MIGHTY UNSTABLE
When NFL’s top teams are so hard to buy into, Bears might make it yet
The best thing the Bears have going for them is that there are a lot of teams that look like them. The league has given them reason to believe.
Idon’t mean to give hope to the hope- deficient, but it’s not as if the NFL is all that intimidating right now.
I’m not speaking to those Bears fans who are genetically wired to believe their team is always on the verge of duplicating the success of the ’ 85 Bears ( all bow), which is to say oodles of you. I’m speaking to the Bears fans who aren’t quite sure what they have in a 3- 3 team. I’m speaking to the more sober, clear- thinking Bears fan— you, you, and am I forgetting anybody? — who isn’t exactly buying into this team, despite a nice road victory Sunday over the Atlanta Falcons. You’re probably right to feel that way because it’s not as if the Bears have exhibited habitual excellence. But the NFL is weird right now. The Seattle Seahawks, the defending Super Bowl champions, are 3- 2. They lost to the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, despite having the best homefield advantage in football. You remember the Cowboys, the team that never can seem to get its act together. Those Cowboys have won five straight games and are tied for the best record in the NFL at 5- 1. As to whether they can win games in December, call me skeptical.
And the Seahawks? Don’t get wide receiver Doug Baldwin started.
‘‘ We have to quit BS- ing ourselves,’’ he said. ‘‘ We’ve got to be real with ourselves. When we get in the meeting room, we’ve got to actually pay attention to things and not blow smoke up our tails that everything’s going to be all right. Things aren’t going right. Pay attention to things that we’re not doing right and correct them.’’
Where was this angst and dissension when the Seahawks waxed the Bears in the preseason?
At 4- 1, the Arizona Cardinals are ahead of the Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers in the NFC West. If you insist you saw that coming, let’s get a measurement of your growing nose.
The Carolina Panthers, who didn’t look very good in beating the Bears in Week 5, tied the Cincinnati Bengals 37- 37 on Sunday. A tie? In the NFL? A tie in the crazy NFL.
The Philadelphia Eagles, a team built on offensive mayhem, pounded the New York Giants 27- 0 on Sunday night. The Eagles are 5- 1. Do you believe in the Eagles? I’m not sure I do.
The Detroit Lions are tied with the Green Bay Packers for the NFC North lead, but if there’s one thing we can count on in this topsy- turvy world, it’s that the Lions won’t be there at the end of the season. It’s hard to imagine anybody but the Packers there, but seeing as how we’re dealing in hope here, let’s pretend the Bears’ Jay Cutler is going to permanently morph into the mistake- free quarterback he was Sunday in Atlanta. OK, that’s enough of that.
The Pittsburgh Steelers, in decline, found themselves on the business end of a 31- 10 pounding by the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
‘‘ I thought I’d never say it, but the Steelers are a finesse offense right now,’’ former Steelers receiver Hines Ward said. ‘‘ I don’t even know who these guys are.’’
That’s just it, isn’t it? Who are any of these guys? It all seems wonderfully chaotic. Six weeks into the season, it’s not clear what is real and what isn’t.
The Bears are in that murky who- knows category. I see a 3- 3 team that will be up and down the rest of the year. Many of you see a defensive line finally coming together, an offense that can amass a lot of yards and maybe, just maybe, a playoff team. Let’s agree to disagree.
I see a Cutler who no doubt will revert back to his maddening form. You see a Cutler who is evolving into the precise quarterback he was against the Falcons. Let’s agree you’re wrong.
The best thing the Bears have going for them is that there are a lot of teams that look like them. They’re somewhere in the middle, not bad but not great, either. The league has given them reason to believe.
This is beyond the parity the NFL has pushed for decades. This time, the league has the normal pile of pretty good, but the difference is that the top teams don’t look powerful. One Bears player recently brought up the ‘‘ on any given Sunday’’ cliché to describe the NFL. So far this season, the description is spot on: On any given Sunday, any team can beat another, especially if the other team is the 0- 6 Jacksonville Jaguars.
Does that apply to the Bears beating the Packers on any given Sunday? Easy there, tiger.