There should be no question in anyone's mind just how bad the Chicago Bears have been the last few weeks. Worse than bad, they've been confusing. One week, the defense is stalwart against the run, and forces the typically ground-heavy Titans into a passing game; the next week, Ryan Grant is punching holes in the Bears d-line like it's made of styrofoam. One week, the offense is chucking the ball around the field; the next week, they can't complete a check-down. (Though, to be fair, this latter conundrum has a lot to do with Kyle Orton's injury.)
So no one's lending the Bears any excuses here. They need to take a day today (or yesterday), step back, breathe in deeply, and figure out exactly what is wrong with them and why it's happening. They need to re-tool from the ground up. They need, desperately, to get it together. Granted.
What they don't need to do is fire Lovie Smith. But that's exactly what Chicago Tribune blogger Steve Rosenbloom is pining for:
Is Bob Babich still employed by the Bears? Why? Lovie Smith, same questions.
There have been times where Smith has embarrassed himself as head coach of the Bears — Adam Archuleta, hel-lo; Mark Anderson starting ahead of Alex Brown, yeesh — but he might’ve exceeded all forms embarrassment post-game Sunday.
It goes on like that: Rosenbloom's main argument is that because Lovie Smith offers nothing resembling coherence -- or, really, honesty -- he's not fit to be the head coach of the Bears.
In one sense, I sort of agree. It is incredibly frustrating, not only for media types but for fans, to see the scant transparency with which Smith runs his franchise. I'm not talking about injury updates, either. I'm talking about walking out on Monday afternoon and denying what took place on Sunday. Smith and the Bears treat their fans like they're stupid, and it's not very nice. So I get that.
On the other hand, this is not a fireable offense. Losing a bunch of football games is. If Smith does that, then he and his staff should be fired. But in the meantime, he's 40-30 overall as a head coach in Chicago, the Bears are 5-5 and in first place. These are not the things that require a termination.
It would be a little easier to take Rosenbloom's calls seriously, but he did the same thing in Week 3. Fortunately, few are following suit. Maybe Smith will be fired one day. But now is not the time.
