No easy answers for Bears' offense

In one of the season's biggest understatements, coach Lovie Smith observed: "We haven't played as well as we need to offensively."

No kidding.

The Bears have sunk to No. 26 in total yards and No. 25 in both average gain per run and pass.

"As you look at what we are as an offense, it's about ball control, running the football," Smith said. "You should be able to do that and protect the ball. We can't have the amount of turnovers we've had lately."

Rookie running back Matt Forte has rushed for 1,188 yards as the focal point of the offense, but his 3.9-yard average per carry is just mediocre, and he only has averaged 3.2 yards per attempt in the past three games.

Still, Forte is the best and most consistent weapon in the Bears' limited arsenal.

Quarterback Kyle Orton, who threw just 4 interceptions in the first 11 games, has been picked eight times in the last four games.

Only once in the six games since he was rushed back from a sprained ankle has Orton thrown for more than 172 yards.

Orton blames himself as much as anyone for the deterioration of the passing game and the increase in interceptions. At the halfway point in the season, the Bears were 11th in passing yards, but they've plummeted to 23rd.

"Just a couple bad decisions," Orton said of the flurry of interceptions. "That's what you get. You pay the price when you make bad decisions, and I've done that the last few games.

"So I need to take it upon myself to have a good game decision-wise and make some throws."

While the weather has been a factor during the three-game winning streak at home, the conditions should be much better at Houston's Reliant Stadium, even though the roof is stuck in the open position because of damage from Hurricane Ike.

But the forecast for Sunday is a high of 59 with sunny skies. Orton thinks that should help the Bears' air attack.

"I hope we can come out and score a bunch of points and pick it up a little bit in the passing game," he said. "We need to get some things going with the passing game, which we haven't done the last couple weeks, so hopefully going inside will help us out a little bit."

In the Bears' last indoor game, at Minnesota on Nov. 30, Orton completed just 11 of 29 passes for 153 yards and was picked off three times but threw 2 TD passes, finishing with a passer rating of 39.1, his worst of the season.

A week earlier, in the St. Louis Rams' Edward Jones Dome, Orton had an 84.2 passer rating while completing 17 of 28 in a conservative passing attack that accumulated just 132 yards.

Orton earned a reputation in the first half of the season as a quarterback who ran the offense efficiently and, most important, avoided mistakes.

"I try to play that way, (but I) haven't been able to do it the last few weeks," he said. "We haven't been very efficient in the passing game the last few weeks, and that starts with me.

"The passing game starts with me, and I take it upon myself to do whatever we have to do to get it done."

A bit more help from the wide receivers would make Orton's numbers look a lot better than they have in the second half of the season. But they've been almost invisible as a group, with the occasional exception of Devin Hester.

Against Green Bay on Monday night, Bears wide receivers caught 3 passes for 28 yards - total. A week earlier they had 6 receptions for 67 yards.

No Bears wide receiver has more than 80 yards in any of the past six games, and none of them, aside from Hester, has more than 36 yards in any game during that time.