History Lesson: Bears will bounce back strong

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Monday, Dec. 13, 2010
5:04 PM

By John Mullin
CSNChicago.com

The Bears will need a rebound after Sundays debacle at the hands of the New England Patriots. History says they will quite possibly get it, because Lovie Smith has managed to pick his teams up after very bad losses.

Indeed, the worse the loss, usually the better the comeback.

Last year they were blown out by Baltimore on Dec. 20 and recovered to defeat Minnesota and Detroit in the next two games. After the Cincinnati Bengals destroyed them in late October, they came back the next week to beat Cleveland.

In 2008, a 37-3 loss to Green Bay, then in 2007, a 27-3 win over St. Louis. A 20-point loss to Minnesota, then three straight wins. A 19-point loss to end 2006, then two straight playoff wins to reach the Super Bowl.

The Bears need very much for a repeat of the things they do after bad losses.

I think the key is identifying some of the things you did wrong quickly with the video, Smith said. I dont believe in not watching the tape and all that. You learn from games like yesterday. We did that. You want to see exactly what happened.

At times its hard to know exactly what was going on, even seeing what was happening out there at times. We were able to see what was happening out there. Most of it we didnt like. But some of it we did.

Playoffs?! Youre talking about playoffs?!

The New England Patriots are behind them and the MinnesotaDetroit Vikings are a week off, albeit without a playing venue set yet. The Bears can take a big step toward clinching the NFC North with a win over Minnesota, and that does enter into their thinking this week.

We all know the numbers and where we stand, said center Olin Kreutz. Hopefully Sunday was a learning experience.

Getting defensive

Anytime an opponent rolls over a defense for record yardage and massive point totals, that scheme comes under question. Doubts about the preferred Cover-2 scheme of Lovie Smith and Rod Marinelli will be flying around like Sunday snowflakes, even though the Bears were near the top of the NFL in fewest points allowed before Sunday.

That was a rare happening yesterday, Lovie Smith said. Theres nothing wrong with our scheme. We played a little Cover 2 yesterday. Normally, thats easy for a person to jump on, but yesterday we werent in an awful lot, to be truthful. So were not going to use that. The scheme is good; we didnt execute. The scheme has helped us get to 9-3, but yesterday, again, we didnt execute.

The bad thing.

about all the weather conditions Sunday is that they actually were perhaps more revealing about the Bears rather than less. The Chicago defense may have functioned better in better weather, for instance, but so might the New England offense, to be perfectly fair. The weather took some disguise and scheming out of play for both sides.

They outplayed us, said defensive tackle Tommie Harris. When you line up in those conditions theres not going to be much trickery.

Welkering down

Wes Welker did to the Bears about what hes been doing to lots of teams for a number of years now. Whats perhaps most remarkable is that hes, well, unremarkable as he goes about being one of the only players in NFL history to catch 100 passes in three straight seasons.

He works hard but its not like hes going to over-amaze you, said nickel back D.J. Moore. Hes just good. And combine him with that quarterback and its a pretty good combination.

Good guys

Chris Harris and Corey Graham may still be treating wounds from Sunday but theyre making time for kids on Tuesday as part of their After-School All-Stars Touchdown vs. Shutdown from 2-4 p.m. at J.Ward Middle School in Chicago. Harris and Graham donate on a per-tackle basis to after-school programs and activities for at-risk youths and will hang out with the kids Tuesday afternoon to answer questions and talk about issues.

John "Moon" Mullin is CSNChicago.com's Bears Insider, and appears regularly on Bears Postgame Live and Chicago Tribune Live. Follow Moon on Twitter for up-to-the-minute Bears information.

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