No matter how you cut it, Bears a .500 team

The Bears might be worse than the White Sox' bullpen when it comes to holding a lead, but at least they're not whining that they could be 6-0, considering their 3 losses are by a total of 8 points.

"Whether we accept it or not we're still 3-3," defensive end Alex Brown said, "so we have to move on."

Sunday's collapse in the final 11 seconds at the Georgia Dome was the Bears' most dramatic but just the latest in 3 come-from-ahead losses in five weeks.

Before the 22-20 heartbreaker, they blew a 24-14 lead with 3:12 left at home against Tampa Bay on Sept. 21 after a week earlier squandering a 17-3 lead late in the third quarter at Carolina.

The latest failure to finish was the most stunning, since it happened so quickly.

Wide receiver Rashied Davis, whose 17-yard TD grab put the Bears ahead 20-19 with 11 seconds left, was asked if he had ever seen such a drastic reversal of fortunes, even during his four years in Arena Football, which often resembles a human pinball game.

"Ummmm, no, no," Davis said. "Not even in Arena, when you can score 28 points in the last minute."

Davis also chose not to lament the losses of 3, 3 and 2 points or to wonder what could have been. But he warned that if the Bears continue to let close games slip away, they can forget about any postseason plans.

"We are a 3-3 club," he said. "There's no solace in being close at the end of these games. We lost. We will be out of the playoffs if we keep losing games by 1, 2 or 3 points.

"We're a 3-3 team, but we're going to go out here and fix the mistakes that we made and move forward."

The good news for the Bears is that they are at home Sunday against the 3-3 Minnesota Vikings and have a chance to move into sole possession of first place in the mediocre NFC North.

The Green Bay Packers, also 3-3, host the resurgent 3-2 Indianapolis Colts.

"It is what it is," safety Mike Brown said. "We could feel like we're better, but, what's the saying - you are what your record says you are. We're a .500 football team. It's still in our control."

To maintain control, the Bears will have to avoid the critical mistakes that resulted in the loss at Atlanta.

Even coach Lovie Smith admitted there were costly blunders, including Robbie Gould's squib kickoff with 11 seconds remaining that was fielded by the Falcons at the 34 and returned 10 yards, using up just five seconds.

Gould admitted after the game that his kick needed to at least reach the 20, and Smith agreed. The Bears also could have chosen to kick deep and cover better than they had on the previous kickoff, which was returned 85 yards by Jerious Norwood.

"We need to get a little bit more production from it," Smith said of the last kick. "If I had to do something over again, I feel like I could have helped our team a lot better if we'd have just kicked the ball off deep."

Then there was the 26-yard Matt Ryan pass to Michael Jenkins that also used up just five seconds, leaving one tick for Jason Elam's 48-yard field goal. Smith didn't second-guess the Cover-2 defense the Bears employed on that play, just the execution.

"That's the coverage that we like to run in that situation," Smith said. "We didn't execute it exactly the way we need to."

The Bears aren't trying to convince anyone they're better than .500, but they have a chance to prove it against the Vikings.

"We've had opportunities to win the three games that we've lost," Smith said. "But I think your record is what you are. We're a 3-3 team that's on top of our division with important games coming up."

Four of the Bears' next six games are against NFC North opponents.

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