Oh, for an offense

Wide receiver Bernard Berrian thrust himself into the lead of the "Understatement of the Year" contest when he observed about the Bears' offense: "We're not clicking on all cylinders right now."

Ya think?

Dropped passes -- several by Berrian -- have kept the offense from firing smoothly.

But there are plenty of other reasons, including:

• Inaccurate passes.

• A weak running game.

• And an offensive line that hasn't blocked for the run or protected the quarterback very well.

It all adds up to a 1-3 record, 3 games behind the 4-0 Green Bay Packers.

"Dropped passes occur," said Berrian, who still leads the team by wide margins with 24 catches and 320 yards. "The easy ones that you should catch and should make the plays on are the ones we're talking about."

Berrian believes he and his crew will have some opportunities on a national stage tonight against the Packers to make amends. The Packers are strong at cornerback with Charles Woodson and Al Harris, and they ask a lot of the two veterans.

"They play man-to-man pretty much, about 75 percent of the (time)," Berrian said. "It's tough to play 'man' all game. You're going to get beat every now and then, and we've just got to take advantage of the situations -- when we do beat them, try to score. It's just depending on (offensive coordinator) Ron (Turner) and the quarterbacks to see the mismatches and go the right places with the ball."

Catching it would help, too. But then, so would running it better. As bad as the Bears' offense has been, it has been balanced. They're 27th in rushing yards and 28th in passing yards.

That's not the kind of balance Turner is looking for.

"We're not executing well enough," Turner said. "Last game we had too many third-and-longs. On first and second down, whether we ran it or threw it, we weren't getting enough production, so we were constantly in third-and-long, and those are tough to convert.

"We haven't gotten to the point where all 11 guys are playing well consistently. It seems like we do some good things, but we're not able to do it consistently and put it together. We get a breakdown somewhere and it stalls the drive, hurts the play, and it's not one guy or one position."

The Bears believe they have to run to be successful as a team and to set up the passing game. But featured runner Cedric Benson has averaged just 3.2 yards per carry while searching for limited running room.

"We're a running football team," coach Lovie Smith said. "Right now we haven't done enough to run the ball or pass it the way we like. Hopefully we can get Cedric involved a little bit more, doing things to help us win."

Benson has been criticized for his lack of production, and he has struggled to break anything resembling a big play, with a long run of 16 yards. But the offensive line appears to be in decline. Four of the five starters are 30 or older, but Smith doesn't consider that a problem.

"We like veteran offensive linemen," he said. "It's the same line that led us to the Super Bowl last year. We all get older from year to year. When you're 1-3, you can look at a lot of different things and say, 'Here's the reason why.' "

Last week the Bears benched Rex Grossman and looked for answers from veteran Brian Griese, and Griese threw for 286 yards and 2 touchdowns, but that was more than offset by his 3 interceptions and 6 sacks.

The Bears are under pressure to avoid a 1-4 start that would probably make their playoff hopes pipe dreams, and Griese is probably under more pressure than anyone.

"I always put pressure on myself," he said. "Any quarterback in the league (is) going to tell you, if they're the competitor they should be, that they put the pressure on themselves, more so than anybody else. That's just the nature of the position. The pressure is squarely on the quarterback to make things go. That's just part of the job."