Bears are what their record says they are

The records suggest one team is good and the other is not.

And score would indicate one team played well and the other did not.

But it was not nearly that simple Monday night in Detroit, where the Lions presented the Bears with a winnable game, and the visitors could not get out of their own way long enough to take advantage.

So Detroit (5-0) strolled home in the second half with a 24-13 victory and the Bears (2-3) crawled back to Chicago 3-plus games behind the Lions and Packers, having also lost a game to both division leaders.

When it suits his purposes, Lovie Smith is fond of saying you are what your record says you are. Right now, their record says the Bears aren't a good football team.

And the final 30 minutes of the game would strongly back that impression.

The second half was all that's bad about the Bears, including an aging defense that looked downright old, and an offense in deep trouble when it's forced to throw the ball repeatedly and predictably.

That was not the case in the first half, when the Bears dominated time on the clock (20:57-9:03) and could have had a much bigger lead than a measly 3 points.

Jay Cutler was as good as he can be the first two quarters, despite the usual beating and being chased out of the pocket consistently. Often on the run, Cutler made it up as he went along and chewed up the Lions defense with ad-libs and guts.

That was despite the usual number of drops and an absurd number of penalties — even for the Bears' terrible offensive line.

The Bears took 6 false starts in the first half alone as Mike Martz showed no interest in adjusting to the noise at Ford Field, a stadium Martz should have known more than enough about before Monday night.

But the Bears' line calls and snap counts are as complicated as any in football and it caused the visitors nothing but problems because Martz was slow to simplify the line of scrimmage.

But all you really need to know about Martz and Smith, and how stubborn they can be, came with time running out in the first quarter.

On a third-and-1 from the Detroit 26, Ndamukong Suh stopped Matt Forte cold and rather than kick a 43-yard field goal and take a 3-0 on the road in a very hostile environment, the Bears decided to go for it.

First, however, they attempted to draw the Lions offside with a hard snap count. Did we mention this was a very loud and hostile environment?

The Bears' linemen couldn't even hear the count, and the Bears were expecting to draw the Lions off when no one on either side could possibly hear Cutler?

Brilliant strategy.

Cutler was forced to call a timeout (No. 2) and after Forte was stuffed on fourth down, Smith challenged when it was obvious Forte was short and that was the end of their timeouts before the first quarter had ended.

Three plays later on third-and-9, Calvin Johnson bolted down the field without so much as a whisper from Charles Tillman at the line. Johnson sprinted past safety Chris Harris, and the Bears were hit over the top again when Matthew Stafford found Johnson for an effortless 73-yard touchdown.

The Bears had the lead going into the second half but that didn't last long as Devin Hester put the Bears in a hole by running backward on a bubble screen.

The Lions took the ball back, drove for the go-ahead score, and an 88-yard Jahvid Best TD run put the game away.

Meanwhile, the Cutler bashing will probably continue on and off the field, though he did all he could in this one while being hit 12 more times, running his season total to 47 in 5 games.

The end result shows two teams headed in opposite directions, the Lions with a coming-out party in their first Monday night appearance in a decade and their first 5-0 record in 56 years, while the Bears limped home with more injuries — including one to Julius Peppers — and more questions.

At least in this game, many ought to be about the coaching staff.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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