Arkush: A win is a win, but you can't trust these Bears on the road
It would be less than accurate and probably a bit unfair to suggest there is anything wrong with the 11-4 Chicago Bears after their 14-9 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
The name of the game is winning, and they did bring a "W" home.
But it would also be less-than-objective analysis if we didn't discuss all that is not quite right enough to take the Bears seriously as a Super Bowl contender just yet.
Yes, defense does travel and the Bears 'D' traveled very well to Santa Clara, limiting the 49ers to just 9 points and 279 yards of total offense.
But on a day when Mitch Trubisky played an excellent game and suffered just one brain cramp - a horribly ill-advised lateral to Tarik Cohen resulting in a fumble - the Bears offense managed just 14 points, and in spite of an 11-minute edge in time of possession, really didn't travel well at all.
The second seed, a bye and a divisional playoff game at home are all still a possibility, but the Rams have to lose at home next Sunday to these same 49ers, and the Bears have to upset the Vikings in Minnesota - a rather unlikely sequence of events.
Three times this season the Bears have gone on the road with a chance to stamp themselves as real threats to win a championship and each time they've raised more questions than they've provided answers.
At 3-1 and coming off a bye, the Bears went to Miami flat and lost a game they shouldn't have.
At 8-3, riding a five-game win streak and coming off a mini-bye after playing a Thursday night game 10 days earlier, they went to New York, probably better prepared than they were going into Miami but Chase Daniel made a huge mistake on the second play of the game from which they never recovered.
Sunday, after two of their best performances of the season vs. the Rams and the Packers, at home, they were sloppy early, a step slower than the Niners most of the first half and, without a few major second-half blunders from a 49ers team clearly in over its head talent-wise, this one might not have worked out so well either.
They did win the game this time, and that is progress.
But while there are a handful of very good teams in the NFL this year, and at times the Bears are one of them, this appears to be one of those years where there really is no super team, the one club that scares everyone.
The Bears' problem is that, in a season like this, home-field means even more than it normally does.
The way it looks right now, we have every reason to believe the Bears can beat the Vikings, Seahawks or Eagles in a wild-card game at Soldier Field.
But looking at a club with losses at Green Bay, Miami and New York, and quite uninspiring performances at Arizona and San Francisco - all losing clubs right now with a combined record of 25-49-1 - on what can we base a vision of a Bears win in Los Angeles in the divisional playoffs or New Orleans in a conference title game?
There certainly were moments to enjoy in San Francisco, and if the Bears defense isn't the best in the league right now, it is right there with the Ravens and the Vikings.
Perhaps it can be enough.
But Matt Nagy appears to still be searching for the way to get the most out of his ground game and Jordan Howard, the offensive line took half a step backward Sunday, and does anyone feel good about sending Cody Parkey out to make a game-winning kick?
Admit it now: How did you feel after that 49ers game, impressed or just relieved?
Hey, the Bears could beat the Rams in Los Angeles, the Saints could get upset in the divisional playoffs and the NFC title game could end up in Soldier Field.
Much stranger things have happened.
I just think everyone would feel a whole lot better about the Bears' chances if the club that pounded the Rams and Packers had shown up in San Francisco.