Bears bad in all phases in 36-10 loss to Vikings

MINNEAPOLIS - If it were a fight, they would have stopped it.

If it were a horse, they would have shot it.

But it was a football game, so rules dictated that the Bears and the Vikings had to play all 60 minutes Sunday at Mall of America Field.

Only the Vikings complied; the Bears were playing something other than NFL-quality football for much of the day.

The Vikings had too much Brett Favre and too much of just about everything else in their effortless, 36-10 throttling of a Bears team that has now lost six of its last seven games.

Minnesota improved to 10-1, while the Bears plummeted to 4-7 and were mathematically eliminated from the NFC North race.

Depending upon the severity of Sunday's injuries to Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs (knee), cornerback Charles Tillman (head), left tackle Orlando Pace (groin) and defensive end Alex Brown (leg), the Bears may not be able to get it back together this season.

"As far as regrouping, today we feel like (crud)," said Bears coach Lovie Smith, whose team played like it felt. "No way around it. It's not a good feeling that we have right now. But after a loss like that, that's how it is."

Alex Brown summed up Sunday's mismatch about as well as anyone.

"We didn't measure up very well," Brown said. "They're a team that is tops in the league, and we're not. We're not playing like a good team."

The numbers were as ugly as the locker-room mood of players who know they have nothing left to play for but pride after enjoying a 3-1 start.

The Vikings piled up 537 yards of total offense while controlling the ball for 40 minutes and 55 seconds. Both totals were by far the worst of a bad season for the Bears, who had just 169 total yards, 106 fewer than their previous lowest total of the year.

The Vikings had 31 first downs to the Bears' 8 and converted 67 percent (12 of 18) of their third downs to the Bears' 25 percent (2 of 8).

Favre threw for a season-high 392 yards, completing 32 of 48 passes with 3 touchdowns and a passer rating of 112.5. He became the latest in a series of veteran quarterbacks who have carved up the Bears' defense.

Since Oct. 25, Carson Palmer, Kurt Warner, Donovan McNabb and now Favre each have compiled passer ratings of better than 100 against the Bears while combining for 15 touchdowns and being intercepted just twice.

In previous losses, the Bears have played well in some phases and poorly in others, lacking only consistency. But this latest loss was a complete, across-the-board breakdown.

"Today we had problems in all areas," Smith said. "We're a better football team than that."

Not many outsiders would agree with Smith, and even some Bears appear to be questioning their ability to compete with quality teams. Briggs, who had his least productive game of the season, pointed to fundamental errors.

"We're all professional athletes," Briggs said. "There are very few teams that are athletically that much better than another team.

"So when it comes down to it, when you play football the way you are supposed to, when you do all of your assignments and you're as sound as you can be, then you put yourself in a position to not get blown out like we got blown out today."

The third quarter provided a capsule example of the entire mismatch. The Vikings outgained the Bears 156-2. So did the second quarter, when the Vikings outscored the Bears 24-7.

The Bears had a brief glimmer of hope when rookie Johnny Knox went 77 yards with the second-half kickoff, down to the Vikings' 8-yard line. The offense moved 13 yards - backward - including 2 sacks of Jay Cutler, who was under pressure much of the day. The Bears settled for Robbie Gould's 39-yard field goal that left them trailing 24-10.

The Vikings answered back on their ensuing possession with a 37-yard field goal by Ryan Longwell.

The red zone has been a dead zone for the Bears offensively and defensively all season, and Sunday was more of the same. After Knox's long return, Matt Forte (27 yards on 8 carries) was stuffed for no gain and Cutler was sacked twice, sandwiching a false-start penalty on Orlando Pace.

"On second down we call a pass play, and (Cutler's) primary receiver is not there," offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. "He ran the wrong route. So he's looking for a guy that's supposed to be there, and would have been wide open, but he's not there so then he gets sacked."

Cutler was sacked four times and intercepted twice. He completed 18 of 23 passes but only for 147 yards and had a passer rating of 71.6.

"The sun normally comes up, and I assume it'll come up tomorrow," Smith said. "We'll go back to work. There's a lot of football left to go."

The sun will definitely come up, but it already has set on the Bears' 2009 season.

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