Angelo assesses the damage

According to general manager Jerry Angelo, the Bears' eight-month free fall from Super Bowl XLI to a team in disarray has been a collective effort.

But, based on his nearly 30 years in the NFL, Angelo isn't shocked by the rapid demise.

"Nothing surprises me," he said after Wednesday's practice. "Every year your team takes on its own identity. You don't look at what you did last year, whether it was good or bad and say, 'Well, we're going to pick up where we left off.'

"That's not the case. Each team has to establish its own identity. It's an intangible.

"It's a unique dynamic in sports, particularly in football because it's such a team sport. Did we expect this? Certainly not. It's certainly not where we thought we would be, but we're here. We're dealing with it, and we still have hope."

The Bears' offense has plummeted to No. 31 in rushing yards and dead-last No. 32 in average gain per running play. The Bears also are at the bottom of the NFL in interception percentage.

None of these numbers reflects very well on Angelo's first-round picks in 2003 (quarterback Rex Grossman) and in 2005 (running back Cedric Benson).

No runner in the NFL with 80 attempts has a worse average than Benson's 3.1 yards per attempt, and Grossman was benched after three games and a passer rating of 45.2 with 6 interceptions and 1 TD pass.

"It's disappointing, but I'm not going to pin it (on) that they can't play," Angelo said. "Are you saying that they're the guys that we're winning because of? Obviously, that's not the case, at least thus far. You win as a team. It's not one player. You don't build a team around one player. We didn't last year, and we're not this year.

"Cedric is performing to the best of his abilities," the Bears' GM said. "He's giving us top effort. That's all I could ask of any player."

Angelo's first-round pick this year, tight end Greg Olsen, is the team's leading receiver over the past four weeks with 18 catches for 217 yards. Tommie Harris, his 2004 first-rounder, has 7 sacks, more than any other defensive tackle in the league.

But the bottom line is a 3-5 record, 3½ games behind the Green Bay Packers and 2½ behind the Detroit Lions in the NFC North.

The defense, which propelled last year's team to the Super Bowl, has played just as poorly as the offense, which was expected to make strides with the addition of Olsen and Devin Hester. The offense is No. 26 in total yards, the defense No. 26 in total yards allowed.

Angelo downplayed linebacker Brian Urlacher's back condition and declined to discuss postseason plans, such as re-signing free agent-to-be linebacker Lance Briggs or upgrading at quarterback. But he admitted there are problems on both offense and defense.

"For whatever reason, it's just not happening on either side of the ball," Angelo said. "Offensively, the turnovers, the inability to really sustain the kind of running game that we need … all those things have really come back and have bitten us all year. Defensively, we're not creating the turnovers that we normally do."

Only one team, St. Louis at 0-8, has more turnovers than the Bears' 23. And the Bears' defense has taken the ball away just 13 times for a minus-10 turnover differential.

Again, only the Rams, at minus-13, are worse. Last year the Bears had 24 takeaways after eight games, and they finished with an NFL-best 44.

"We've let teams control the ball on us more than in the past," Angelo said. "It's just not clicking. There's no real rhythm to either side of the ball."

Poor starts, especially on offense, have taken the Bears out of the comfort zone they enjoyed last season. The offense hasn't scored a first-quarter touchdown all season and has just 1 first-quarter TD in the past 17 games.

"We've been playing from behind, so our game plan has altered," Angelo said. "We're throwing the ball much more than what I thought we'd be throwing this year."

Last year 51.7 percent of the Bears' offensive plays were passes, including sacks. This year that number is up to 61.0 percent, not what anyone expects from a team that gets off the bus running the football.

"That's part of it," Angelo said. "The turnovers tie into it, too. We've had five six- minute drives against our defense -- that kills time of possession. That all impacts the running game.

"It's not one person, and I would hate to think that you're going to single out one person and say, 'This is the reason why they can't run the ball.' It's a team sport."

And it has taken a team effort to go from 7-1 at the midway point last season to the current mess.