week. Even though the Vikings weren’t playing well and had struggles all across the board, the Bears were not favored to win that game.
It had been something that Chicago had gotten used to. And they used the “slight” to their advantage.
The Bears beat the Vikings soundly and moved their record to 6-3.
Respect? It still wasn’t coming, although there were some people out there that were starting to take notice of the way that the Bears were playing and starting to praise them for their efficiency on offense as well as the stellar play of their defense.
Chicago had a short week after that Vikings game and traveled to Miami to take on the Dolphins. Once again, the Bears were not favored in this game despite the fact that the Dolphins had several key players injured and would be starting their third-string quarterback.
The oddsmakers were definitely not favoring the Bears on that night.
Chicago blanked the Dolphins 16-0 and earned another win to put their record at 7-3. Did they get much respect for that victory?
A little, but clearly not as much as they deserved. Prognosticators felt that Chicago would need another victory—one over a top team—in order to gain the respect that they so much deserved.
That game would come in the Bears’ next game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Coming in as the usual underdog, not too many people gave the Bears a chance to win this game.
After all, the Eagles had been “flying high” with quarterback Michael Vick at the helm and were difficult to stop. Why would anyone think that the Bears would be able to stop them?
As it turned out, Chicago would be the better team and would beat the NFC’s best team (in this writer’s opinion at that time, the Eagles were the NFC’s second-best team, with Atlanta being the top dog in the conference) and quiet even more of their critics.
Perhaps now, those people who didn’t believe in the Bears will realize that this is indeed a good team, and a strong one at that. They should be playoff bound for sure.
But one thing is certain: The Bears should now get the respect that they deserve.
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