Time to take off running
If the Bears can't run the ball Sunday against the Oakland Raiders, they probably can't run it on anyone.
Only the Denver Broncos have a worse run defense than the Raiders. But no one has a worse run offense than the Bears, the team that supposedly gets off the bus running the ball.
The NFL rushing average is 112 yards a game, but the Bears haven't reached that in any of their eight contests.
The Raiders haven't held any of their previous six opponents to fewer than 125 rushing yards. Last week, Houston came into Oakland featuring the second-worst run game in the NFL, yet the Texans rolled up 178 yards on the ground while handing the Raiders a 24-17 defeat, their fourth straight.
"We have a lot of improvement that needs to be made," said Raiders 32-year-old coach Lane Kiffin. "It's been five straight weeks with 100-yard backs, so it's something we're addressing.
"We continue to try to find ways to help us and things to do differently. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked. Hopefully for us, this will be the week it starts."
The Raiders have been trampled by, in reverse order, the Texans' Ron Dayne (122 yards, 21 carries, 5.8-yard average), the Titans' LenDale White (133, 25, 5.3), the Chiefs' Larry Johnson (112, 24, 4.7), the Chargers' LaDainian Tomlinson (198, 24, 8.3) and the Dolphins' Ronnie Brown (134, 15, 8.9).
For the Bears' Cedric Benson, this is his best -- and maybe last -- chance to prove he's worthy of being featured as a ball carrier. His 3.1-yard average per carry is the worst in the NFL among running backs with 75 or more attempts, and he has borne the brunt of criticism directed at the running game.
"When you have difficult times, they're a frustrating thing," Benson said. "But it's not over yet; we're only halfway through this thing. We can definitely get it turned around and have some fun with it.
"Anytime you've got adversity or difficult situations, it's frustrating, but you can't let it control you. You have to do something about it and make a change for the better."
Benson's dearth of big plays and inability to make tacklers miss have been part of the problem. His longest run of the season, 16 yards, is the lowest among 48 runners with 196 or more yards.
But the Bears' offensive line hasn't provided a great deal of running room and hasn't been able to control the line of scrimmage for any length of time.
Maybe that's why coach Lovie Smith and offensive coordinator Ron Turner are no more than mildly optimistic when they assess a matchup that the Bears should be able to exploit.
"We need to get our running game going, of course, and hopefully we can do that," Smith said. "Just looking at the stats, it's appealing to you to try to run the football. When you watch video, (though,) they have a lot of good football players. For whatever reason, they've had trouble stopping the run. But almost to a man, there's a good player there, and that could give us trouble."
Although he will be 35 next month, tackle Warren Sapp still anchors the Raiders' line, while middle linebacker Kirk Morrison is their leading tackler and outside linebacker Thomas Howard their big-play specialist.
But most of Howard's and the Raiders' big plays have been against the pass.
Opponents don't throw that much against them because they have so much success running. Only one of the Raiders' last five opponents has needed to throw more than 25 passes.
It's a defense tailor-made for a Bears running game that needs to lose the training wheels and take off.
"I don't think we've formed an identity," Benson said. "We haven't said, 'OK, this is what we're going to do, and you're just going to have to stop us.' "
This week, the Bears and Benson have their best opportunity of the season to do that.