Rozner: Chicago Bears find victory, reason to believe

Kyle Long made his block, watched the ball sail through the uprights and ran toward the stands.

When you're 0-3 you jump in the air, fling yourself into the crowd and celebrate.

"Then I realized the game wasn't over," Long said with a sheepish grin. "I was gassed. I had to run back to the sideline."

Such a sin can be forgiven with a couple of ticks left on the clock when a player is left wondering how to find hope in a seemingly hopeless situation.

"When you're 0-3, you start to think of something bigger, a higher power," Long said. "You have to find faith in something and latch on to that and have confidence that moving forward things will take care of themselves.

"You have to have faith taking that step, even though you can't see the next step in that staircase. That's what we did here today."

It took some kind of belief for the Chicago Bears to come back and beat the Raiders 22-20 at Soldier Field on Sunday, especially after Jay Cutler made his third critical error in as many starts, the first two costing the Bears huge and Sunday's nearly costing them again.

Throw in the loss of their starting left tackle last week and their starting center on the third play of Sunday's game - the equivalent of three new linemen before anyone had broken a sweat - with an achy Cutler running the offense and no Alshon Jeffery and faith was hard to come by.

"Jay is a tough son of a buck," said head coach John Fox, who captured his first win as a Bear. "He fought a (hamstring) injury. Some lesser guys might not have been out there, but he was. My hat's off to his toughness."

The Bears were up 19-17 midway through the fourth quarter, and Cutler was playing brilliantly again when he had one of those classic Cutler moments.

On third-and-1 at the Oakland 23, Cutler had Martellus Bennett wide open inside the 10, but 18-year veteran Charles Woodson suckered the QB, undercut the route and, when Cutler's throw off his back foot floated, Woodson made his 20th career fourth-quarter interception.

The Raiders walked down the field, but the Bears' defense held them to a field goal with only 2:05 to play.

"There was a point in the huddle when Jay said, 'We're good. We're gonna be OK. Everyone relax,' " said tight end Zach Miller. "The thing is, Adam (Gase) always puts us in the right call.

"He's really smart. He knows every situation and he always knows who to go to, where on the field and when to call it. It's always there. It's up to us to execute."

Cutler did precisely that after the Bears fell behind, moving the offense 48 yards in 12 plays and 2:03, giving Robbie Gould a chance to win the game from 49 yards out.

The kicker nailed it and after the game was serenaded by his teammates with a "Robbie, Robbie, Robbie" in the locker room.

"Guys are excited. Coaching staff is excited," Cutler said. "We got a good group in there, so we have to learn from this, and it's always easier to look at mistakes after a win.

"Just like a loss is only one loss, this is only one win. We have to move on to Kansas City and try to get that one as well."

This is no easy task and maybe even a harder sell. The Bears are changing on the fly, dumping useless players and plugging in new ones all over the field. It's completely necessary during a rebuild, and credit the new regime with refusing to pretend players can play when they can't.

But it's tough on the Bears' very few excellent players, like Long, who was asked to play a new position - right tackle - only days before the season started, and Sunday had next to him a new left tackle, center and guard.

"I felt more comfortable today than I have so far," Long said. "But Charles Leno had an incredible game at left tackle playing against some dominant defensive ends. That's a great job by him.

"Matt Slauson moves over to center and he slides right in and runs the offense. Amazing stuff by those guys."

So the Bears improve to 1-3, which will aggravate those hoping for the No. 1 draft pick, but for the players it's a rare respite from the misery of losing.

"It's so hard to get wins," Long said. "It's tough to win games when you need critical plays from all three phases right at the end of the game, but we got that today. I think that's a really good sign."

Sometimes we look for the answers too high up and too far away. In the NFL, the search for answers begins with the next step.

When the fog of the trenches makes it impossible to see the next one, it takes, well, if not a leap then at least a step of faith.

And the Bears took their first on Sunday.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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