Let’s get the platitudes out of the way. Nobody thought the Bears were going to go through the season unbeaten. Sometimes a team needs a loss to build on. When you turn the ball over six times the only team you can beat is in Arizona. Any others?

Good. Now that the meaningless crap is out of the way, how the hell do you lose to the 1-6 Dolphins, at home? What we’d seen out of the Bears early home-intensive, creampuff filled start to the season was that nobody was going to come into Soldier Field and win. All the Bears had to do was wrap up home field advantage in the NFC and the Super Bowl was an inevitability. Then they go lose to a bad Dolphins team. Not only do they lose, but they lose badly. Oh, and have I mentioned who the quarterback of the Dolphins was? If you’ll excuse me I’m going to mix a little rat poison-Drano cocktail.

When Rex Grossman crapped all over himself in Arizona a few weeks ago, it was easy to give him a pass on two counts. First, the Bears won, and that that always covers up a multitude of fuck ups. Second, he’d played excellent football to that point (save for that panicked interception-touchdown pass in his own end zone in the Metrodome). Last week he bounced back with a great game against a 49ers team that is bad, but not a whole lot worse than the orange and teal abomination the Bears played yesterday.

So when Rex did it again yesterday, it kind of got your attention. What really had to get it was how similar his performance was to the one in Arizona. A turnover put the Bears behind in the first quarter (we’ll get to Devin in a second). Big deal, it was 7-3. Whoop de damned do–as Derrick Coleman was fond of saying.

A couple plays later though it’s 14-3. That’s not so fun. Still, there were three and a half quarters to play. The Dolphins had driven a whopping six yards to score 14 points. No need to panic.

Right?

Tell that to Rex. Suddenly every throw had to be 30 yards down the field. When the Bears offense works it’s because Rex gets rid of the ball quickly. Sure, they take chances down the field, but they’re by design. When things go badly it’s because Rex is trying to take everything down the field. So he hold the ball and he hops straight up and down in the pocket, then doesn’t bother to step up and just wings crap down the field. The Bears were a fluke Alex Brown interception away from being down 21-3, and then Rex made a play on a long touchdown to Muhsin Muhammad (which was a great catch), and it’s 14-10 and you figure the Bears are going to settle down and win.

Only, they didn’t settle down. They let Ronnie Brown run wild. They’d cut it to four and you figured the defense would step up and take control of the game. Instead, the great Joe Harrington and the Dolphins marched down the field for a last second field goal attempt at the end of the half. Olindo Mare kicked more sod than ball and it was still 14-10, but still, how did they get there that fast?

The second half was about as satisfying as a dry hump. More turnovers. More Ronnie Brown running wild through the defense. More awful decisions by Rex.

I had no idea that the entire Bears’ offense revolved around Bernard Berrian having healthy ribs. Part of the problem was that Justin Gage can’t play dead. He fumbled away the opening possession of the second half. This, after not bothering to actually run hard on a route up the sidelines in the first half. You know how you can tell if your receiver is dogging it? Watch when the ball is in the air, if he speeds up, it’s over. It means he wasn’t running hard enough to begin with. Justin Gage is the new king of the “holy shit the ball’s coming my way, I’d better speed up,” school of route running. Somewhere David Terrell is saying, “That’s how it’s done.”

As for Hester? We know he’s dumb, he went to Miami after all, but how is it that he cannot remember not to catch a punt inside his 10? Can he not count to ten? When they told him “Don’t return punts from inside your 10” did he not understand that also implied “Don’t fair catch punts inside your 10?” Only bad things can happen there. You’ve already got bad field position, get away, most of the time some dope on the other team’s special teams will step on the goal line before he downs the punt anyway.

It’s bad enough when you tune into a game and hear Greg Gumbel’s hairpiece and Hall of Fame pansy boy Dan Dierdorf calling it, but then something like a bogus “roughing the passer” call on Ricky Manning happens and Dierdorf gets apocalyptic about how vicious the hit was. I can see how a ref might have been fooled on that play. Ricky jumped up to hit Harrington, but he never hit Joey with his helmet. But how do you excuse Dierdorf who watched a half dozen replays of it which all showed Ricky’s helmet never touching the precious quarterback, while Dan scolded Ricky for such a dirty play?

If you wanted to see awful officiating, you could have just watched the Patriots-Colts game last night when at the end of the first half, Tom Brady tried a quarterback sneak that didn’t get him to the line of scrimmage, but not only did referee Ron Winter signal first down he did so without bothering to look at where the first down marker was. The chains moved and then, because it was within the final two minutes of a half, the replay official called for a review. Ron hung out in the “hood” for two minutes, but he’d already moved the chains, he had no intention of not ruling it a first down. Then, to compound it, he decided to give the Patriots a timeout back, even though that’s not a rule. I have no idea…

Anyway, back to the Bears.  It’s not the fact that they lost that’s so frustrating.  Everybody loses, except for those happy-go-lucky 1972 Dolphins–what a great bunch they are–it’s the fact that the Bears will go into the playoffs knowing that Rex can self-destruct at any moment and that they can lose to ANYBODY.  Maybe we knew that already and just didn’t want to think about it.  But it’s hard to miss right now.

As Denny Green so eloquently said a few weeks ago, “The Bears are what we thought they were!”  They’re the best team in the NFC.  They’ll prove that on Sunday night in New Jersey when they take on the Giants (who tried to give their game to the Texans yesterday).

Well, assuming they don’t fall behind early.  Then?  Then it could be six turnovers, no waiting.

Oh, and that’s assuming that Brian Urlacher’s foot wasn’t torn off in the final two minutes of the game yesterday.

Because we know how well they play without him.  They’re 0-7 in games he hasn’t played in since the day he was drafted.

But put me on the side who say this three game road trip isn’t all that daunting.  The Bears are better than the Giants, and their tight-assed coach.  The Jets blow.  The Patriots are of course, pretty good, but we’re all sick of their shit by now, aren’t we?

How about the Bears just win all three, tone down the sudden panic and put the rest of the league back on notice?

I’m all for that.  Sounds like a plan.  Somebody call Lovie.