Rozner: Math doesn't add up for Bears in loss

There's plenty of blame to go around when you get pushed to overtime before losing to a 3-8 team.

So credit the Chicago Bears with not pointing fingers following a miserable 26-20 loss to San Francisco at Soldier Field on Sunday.

But that's about all they did well.

The rest was a mess of a game, poorly played by both sides and perfectly representative of a league where expecting good football is mostly a fantasy.

"Just too many mistakes and we have to clean it up," said linebacker Willie Young. "It's all about winning. Stuff doesn't look so bad when you win, but we didn't finish off the game."

Sure, Robbie Gould stood up and took the heat after hooking a couple of missed field goals, including a 36-yarder as regulation time expired that would have given the Bears the win and a chance to keep talking playoffs.

"Nobody's perfect," said Matt Forte. "Even Michael Jordan missed some game-winning shots."

And while Gould has at times compared himself to Michael Jordan, this was more like DeAndre Jordan - from the free-throw line.

"I feel terrible. I didn't get it done today," Gould said. "I rushed them both. Worst kicks I've had all year."

But this wasn't on Gould. This was on the Bears' offense for failing to cash in on great field position and head coach John Fox for his conservative approach.

"Defense did a heck of a job. We've got to play better offensively," said QB Jay Cutler. "I know for a fact that we're not going to like watching the film tomorrow."

Despite all the mistakes, in a tie game the Bears got a 74-yard kick return from Deonte Thompson with 92 seconds remaining, to the Niners' 28-yard line, where genuine playoff teams with aggressive coaches go for the end zone and don't leave it to chance - or kickers.

Fox doesn't operate that way. The Bears ran it four times for 11 yards and Cutler took a knee once. Gould missed the kick and the game went to overtime.

"We've been down this road a couple times," Fox said. "I would do it exactly the same if it presented itself. Obviously, it's always better when you make the kick."

It's better when you score a touchdown against the league's 29th-ranked defense and not have to worry about a bad snap - or a bad kick.

"I won't go into it statistically," Fox said, "but settling for 2 field goals, obviously, is a different swing than 2 touchdowns."

Well, that is a complicated formula, especially since it was much more than just those two scoring chances.

"Like any close loss, and we've had our share, it comes down to us making plays in every area of the game," Fox said. "We just didn't make enough (plays)."

In losing to an awful team Sunday, the Bears served up a reminder of how much talent they still need to consider themselves a good NFL team.

The offensive line struggled, Cutler was not as sharp as he's been, and on a third-and-10 in the fourth quarter of a tie game the Bears' three wideouts were Marc Mariani, Josh Bellamy and Cameron Meredith.

Seriously.

"It's a learning experience. We just have to finish better," said offensive tackle Charles Leno. "We've been in this situation before, against the Lions and Vikings. We just have to do a better job as a team in all phases and finish the game."

The Bears' defense allowed Niners QB Blaine Gabbert to scramble for 75 yards, including a 44-yard touchdown to tie the game with less than two minutes left in regulation, and then gave up the game-winner on a 71-yard touchdown pass from Gabbert to Torrey Smith in overtime.

"I have no idea what happened on that last play," Young said. "If I knew, I would tell you."

Rookie safety Adrian Amos slipped on the Gabbert TD run and blew coverage - according to corner Tracy Porter - on the game-winner when the Bears were in Cover-3.

"We just had a miscommunication," Amos said. "It's always tough when you lose at the end. It's bad because we lost."

The Bears (5-7) are now 1-5 at home and can stop talking about the postseason, even a 9-7 mark if they win out almost certainly not good enough with the Bears losing just about every tiebreaker known to mankind.

"We have to show up every Sunday. Home, away, it doesn't matter if it's on the moon," Young said. "We need to get wins and we were trying to win today. We try to win every Sunday no matter where we are."

Where the Bears are now is where they've been since they started 0-3, which is trying to find out what players they can use to fill holes in 2016 when they'll have much higher expectations placed upon them from both inside and outside the organization.

Sunday is just a reminder that holes are easier to find right now than players.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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