Rozner: Bears hit rock bottom in Green Bay blowout
Unless you believed the Bears would go 7-1 in the second half and make the playoffs, you knew the season was over three weeks ago.
All that remained was to see if Marc Trestman could use the remaining games to convince his bosses — and his players — that he really is an NFL head coach.
It continued Sunday night to look as though he belongs on a CFL sideline as the Packers hit the Bears early and often in a fight that could have been stopped — in a merciful world — 12 seconds into the second quarter when Green Bay took a 21-0 lead en route to a ferocious rout, a 55-14 shellacking at Lambeau Field.
Yeah, you only thought the New England game was bad, until Sunday when the Bears looked like a high school team playing a Packers squad that marched up and down the field as if they had no opponent.
For all intents and purposes, they didn't. The Bears had no intention of matching up with Green Bay and their only purpose was to view the monuments in a hallowed hall featuring the ghosts of so many greats.
The Bears looked like they had seen a ghost as Aaron Rodgers shredded the defense for an opponent's record 6 touchdowns in the first half, while the Bears' offense under the leadership of Trestman and Jay Cutler looked as hopeless as they've been helpless the last three games.
“We're not a good football team right now,” Trestman accurately assessed in his halftime interview with WBBM 780-AM. “We played 30 minutes of terrible football in all three phases. We have to just start over. That's all we can do.”
That's what owner George McCaskey has to do.
But to believe the Bears would make a change at the top after this season is to also believe that the Bears don't care about the significance of shaking the stability Cutler finally has after so many years of change.
He's had more than a dozen head coaches, offensive coordinators, QB coaches and offensive systems since he entered the league nine years ago. And while it's true that the continuity from last year to this has done nothing to improve Cutler's decision-making, it would be a gamble to change yet again when the Bears have spent so much money to lock up their “franchise” quarterback.
Nevertheless, the Bears are just 3-8 going back to the final two losses of 2013, when a single victory would have put them in the playoffs.
And if anyone's going to evaluate Trestman, who seems to have no idea what he's doing, then GM Phil Emery deserves just as thorough an examination.
At the very least, he reached for Trestman when better candidates were available, and his drafting remains bizarre at best and dreadful at worst. Emery — along with Jerry Angelo — is the reason the Bears have had to spend in free agency, trying to fill holes as a result of poor drafting.
The contrast to Green Bay is striking, with the Packers owning the most players in the league that have played only for them, and the Bears have the fewest homegrown players in the NFL.
But the sad reality remains that without a quarterback it doesn't matter.
Green Bay has the best player in the league in Rodgers, while the Bears have Cutler, who is the same QB he was when he arrived in Chicago, and if the reason for keeping Trestman is Cutler, it's no reason at all.
Since joining the Bears, Cutler is 1-10 against the Packers with 14 touchdowns and 21 interceptions, not to mention too many sack-fumbles to count.
This one was no different.
The Bears won the coin toss and that's the last thing they won. Another terrible kick return to start the game didn't make the 20, and, of course, the Bears took a penalty.
And that was the best part of their night.
From there it was pure misery, the fitting end another Brandon Marshall ankle injury and Cutler hitting Kyle Long in the face mask on a fourth-quarter screen pass, leading to yet another in a long line of pick-6s.
The Bears have now been outscored 80-7 in the first half of the last two games after Trestman said they were evaluating their slow starts, and in two games against Green Bay this season they've been smoked 93-31.
Yes, 93-31.
Imagine if they had three weeks to prepare for a game. Wait, don't do that. They looked like didn't know the plays on either side of the ball and then they flat out quit.
It would have been humiliating if pathetic hadn't won the night.
All that's left now at 3-6 is to play for a high draft pick and make decisions on the future of those who make decisions.
The last vision Sunday night was of the late, great Sam Kinison, who onstage one night began stomping his foot before asking rhetorically, “When do we hit rock bottom?”
One can only hope the Bears have found the floor.
• Hear Barry Rozner on WSCR 670-AM.