Penalties, interceptions make it a banner day for Green Bay

A familiar formula doomed the Bears to their fifth loss in six games, dropped them to 5-8 and officially eliminated them from playoff consideration.

The 21-14 loss to the Packers at Soldier Field completed the first-ever Green Bay sweep of a Lovie Smith-coached Bears team in the 179th meeting between the rivals.

But there was nothing unique about the way the Bears went about losing for the seventh time in nine games. Penalties have hobbled them, especially on offense, for most of the season. And 2 Jay Cutler interceptions - an NFL-high 22 and counting - have done the same.

Sunday's showing was typical of how the entire season has gone.

"It's the same story," offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. "That's kind of been the theme for this year. We do some good things and then we hurt ourselves."

There were Cutler TD passes to Johnny Knox and Devin Aromashodu and some inspired defensive play, but only after the Bears quickly fell behind 13-0.

The penalties were a constant. The Bears were penalized three times as frequently as the Packers (9-4), who have been flagged more times and for more yardage than any team in the NFL. Thirteen times the Bears were cited for a total of 109 yards. Meanwhile, the flag-happy Packers committed just 4 infractions for 30 yards.

When penalties weren't thwarting the Bears, turnovers did them in.

Cutler's second interception, which came on the third play of the fourth quarter with the Bears leading 14-13, was a badly underthrown ball intended for Knox. But Packers safety Nick Collins snagged it at the Bears' 42-yard line and returned it 31 yards, setting up what proved to be the game-winning score.

"I've just got to throw it out of bounds or let it go sooner," Cutler said. "Johnny did exactly what we wanted him to do. I've just got to pull the trigger faster or toss it out of bounds."

As usual, the Bears' penalties came at the worst possible times.

They were able to rebound from a 62-yard TD run by Ryan Grant on the Packers' first play from scrimmage. And they were able to overcome the handicap of a 13-0 deficit just 17 minutes into the game, which included the first of Cutler's interceptions.

But ultimately the Bears couldn't overcome their own propensity for self-inflicted wounds.

Five of the penalties for a total of 49 yards came in the fourth-quarter when the Bears began clinging to respectability and a 1-point lead and then later trying in vain to forge a tie.

"They hurt," Smith said of the penalties. "Some of them were in critical situations for us. Whenever you lose yardage like that on a day like (Sunday), of course it hurts you quite a bit."

In addition, the 15-yard facemask penalty on left tackle Chris Williams, his third infraction of the afternoon, wiped out a 16-yard Cutler-to-Matt Forte screen pass. That play, with just under five minutes left and the Bears trailing 21-14, would have given them a first down at the Packers' 49-yard line. Instead they faced second-and-22 from their 20-yard line.

"Three penalties is inexcusable on my part, and it cost us the game," Williams said. "It's my job not to get penalties like that. The false start penalty (in the second quarter) was just stupid. We did a good job of beating ourselves, and the Packers are a good team. You can't do that."

The very next play, an incomplete pass to tight end Greg Olsen, used up two timeouts; one, because the play clock was running out before the Bears were ready to run the next play, and then another when an ill-advised challenge of the incomplete ruling was upheld.

The day began badly for the Bears. One play was all it took for the Packers to grab a 7-0 lead when Grant burst off left tackle through a gaping hole untouched for the longest running play of the season for the Packers. It was 13-0 Green Bay after just 1:57 was gone in the second quarter, at which time the Bears had 23 total yards and 1 first down.

The Bears got on the board with 1:48 left in the half when Knox made a leaping grab of a bullet from Cutler in the back of the end zone, beating Tramon Williams for a 19-yard touchdown to cut the Packers' deficit to 13-7.

Anthony Adams' recovery of a fumble by Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers set up Cutler's 10-yard TD pass to Aromashodu (8 catches, 76 yards) for a 14-13 lead with 9:53 left in the third quarter, but the Bears never got inside the Packers' 44-yard line again.

"Every time it seems like we got going, something bad happened," said Cutler, who finished 23 of 36 for 209 yards and a 74.9 passer rating. "It's something that's happened all year to us. It's hard to be a good offensive team when that happens."

No one would mistake the Bears, who have not scored more than 21 points in any of their last six games, for a good offensive team.

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