WHY THE BEARS LOST SUPER BOWL XLI
BY D. MALINOWSKI
2/15/07
ARRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH! IT”S ALL GROSSMAN’S FAULT!
Lots of fans will jump the gun and put it all on Rex. No doubt, Rex was a big part of this loss. But it wasn’t all him; it was a team failure. Let’s take a look…
OFFENSE – I know this may sound like Captain Obvious, but the offense’s main job is to score points and kill as much clock as possible when they have a lead. The offense only generated 10 points; that won’t cut it in a Super Bowl, or virtually any game for that matter, and they were beaten in time of possession by an almost 2-to-1 margin. Grossman completed 71% of his passes, but there was no substantial impact from them. The interception return for a touchdown was a killer. The other pick, his fumbled snaps, and falling all over himself on 2nd and 1 jeopardized the Bears drives. The offensive line didn’t allow a lot of sacks, but didn’t give Rex a lot of time to throw. The receivers didn’t seem to be on their game all night. Muhammad blew a chance to make an easy pushout of the guy who returned that interception for a TD. All he needed was even ONE hand to nudge him, and he would’ve been out. Clark dropped a 4rd down catch late in the game that would’ve sustained a drive. Benson fumbles and gets injured, all in two carries. Other than Thomas Jones’ solid performance, the offense was bad. Of the Bears’ 13 offensive drives, 5 were punts (4 of these were 3-and-outs), 4 ended in turnovers, 1 ended on 4th down, 1 went to the end of regulation, and 2 were for scores. The Bears only averaged their own 28 for starting field position, with only 1 drive starting in Colts territory. To sum it up, the Bears offense failed.
DEFENSE – Again sounding obvious, but the job of the defense is to prevent the other team from scoring points and to get them off the field as fast as possible. As far as points, the Bears did do a good job of keeping the Colts to kicking short field goals (those 3 FG from within 20-odd yards could’ve easily been 3 touchdowns). However, that is indicative of how well the Colts moved the ball on the Bears defense. They gave up 22 points (the botched extra point being the fault of the Colts), which isn’t a ton, but not the hallmark of a championship team. The Colts had 14 drives, 4 of which were punts (only 2 3-and-outs.) 3 ended in turnovers, 1 ended on 4th down, 1 ended on a missed field goal, and 5 were for scores. A whopping 4 of the Colts’ drives started in Bears’ territory. They also averaged their own 40 for starting field position. Manning’s TD pass was a botched play by the defense, and after that, the Bears tried to prevent the big play for the rest of the game, allowing Manning to methodically march his team down the field, killing tons of time in the process. Other than the early interception and the few fumble recoveries, the defense couldn’t get off the field fast enough. Granted, the Bears offense not doing much forced the Bears D to be on the field a lot. But again, their job is to get 3-and-outs, and they couldn’t do that with any regularity. In this game, the defense failed as well.
SPECIAL TEAMS – The strongest aspect of the Bears game, Hester once again had a great TD on a kickoff return to start things off. However, the squib kicks doomed Hester for the rest of the game, not making anymore of an impact. Gabe Reid fumbled away one of the squibs (although there wasn’t any direct score off of it). Gould was solid on kickoffs, and hit his only FG attempt (and extra point). Maynard had a 45.2 yard average, but placed no punts inside the twenty, with only 1 touchback. The Bears only averaged their own 28 for starting field position, while the Colts started at their own 40. Coverage units were weak and allowed the Colts to get consistently good field position. Overall, the special teams were average in the game.
But here is what I really think it is all about. Football is often viewed as a symbiotic relationship between offense and defense (with special teams taking on their respective offensive and defensive roles). In a loss, people blame the defense for giving up too many points, which put pressure on the offense, or people blame the offense for not scoring enough, which put pressure on the defense. In reality, both offense and defense have nothing to do with each other. Even if the defense gave up 31 points, as long as the offense scores 34, the team wins. Conversely, even if the offense only manages 3 points, but the defense can shut out the other team, the game is won. In short, if each group just focused on their job, the game can and will be won. It’s a question of psychological focus and determination. In practice, it’s hard not to let one part of the team’s performance have an effect on the other part of the team’s psyche. But the players must somehow ignore the poor performance of their teammates and find a way to ‘get the job done’. In this Super Bowl, I believe the offenses’ and defenses’ poor showings fed each other negative emotions in a vicious cycle, and that probably cost the Bears the game more than anything. In a matchup in which they were still in it by the 4th quarter (and which they only lost by 12 points), they seemed mentally defeated long before that.
Well, better luck next year….