Picture the scene.

Sunday at around 3:07 Central.  The Soldier Field faithful – having spent a cold afternoon avoiding the play on the field with a cunning use of Old Style – stare at the scoreboard.  With a minute to go in regulation, the Bears have a 17-12 lead.  Kyle Boller and the Rams have the ball and they’re moving.

17 seconds remaining.  16…15…14…

Boller drops back and finds Donnie Avery crossing the back of the end zone.  He’s uncovered.  Boller is unhurried. 

Touchdown.  Rams fail to convert the two-pointer (they’re still the Rams).  18-17.

The fans reign a chorus of boos down until every single Bears player and coach has entered the tunnel.  They then stay a few extra minutes just to remind the organization that the 1-10 Rams have just won in Chicago.

Would part of you, even that part that considers the Bears your favorite thing, be rooting for the success of that drive?  Wouldn’t a successful drive there mean a sure-thing firing of Lovie Smith?  Wouldn’t a loss to a 1-10 Rams teams place the punctuation mark at the end of this hierarchy’s sentence?  If the McCaskey family is not currently convinced that things need to change, wouldn’t Sunday provide a perfect stage for the rock bottom drama?

If the Bears dominate the Rams, what would it matter to anyone?  It would not bring me the slightest bit of joy.  If they pull out a squeaker, we’ll have to deal with the “good for our football team to get a win” bullshit.  I’ve never rooted against this team and I won’t Sunday.  But if the Rams win at Soldier Field, Lovie Smith’s job security will elevate to a national story.  The silent McCaskey family will be forced to speak.  The ground would crack open on Lake Shore Drive.

How can that be a bad thing?

Three years ago the Chicago Bears dominated the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship game 39-14.  (That season feels like it happened in 1942.)  Soon after both teams packed up their belongings and settled on Middle of the Road.  The Bears went 7-9 and 9-7 in 2007 and 2008.  The Saints went 7-9 and 8-8.  You could easily make the argument that the states of their current seasons serve as a further indictment of a Bears organization clearly headed in the wrong direction.  But I’ll take a more optimistic track and argue that the 2009 Saints polish off the yellow bricks on the road to a quick turnaround.

How did the Saints do it?  First you have to take the face value facts.  The Saints have a terrific head coach and brilliant quarterback.  Those two things, when paired, are the cornerstones of prolonged organizational success.  The Bears have a terrifically talented quarterback and a head coach who likes to throw the challenge flag because he likes the pretty red color.

I break down building a team like this: draft talent and develop, trade for value and sign need. 

The Saints have drafted Robert Meachem, Sedrick Ellis and Malcolm Jenkins over the last three first rounds and each has turned into a productive, terrific player.  Meachem has struggled tremendously at times but the organization supported and developed him.  This is something we can’t say about a single player during the Lovie Smith era.

The Saints have traded for tremendous value, grabbing Jon Vilma from the Jets and Jeremy Shockey from the Giants for mid-range picks.  Those two players not only have been productive on the field but they’ve instilled a sense of toughness that Sean Payton clearly believed was missing from the locker room. 

The Saints signed need.  When Darren Sharper was available this off-season, I wrote that the Bears would be foolish not to consider him.  They didn’t.  Now he’s in the conversation for Defensive Player of the Year.  Sharper has solidified a secondary that has been a laughing stock for half a decade.  As their corners have fallen to injury, the Saints added Mike McKenzie and Chris McAlister to the roster.  They had a need at corner and they filled that need without the words “Rod” or “Hood” being involved. 

The first part of the Bears re-build has to involve the hiring of a new head coach but we’ve been down that path.  Outside of that, the Bears should acknowledge that their club is worse defensively than New Orleans ever has been and target those same positions in the same way.  They should acknowledge that they are currently two or three years away from being a championship team and they should approach this off-season with that in mind.  No one should be kept on the roster that can’t be helpful in two or three years.  That means cutting Olin Kreutz, Orlando Pace and Tommie Harris.  That means not re-signing Adewale Ogunleye.  That means only making trades when the value is right and only signing veteran players that fill a specific need.

While this may sound dire, it’s not.  The Bears know who’ll be lining up under center.  They know they have a potential franchise left tackle.  They have talent at all the skill positions, especially tight end and I think wide receiver.  I had hoped 2009 would be about 2010 but I think it’s quickly becoming about beyond that.  That’s okay only if the organization takes realistic stock of where it is now and stops believing in the quality of its players and coaches.  Give us a couple fiesty, young 8-8 teams that fight like hell for wins and we can take that if we know the endgame.  But that must start now.  Today.  And the Bears need look no further than last night’s football game to understand how to proceed.

I just watched Lovie Smith’s press conference following the loss to Minnesota and one thing became very, very clear: Lovie Smith has no clue what the hell is going on with this team.  He mentioned “hanging his hat on” what the team did successfully in their four wins – one against a decent team and reiterated the tired refrain, “we’re a good football team”.

I then read Brian Urlacher’s quote from Yahoo! Sports:

“Look, I love Jay, and I understand he’s a great player who can take us a long way, and I still have faith in him,” Urlacher said. “But I hate the way our identity has changed. We used to establish the run and wear teams down and try not to make mistakes, and we’d rely on our defense to keep us in the game and make big plays to put us in position to win. Kyle Orton might not be the flashiest quarterback, but the guy is a winner, and that formula worked for us. I hate to say it, but that’s the truth.”

And now I understand it.  The Bears – players and coaches and front office – don’t realize how successful they have not been as an organization.  Be honest.  What has this team accomplished this decade?  Lovie Smith has made the playoffs twice as a head coach and was brutally outcoached in four of the five playoff games.  Brian Urlacher is 2-3 in playoff games, including two defensive embarrassments during those years where we apparently wore teams down.  These guys are clinging to a non-existent glory period that has given them a completely false sense of arrogance on the field.  

Is Urlacher really blaming Cutler for a lack of running game?  Not his buddy Olin Kreutz?  Not the rest of the putrid offensive line or the coordinator?  Of course he is because Jay’s an easy target.  He’s turned the ball over way too much and looked lost at times.  But the Bears have only abandoned the run in games for two reasons: (1) It hasn’t worked and (2) The defense is very fond of allowing thirty points a half these days.

The formula has not worked.  Not the Lovie Smith formula.  Not the Brian Urlacher formula.  Not the Jerry Angelo formula.  And the sooner the McCaskey family come to that understanding, the sooner the Bears can begin the process of bringing in a proven formula.  A player selector with a track record of selecting good players.  A coach with a track record of beating good ballclubs in January.  A player who doesn’t wax poetic about the glory days of watching Steve Smith break records against his unit at Soldier Field.

6-10 is becoming the reality of 2009.  The Bears will not beat hungry Baltimore, Green Bay or Minnesota teams down the stretch.  (Although the only possible saving graces of this year would be keeping the Pack from the postseason with an inspired effort at home or keeping Minnesota from home field.)  That will put the Bears at 22-26 since the Super Bowl.  But don’t forget…they’re a good football team.               

Last week I made a plea for the firing of Lovie Smith as the Chicago Bears head coach, believing that Jerry Angelo’s acquisition of Jay Cutler had earned him the right to hire another coach.  Today I honestly don’t care.  Fire Jerry Angelo.  Fire Ted Phillips.  Cut whatever players neccessary.  As long as it means Smith is gone.  How is it possible that yesterday’s performance in Minneapolis, coupled with the earlier season losses to Arizona and Cincinnati, are not enough to get a team’s defensive coordinator fired?  Replacing Ron Turner – who has decided the only routes worth running are bubble screens and go’s down the sideline – would be effective but underwhelming.  The entire staff needs to be shown the door.

And this is no longer about moving into a different direction or maximizing the talent on the field.  The Chicago Bears have become a terrible football team three years removed from an appearance in the Super Bowl.  They can’t play offense.  They can’t play defense.  If Lovie Smith is allowed to remain the head coach it will be a confirmation by the organization that less-than-mediocrity will be tolerated at Halas Hall.  They need to ask themselves if the hall’s namesake would tolerate it.

I wanted to fly to Minneapolis yesterday and tear the GSH off every one of their jerseys.  They don’t deserve to wear his initials.  They don’t deserve our cheering either.  The coaches are out there.  The big name, organization-stabilizing coaches.  One of them needs to be brought here.  And if he wants Jerry and Ted boxed up and out of the parking lot before he arrives, so be it.  This is a time for definitive action in the face of a crisis because the devastation left by another year of this group might be unsalvageable. 

Do not wait till season’s end.  Do not wait for this to get worse.  It can not get worse.  We have reached the low.  The low point in the history of the proudest of proud football franchises.  Today, in Minneapolis, the Chicago Bears embarrassed Dick Butkus.  They embarrassed the memory of Walter Payton.  They embarrassed the man who risked a life to found them.  They embarrassed me.  They embarrassed you.

And that’s enough.  Every minute Lovie Smith is allowed to remain head coach of this team is an insulting minute.  I like to use humor and dare I say (Dare!  Dare!) wit to keep this column interesting.  That’s over now.  Welcome to the era of rage and aggression.  I have had enough and I hope you have to. 

Fire Lovie Smith tomorrow.  And do it with Shanny and Cowher on lines two and three.    

For Safety’s Sake
You need to look no further than the loss to Philadelphia to understand that the biggest hole on the Bears defense is at the safety position.  Between Danieal Manning’s embarrassing missed tackle of Mike Vick early and Al Afalava’s Roy Williams impression on the Desean Jackson touchdown, the Bears have proven over ten weeks that they did not have a viable professional safety on this roster at the start of this season.  Fans said it.  Media said it.  But the head coach disagreed. 

David Haugh Makes Theatre Reference
In his dismantling of the Mike Martz rumors, David Haugh makes a full-fledged reference to the legitimate theatre.

Hire Martz and the Bears might as well book a stage at the Goodman Theatre for all the drama that would create.

Read his article.  It’s worth it.  But I’m pretty sure this is the only football column this year to mention one of the country’s most important regional theatres.

Briggs Likes Comic Books, Hughes Doesn’t Give a Shit
I made a rule a long time ago that I wouldn’t write about the private lives of players, out of respect, and I wish the newspapers would adopt the same rule.  Christopher Borrelli’s silly, pointless story on Briggs belongs in US Weekly and not in the sports section of a major newspaper.  I add this: stop trying to sell me these players as sweet and lovable.  They’re not.  Briggs has a long history to prove it.

If Lovie Smith is given another year to run the Chicago Bears (as is expected), Brad Biggs wonders something I knew would become a story sooner than later.  Will Mike Martz become the offensive coordinator?

”Martz would love to work with Jay Cutler,” said the source, who
cited the close relationship between Smith and Martz in sharing the
information.

Jerry Angelo will not allow Lovie Smith to return with the current coaching staff, a mistake made throughout the Jauron era.  It will take a major change and bringing in a personality like Martz would fit that bill. 

I will say this.  If you needed a reason to watch these final six games, you have one.  Lovie Smith is auditioning for his job.

Thanks to Shady for linking the podcast in the comments of the last post.  The podcast itself can be heard here.

Today on The Score, Hub Arkush has made sure-to-be ballyhooed comments regarding Bears ownership “considering the possibilities” of making changes in both the front office and on the sideline of the Chicago Bears. 

Arkush makes one point that I would consider most valid.  Of all the teams that are are going to be possibly looking for head coaches (Panthers, Redskins, Bills, Browns, Raiders) the Chicago Bears will be the most exciting destination because they provide a Pro Bowl-caliber quarterback.  The Bears have “identified their best asset” – according to Arkush – and that asset is #6.

All of this may mean nothing but it also may mean everything.  I believe it means the Bears are not committed to Lovie Smith in 2010 and have tired of letting down their dedicated fans. 

Eat the eleven million dollars.  

Show the millions of a great city and hordes of us elsewhere
that you understand the value of this prized possession, the Chicago Bears. 

Today Lovie Smith said this:

“We were 9-7 last year and weren’t able to get into the playoffs …
10-6 normally gets you there. So it’s only fitting to look ahead to see
what’s still left in front of us, if we take care of business this
week.”