For Bears, nowhere to go

SEATTLE -- Mathematically, the Bears aren't out of the playoff race.

But realistically it's safe to start waiting for next year.

For the fourth time this season, the 4-6 defending NFC champs failed to win two games in a row, falling 30-23 to the Seattle Seahawks.

"We were in a hole before we got here," Bears coach Lovie Smith said.

Now they're in a crater.

These Bears have elevated inconsistency to an art form, and Sunday at raucous Qwest Field their performance was a microcosm of the season.

They occasionally pressured Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, but only sacked him twice while allowing him to throw for 337 yards and complete 30 of 44 passes.

"When you give up over 300 yards passing, you don't like that," Smith said. "We would like to have sacked him a few more times. We're still looking for a bunch of interceptions to come our way."

Not on Sunday. For the fifth time this season, the Bears failed to get an interception, and they have just 1 in the past five games and 6 total after getting 24 in each of the past two seasons.

More often than not, Hasselbeck sidestepped or otherwise eluded the Bears' inconsistent pressure long enough to find wide receivers D.J. Hackett and former Bear Bobby Engram open downfield. The duo combined for 17 catches and 220 yards.

"Anytime a quarterback can scramble around and make things happen and create plays with his legs, that gives him an added dimension and another thing for us to defense," defensive coordinator Bob Babich said.

"Sometimes he stepped up in the pocket and created some extra time; sometimes he got outside the pocket."

Always, Hasselbeck seemed to find the open target. The Bears' defense, which had showed signs of recapturing the 2006 magic a week earlier in Oakland, was gashed for 425 yards and managed just 1 takeaway.

Bears quarterback Rex Grossman and running back Cedric Benson, the two most frequent targets of critics in a disappointing season, couldn't be blamed for this loss.

Benson picked up 63 yards on his first 2 carries but was handed the ball just nine more times the rest of the day and still finished with 89 yards.

Trailing 27-20, Grossman lost a crucial fumble in the fourth quarter just past midfield, and the Seahawks (6-4) turned it into their final points on Josh Brown's 46-yard field goal.

Grossman completed 24 of 37 passes for 266 yards, had a passer rating of 86.1, and played well enough to keep the starting job.

The Bears' offense totaled 345 yards, its third-highest output of the season, but it failed to capitalize on second-half opportunities when the game was on the line.

Trailing 24-17 midway through the third quarter, the Bears got a break when Adewale Ogunleye forced a Hasselbeck fumble that Brian Urlacher recovered at the Seahawks' 39.

Unlike the Seahawks, though, the Bears wasted the opportunity. It was a familiar refrain. The offense managed just 14 yards and turned the ball over on downs when Benson was obliterated by Seattle defenders on fourth-and-1 from the Seahawks' 25.

The Bears passed up the chance to try a 43-yard field goal, but Smith's reasoning was sound, even though his team's execution wasn't.

"We're a running team," Smith said. "In that situation, fourth-and-less-than-a-yard, (when) you say you're a running football team, you need to be able to get it."

It looked like they would have no problem "getting it" early on Sunday.

For the first time in almost a year, the Bears got off to an encouraging start, grabbing a 10-0 lead on the running of Benson.

On his first 177 carries this season, Benson failed to gain more than 16 yards on any of them. But on his 178th try -- and first against the Seahawks -- he went 43 yards for a touchdown, the longest run of a three-year NFL career covering 402 carries.

That staked the Bears to a 7-0 lead just 55 seconds into the game.

Benson ran through a gaping hole carved by an offensive line that has been criticized for failures in the running game. Then the running back, who has taken even more flak for his paltry 3.0-yard rushing average, showed the burst that had been missing most of the season by outrunning the secondary to the end zone.

On the Bears' next possession, Benson broke off his second-longest run of the season, a 20-yarder that set up a 31-yard Robbie Gould field goal and a 10-0 lead 6:09 into the game.

But the Bears were outscored 24-7 from that point until Gould's 47-yard field goal brought them with 24-20 with 14:15 remaining.

They never got any closer.

"We need to pretty much run the table from here," Smith said. "Ten wins normally gets you in."

That would require 6 straight wins from a team that has yet to win two in a row.

You do the math.