Rozner: Bears seeing red after tough loss

Boil down Sunday's NFL contest at Soldier Field and what you have remaining tells you much about who the Chicago Bears are and where they should be.

They are improved from the start of the season, due in large part to their fine coordinators who find a way to keep the Bears in games despite a serious lack of weapons on both sides of the ball.

They make just enough plays to keep them in games, but not enough plays to beat the better NFL teams.

On defense, they bend but don't usually break in the red zone, except when a quarterback in his first start (Brock Osweiler) eyes his receiver (Cody Latimer) right off the snap and beats your former No. 1 pick (Kyle Fuller) for the game-deciding score in the fourth quarter.

On offense, they work down the field against a top NFL defense, but when they get to the red zone, they manage only 12 points in four trips.

But the way mediocre NFL teams defeat good NFL teams is by converting deep in opposition territory when they get those rare opportunities.

The Bears (4-6) didn't do that Sunday at home, and that's why Denver (8-2) escaped with a 17-15 victory.

"Frustrating deal there," said Matt Slauson, who shifted from center back to guard. "If we would have executed better, we win the game.

"We can't get stopped in red zone, but that's kind of been our Achilles' heel all year. We have to come out of there with 7 points.

"Obviously, we don't have all our weapons in there with (Alshon Jeffery and Eddie Royal) out, but we've done well with the 'next-guy-up' mentality."

And they have a terrific head coach - six days a week. The fact that John Fox is not a genius on Sundays comes as no surprise to anyone in the Denver traveling party.

They laughed when Fox didn't kick a field goal with 10:10 remaining in the game that would have cut the lead to 5 points, and they laughed when he explained it.

"You know, we hadn't made many trips down to the end zone. We hadn't scored touchdowns," Fox said. "It had been kind of a field-goal game."

Had the Bears kicked the field goal, their final touchdown would have given them the lead with 24 seconds remaining.

"At that point in the game, we felt that was going to maybe be our last opportunity," Fox said. "So we were aggressive."

It's actually quite the opposite, right? You went for it because you were certain if you didn't make it that your defense would hold and give you another chance?

That's exactly what happened, so what's wrong with saying that?

"You know, the Broncos went for it on fourth down and didn't convert, either," Fox said. "So maybe that was a factor, too."

Um, OK. Whatever. In any case, the Bears did walk back down the field and scored a touchdown in the final minute, but on the 2-point conversion try which would have tied the game, Jay Cutler checked out of a pass to a Jeremy Langford run.

"Little confusion there," said center Hroniss Grasu. "We can't have that."

Not everyone recognized Cutler's check and Langford ran into a brick wall, ending the Bears' chances for sudden life in overtime.

"Jay felt like we had the right look and put it on us to get it in. We just have to get it done," Slauson said. "There was an unblocked safety coming in that didn't get picked up, but there's no excuse. We have to get that done."

It's not unusual for Cutler to walk to the line with multiple plays, and he's done an excellent job this season of selecting the right one.

"We had options," Cutler said. "We just didn't execute as well as we wanted."

Osweiler was solid in his first outing, strong with the play-action, and he made several throws Peyton Manning can no longer make, but he also eyeballed his primary receiver throughout the game and still managed a 127.1 QB rating, besting Cutler's 70.4 against an elite NFL defense.

"The guy's a good athlete," said Willie Young. "He did a good job, but we have to do a better getting to the quarterback and getting the football and giving it back to our offense."

The Bears lost the turnover battle 2-0 with a quarterback making his first NFL start on the road while replacing a Hall of Famer at the most important position on the field.

But at least the Bears tied 1-1 in the all-important category of Quarterback Tripping Running Back.

"One thing we stressed all week was ball security and coming out of this game with no turnovers," Osweiler said. "To be able to come out of the game with a zero in that column was huge."

The Bears didn't play a bad game Sunday. They just didn't play well enough to beat a team that in today's NFL qualifies as well above average.

And when you boil it down, that's pretty much your 2015 Bears season.

brozner@dailyherald.com

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