When Bears quit under Smith it’s news

After an absolutely miserable day of football at Soldier Field on Sunday, the Bears trudged off the field, stumbled through the tunnel and dragged themselves into their locker room for the last time this season.

And, lo and behold, they found good news.

No one else had been arrested on charges of running a drug cartel.

So there’s that, anyway.

Otherwise, and in the wake of the Sam Hurd headlines, it was a perfectly awful performance by the Bears in a 38-14 drubbing, and a fitting way to end a terrible week — and a disappointing season.

“There’s always next week, I guess,’’ said Brian Urlacher, “until there’s not.’’

There’s not, and every player in the Bears’ locker room knew it on this afternoon.

Yes, this campaign is over barring a Tebow-sized miracle, and as yet there appears no one to break the horizon and ride to the rescue.

Unless, of course, you think Josh McCown is hiding a white horse in his left sock.

Yeah, that’s the same Josh McCown who was able to complete as many passes to the opposition (1) as he was to players wearing the same color jersey as his own in a few sad minutes at the end of the game.

Of course, by then the Bears had quit, something completely understandable but nevertheless shocking for a Lovie Smith-coached team.

Say what you want about Smith — and plenty’s been said here over the years — but his teams play hard and they play hard to the end, Sunday being a rare exception.

Outside of Urlacher and Charles Tillman, few Bears can pretend they stayed in this game, or even cared much about it once it was over.

“I didn’t see any quit,’’ Tillman claimed, though his defense of the defense was absent passion. “We just didn’t make plays.’’

They did make plays early, but the defense shut it down once the Bears fell behind by 10 in the second half, not that you can blame them. They’ve kept the Bears alive since Jay Cutler and Matt Forte went down with injuries, and during this four-game losing streak they’ve gotten nothing in return from the offense for the effort.

“Total disappointment,’’ Smith said of the Bears, who fell to 7-7. “Offensively, I think we had 5 turnovers. You can’t win with 5 turnovers. Simple as that.’’

The second half was mostly three-and-outs for the offense when Caleb Hanie wasn’t throwing a pick-6.

“The feeling in the locker room is not good,’’ Hanie said. “All the guys in there want to win games. I’m at the top of that list. I want to win games, and I haven’t gotten it done.’’

Hanie’s right about one thing: the locker room was a morgue. The Bears know where they are, which is almost certainly done for the year.

“We haven’t been eliminated from anything right now,’’ Smith said. “Our focus has to be on improving and putting a better product on the football field next weekend.’’

That won’t be easy minus Cutler, Forte and Devin Hester, who went missing several games ago, and Johnny Knox, who will have back surgery Monday.

Safety Chris Conte, who had been playing well, also left with a foot injury, and while missing Major Wright with a shoulder injury the Bears are dangerously thin at receiver and safety.

After tremendous luck a year ago with health, the Bears are getting it all thrown at them at once.

“When Jay went down, I thought we were missing a key piece on our football team, but if you look back we had some opportunities,’’ Smith said. “To go on a four-game losing streak, no, that wasn’t part of my mindset.

“We lost a lot injury-wise, but you know everyone in the league will talk about injury.’’

It was so glum you could almost feel sorry for Smith, who is usually stubbornly arrogant postgame and possessing all the answers, but on this day he had no virtually no explanation.

“We lost a football game. We had a lead we gave up. They won the turnover ratio,’’ Smith said. “There’s not a whole lot of good we can talk about that came out of the game.’’

If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, the Bears were so soundly beaten by the fourth quarter that the defense allowed Seattle to get outside a few times and then didn’t chase.

Tillman was jumping into piles late trying to light a fire, if not start a brawl.

Roy Williams got a first down and didn’t issue his embarrassing signal.

And Urlacher didn’t even bother to mock the opposition quarterback for a lack of talent.

Yeah, the Bears have pretty much quit in every way, a stunning turn of events considering that without a bad Hanie turnover at the half in Oakland, a Hail Mary by Kansas City, and Marion Barber failing to stay in bounds in Denver, the Bears may have come into this game with an eight-game winning streak.

Mathematically, the Bears are still in it, hanging by a thread, but with the spate of injuries, no quarterback and a complete lack of focus and fight, you wonder how they can win another game.

The worst part is, the Bears themselves don’t know.

ŸHear Barry Rozner on WSCR 670-AM and follow him @BarryRozner on Twitter.