Doesn’t it feel like the Bears haven’t played in a month?  I guess, when you factor in that they last played Detroit, they haven’t played a real NFL team in close to that long.

There’s good TV, there’s bad TV and there’s whatever happens to your TV when Tony Dungy’s dead eyes are leering out at you.  The lights in my house dim every time he speaks.

Speaking (sort of) of Tony, how great was it today that the Eagles lost a game because of Michael Vick?  He didn’t do anything awful on the field, but Donovan McNabb was terrible and instead of being able to go to a backup, they couldn’t, because they have Vick designed as the number two QB so he can run about six “Wildcat” plays per game, and Kevin Kolb was the “emergency QB” so they couldn’t use him.  Not that Kolb is that great, but they were playing the Raiders.  You don’t need to be.

If things go poorly tonight, I can’t wait hear Cris Collinsworth start to analyze Jay Cutler’s facial expressions.  He’s from Indiana he’s only got one facial expression, slack-jawed and droopy eyed.  They assign it to you at the border.

Over on TBS, Ron Darling just said, “It never tingles when you get to first base.”  I really don’t want to know why he said that.

Great first series on defense for the Bears.  Incomplete pass on first down.  Nick Roach hammers Michael Turner for no gain.  Alex Brown bats down a pass.  Oh, and Pisa Tinoisamoa just set a season high for consecutive snaps played, with three.

Devin nearly breaks the punt return, stumbles and falls, and it looked like he blew out a leg, but fortunately, he simply got tripped.

Devin catches the first pass of the night, eight yards on first down.

Speaking of Devin.  Did you see that thing about how some Florida State football player read at a second grade reading level? Check out Devin’s Twitter page sometime, and you’ll see why he didn’t got to FSU.  Second grade might be a little advanced for him.

I’m still not used to having a real quarterback.  On third and five Cutler just flips a ball out to Earl Bennett.  Well, it looked like a flip, but the result was a laser that gave Earl enough time to get both feet down for an easy first down.

Cutler has hit on his first six passes and the Bears have driven it to the 12 of Atlanta.  His first incompletion is an ill-advised fade into the end zone to Devin.

He then follows it up with an even more ill-advised interception over the middle on third down.  The only good thing is that after the pick, Olin Kreutz takes the guy’s head off.  So far this year Jay’s thrown six picks, five of the on Sunday Night Football.  Maybe he’s allergic to Al Michels?

John Shoop is the new offensive coordinator in Atlanta.  On third and five, they run a three yard cross to Michael Jenkins.  Wait, it isn’t Shoop?  Well, whoever it is is running his offense.  Somebody call the patent office!

First and 10 on the Bears 40, Cutler is almost sacked, rolls right and finds Knox about 40 yards down the field but the pass is too high.  Still, impressive to see him easily avoid the sack and keep looking down field.  Rex would have just fumbled and run away from the ball.

Shoop!  Third and seven, Bears run a slant and Cutler finds Knox but it’s for six yards.  The throw was high, if it’s lower, Knox might…might, have been able to lean forward for a yard or two.

The Phillies want fans to be able to focus completely on football, so they’ve already got a 5-0 lead in the second inning of game three of NLCS.  I think just having Chip Caray at the mic is enough for people to avoid all of that horseshit.

Second and seven, and the Bears defense has come to eat.  Four guys tackle Turner for no gain.

On third down, the Bears get a good push, but Ryan is able to step up and get a pass off, and he bounces it about eight feet in front of Jenkins.  Matty Ice no looky so comfortable.

A loong punt drives Hester back near his 20 but he breaks a tackle and almost breaks the whole thing and he’s inside the Falcons’ 45.  Devin’s a weapon on returns again tonight.

First down, play action fools the Falcons and Earl Bennett is wide open around the 20.  The quarter ends and we’re scoreless.

Uh oh.  NBC has finally broken out the replay of the last :11 of last year’s game.  You remember it, the complete fold job that caused Kyle Orton to cry in the postgame presser.  Seriously.

Cutler floats one up the sidelines and it looks like Johnny Knox drops it, but the refs call it a touchdown and on the replay you can see that the ball is knocked out after Johnny had caught it and even taken a couple of steps.  So TOUCHDOWN!  The Falcons correctly (but much to the chagrin of their hillbilly crowd) don’t challenge it.  7-0 Chicago.

On second down the Bears are offsides and Ryan snaps the ball and takes a knee.  Mark Anderson doesn’t seem to care and he runs up to Ryan and slaps at the football, and the ref, Terry McAuley hugs Ryan to keep those bad, nasty Bears off of him.

Does Johnny barely hanging on to the ball in the end zone make up for him dropping it on the one against the Lions or just further prove he’s got the horseshoe up his hiney so far?

First and ten the Bears completely blow up the play, dump Turner, force a fumble and if Lance Briggs could scoop balls like the great Micah Hoffpauir he’d have had a touchdown.  Instead, Ryan falls on it for a six yard loss.

Second and 16 and Danieal Manning and Nick Roach are all over Tony Gonzalez and Manning gets both hands on it but drops it.  Third down, Walleye is in Ryan’s jock and Ryan misses an open Jenkins down the field.  Have I stressed just how freakin’ awesome the defense looks right now?

After a first down on a nice quick play to Forte on third and five, Cutler throws a horrendous interception to the same guy.  Fine.  I better look up who it is.

Thomas DeCoud.  That’s not a real name.  That’s something Fletch would make up while trying to get a waitress to tell him what Alan Stanwyck had for breakfast.

First down, Jarrious Norwood runs for a first down.  Next play, Michael Turner rips off eight yards.

And then Roddy White takes a screen pass for a long touchdown. What was I saying about how awesome the defense was?

Third and long and Cutler evades a sack and makes a great throw to Devin, who makes an even better catch.

The original Adrian Peterson’s brother, Mike then sacks Cutler on first down.  The Falcons are blitzing from all over.  But don’t worry, Ron Turner will figure it out.

[weeps uncontrollably–Orton style]

Cutler goes deep for Knox on third and long, and Johnny catches it but he’s out of bounds.  The momentum has clearly shifted.

Maynard punts and Eric Weems fields it around the 20, he makes a nice move and breaks it up the sidelines and steps out of bounds at the 36.  Though the refs are frantically blowing their whistles and waving, Weems must think they’re just cheering him on because he keeps running.  Darrell McClover chases him all the way down the field and dives at him, but those two assclowns are expending a lot of effort for naught.  Weems runs into the end zone, but to no avail.  The ball is back on Atlanta’s 36.

First down the Bears blitz Kevin Payne and it looks like Danieal Manning is supposed to cover the fullback out of the backfield.  But screw that, who ever throws it to the fullback?

Matt Ryan does.  And it’s a big gainer.  Ugh.  Is Manning ever where he’s supposed to be?

Suddenly, the Falcons are ripping off big hunks of yards on every play.  Collinsworth says it’s because they’ve gone no huddle, but it really seems that they’re just running plays to wherever they think Manning or Zach Bowman are supposed to be.

At the two minute warning, the Falcons are inside the Bears 20 with a second and short.  Guh.

Turner gains three on second and four.  Third and one at the Bears 12.  Kind of a big play here.

The Falcons run a fake QB sneak, toss to the fullback for a first down.  Nice play.  The Bears didn’t know what the hell happened.

Ryan then throws a touchdown pass, but number 73 was caught cheating.  He held Israel Idonije so it’ll be first and goal from the 20.

Six yard pass to Roddy White on first down.  What the hell kind of name is Roddy?  Was his mom a big Planet of the Apes fan?

Second and goal, Alex Brown is offsides, but the Falcons cheated, too.  They had illegal motion.  :14 left it’s still second and goal from the 14.

They find Brian Finneran (yeah, that dope is still in the league—and he’s still slow) at the ten, and have to call a timeout with nine seconds left.

Tony Gonzalez is so open he’s lonely and catches an easy TD pass.  Good for my fantasy team, not so good for the Bears.  After dominating the half for about 25 minutes, the Bears are starting to get their asses handed to them.  Not so fun.

14-7 Atlanta.

The second half starts auspiciously.  The Bears had a trick play on the kick return where Danieal was supposed to lateral the ball across the field to Johnny, but it wasn’t going to be there, so he kept it, and the Bears would have had decent field position, but Jamar Williams was called for holding.

Six plays later the Bears punt back to the Falcons.  Yay?

On third down, Bowman intercepts a pass, and you could just tell from the moment he started his return that he was going to fumble, and he did.  He was stripped by the great Brian Finneran, and after the ball was batted down the field, Manning recovered it.  Costing the Bears about 20 yards of field position, and nearly the ball.

The Bears cannot run the ball. Cris enlightens us with this stat.  For the season, the Bears have averaged less than TWO yards when they run on first down.  Guh.

Third and long, Johnny catches a slant and seems to think he’s going to be tackled immediately and kind of back into the defender well short of the first.

(OK, the dog had to go outside, so I missed whatever happened then.  But I came back up just in time to see the disorienting site of Garrett Wolfe breaking a run for more than ten yards.  Really?)

Second and six the Bears run the Wildcat with Devin and he gets five yards.  Third and one Forte gets four yards.  Nice to see Turner remembered to take Wolfe out on short yardage.

Wolfe is back in on first down and the well is now dry.  He’s dumped for a loss.  His former NIU teammate Turner just points and laughs.

Great play on both ends.  Cutler has to just fire one down the field to beat the blitz and Des Clark makes a leaping grab at the eleven.  Nice.

First down, Olsen is open, Cutler makes a bad pass and Olsen makes a bad attempt at a catch.  Incomplete.

Second down, Forte runs for none.  Nothing.  Zero.

Cutler rolls on third and finds Clark at the one for a first down.  That was a great catch by Clark and it was almost a TD.  He initially touched the ball across the line but had to juggle it to haul it in so it’s just short.

Forte tries to leap in from the one but gets lit up and fumbles, after about a nine minute scrum, the Bears come up with the ball at the two.  Forte recovered the ball with the small of his back.  Somehow.

The Bears can’t run the ball up the middle so they run a toss, and Forte fumbles again, this time the Falcons get it.  If you want to know the number one reason why he’s having a bad year, these last two plays are a good illustration.  He’s getting smoked almost every time he gets the ball.  You can’t be a playoff team if you can’t run the ball and the Bears can’t run it at all.

And now the Falcons are running it right down the Bears throats.  The fullback gets six yards on first down.  Turner gets about ten on second down.

After three, it’s Atlanta 14 and Chicago 7.  But it feels like 40-7.

First play of the fourth, Al Afalava grabs Turner two yards deep and Turner breaks his tackle and three more and gains five yards.

Roddy White catches a pass for a first down.

Turner gains seven yards.

And, Pisa Tinoisamoa limps off the field.  Another guy who loves Sunday Night Football!

Snelling catches a first down pass of about five yards.  Wait, you mean some teams throw the ball to their fullback?  And, he catches it?  Wow.  Who knew?

Michael Jenkins catches a 12 yards pass for another first down.  This is really easy for the Falcons right now.  The good news is that Zach Bowman has a lot of tackles.  The bad news is that it’s because they’re throwing right at him.  And it’s working.

Pisa rides off the field on a cart…again.  He’s like the Kal Daniels of the 2009 Bears.

The Bears finally force a punt, but not until the Falcons have completely turned the field position, and Devin fair catches the ball at the 11.  But the Bears get caught with twelve men on the field, and that’s a first down for the Falcons.

On the next play, Ryan finds Jenkins but the ball is batted up in the air and Nate Vasher intercepts it (seriously, Nate Vasher), and he falls down and loses the ball, but the refs call him down, and just to be sure, Danieal Manning digs the ball out anyway.  So the Bears atone for the too many men on the field penalty and end up with even worse field position, at their own six.

By the way, how the hell do you ever have too many men on the field?  How hard is it to count to 11?  Even Devin can do that.  (I think.)

Have you seen the DirecTV commercial, you know, the one with will.i.am on the moon with an elephant?  Sure you have.  Well, Fergie looks better than we’ve ever seen her.  They hide her Adam’s apple and package very well.

On first down, Cutler takes off running and gains 30 yards.  He’s the first Bear QB to run for 30 yards on one play since Sid Luckman.  (I don’t know that to be true, but the last time a Bears QB has done anything positive is always Luckman, right?)

First down, incomplete, almost intercepted by two Falcons.
Second down, check down to Forte for a yard.
Third down, Johnny Knox is mugged by Chris Houston for a Bears first down.

First down in Atlanta territory and Devin is open down the sidelines and inexplicably is running with his arm up in the air like “throw it to me”, problem is the ball is already in the air, and he’s not running towards it.  Incomplete.

As we see Orlando Pace holding the defensive end, Cutler finds Knox across the middle on a play that would have put the Bears inside the 20.

Second and 20, Cutler finds Olsen down the field for a huge gain to the six.  Nice catch, and a great job of Olsen to hang onto the ball, as the safety grabbed onto it with both hands and tried to strip it.

First and goal, Forte runs to the two.
The Bears line up for second and goal, but Cutler calls time out.  Rex would have just audibled to the fumbled snap there.
Fade to Olsen and Olsen can’t bring it in.  Olsen had both hands on it.  But couldn’t catch it.  Not good.
Third down, Cutler finds Olsen on a slant in the middle of the field.  This was better than Collinsworth’s idea, which was to put Wolfe in (seriously) and spread the field and swing it out to him.  I am without speech.
Robbie Gould ties it at 14 with 6:14 left.

Special teams coming up huge for the Bears.  No, wait, they’re not.  Eric Weems runs the kickoff back to the Bears 41.  Horrendous.

First down, Turner gains four to the 37.
Second down, good pressure by Brown and Walleye and Ryan throws it away.  On the replay we see just how good a play that was for Ogunleye.  He knocked Tony Gonzalez on his ass, and that was where Ryan was going to go with the ball.
Third down, Gonzalez catches one for a first down in front of Afalava.  They’re well within field goal range with 4:30 to go.

Turner runs for two to about the 20.
Gonzalez is skipping through the middle of the field untouched, Ryan hits him and it is first and goal inside the five.

First down, Ryan rolls, Afalava takes Gonzalez away, so Ryan throws it away.
Second down, Turner easily runs in for the touchdown.

Nice job.  Shitty kick coverage.  Bad pass coverage.  Bad run defense.  The hat trick!  21-14 Atlanta.

Kick deep into the end zone.  Johnny tries to bring it out and barely gets to the 10.  The Bears special teams, which are normally so good, have been shit tonight.

The Bears run a screen to Devin on first down, he makes 1,000 moves and gains five yards.
Great play by Devin on second down.  He gets open in the middle of the field, makes a great move and gets outside the defensive back so he can get out of bounds and pick up and extra 10 yards.  First down at the Falcons 48.

Middle screen to Forte for about 12 yards.  And the two minute warning.

After the Falcons go offsides, Cutler hits Devin for five yards on first and five.  Bears at Atlanta’s 25.

First down, Cutler goes deep to Knox, incomplete.
There’s plenty of time here to tie the game, and still give up the game losing field goal in the final seconds.

Cutler is sacked on second and ten at the 31.  Great protection there, Pace, Williams and Omiyale all got beat immediately. Cutler couldn’t roll right or left or step up.

Third and 17.  Cutler throws the seam route to Olsen and draws pass interference on the middle linebacker.  Lofton never turned to try to play the ball.  First and ten at the 14.

Cutler has Knox on a slant, but the ball is knocked down at the line.  That would have been a TD.
Omiyale is called for a false start.  Second and 15 from the 19.

Cutler swings it out to Forte who for no aparent reason jumps in the air then can’t adjust to the ball.  Not that it matters, Earl Bennett is called for pass interference on a “pick.”  And that’s just a terrible call.  Just awful.  Nice to see the officials have imaginations, though.

2nd and 25 from the 29.

Cutler throws incomplete for Olsen.  The Bears aren’t blocking anybody.

3rd and 25.  Cutler finds earl for 24 yards.  Fourth and one.  Of course, the Bears can’t run the ball, not because of the clock, but because they never block anybody.  You’re almost stuck having to throw it into the end zone.  Another reason why you can’t make the playoffs if you can’t run the ball.

That was a great catch by Bennett, and Cutler gunned it in there.

Fourth and one, Pace is called for a false start.  And on the replay, you can tell that he just didn’t know what the snap count was.  Holy shit.

Cutler tries to find Clark in the middle of the field, and it is knocked down.

Atlanta wins 21-14.

A frustrating loss, not only because they had a chance to tie at the end, but more so because after a great start they got outclassed the rest of the way.  Not a good sign.