The Bears' First Quarter: Better than expected ... again (record-wise, at least)

If that title's subhead sounds familiar, it's probably because I was saying the exact same thing at this point last year. Now, whereas a year ago the Bears had already beaten the team that would end up going on to win the Super Bowl, this season the team's current .500 record is still a game better than where I had anticipated their record being at. Perhaps the Falcons are not as good as some of us had thought they would be, but ultimately this still seems like the story Bears fans should be getting used to this season: A fight to get above .500.
 
On Monday night, the Bears will go up to currently undefeated Detroit. Jay Cutler has been sacked the second-most number of times in the league through four weeks and the defense has allowed the second-most number of total yards. Perhaps part of that is attributable to having played the past two Super Bowl Champions and an offense led by a rookie sensation in addition to Atlanta to start of the season, but at the end of the day, this year's Bears squad does not have the feel of a playoff team.
 
As the season progresses, I cannot rule out that Chicago's coaching staff does have a track record for turning around problem areas. But in a division that has the only two undefeated teams remaining in the league, that would mean that the Bears have to finish with a better record than every other second-place club in the NFC. Of course, the Broncos got off to a 6-0 start a few years back before missing the playoffs altogether, so maybe I shouldn't be counting the Lions in just yet. Still, it's hard for me not to count the Bears out. 

Unfortunately, looking back at the first four games, the moment that most stood out to me had nothing to do with any play on the field this year. Rather, there was a substantial amount of conversation over the course of the first three weeks revolving around a graphic Fox ran in Week One. They did apologize for it, but the whole episode seemed to reinforce the belief that the networks are reinforcing a national narrative that simply dislikes Jay Cutler. Even in a game that Cutler was playing quite well in, Fox was willing to run what appeared to be headlines and were described on-air as headlines, insinuating that even those of us in the Chicago area were bitter about him having to leave last year's NFC Championship.
With that incident behind us now, maybe the Bears can hang around just enough to have to be included in playoff conversations. But I don't see anybody really being scared of this team. The offense seems to run entirely through Matt Forte at this point, as none of the Bears receivers have made consistent impact to make me want to champion their efforts. The defense has only grown older and needs to make significant strides in many areas before it can become any sort of selling point.

It was really cool to discover a wing bar in the area that does, in fact, show Bears games. As the season wears on, and it's more often an option of Texans or Cowboys on local TV, that should allow me to at least still catch a good amount of games this year. My girlfriend fiancée found the place, because she's awesome like that.

But like I said, the team strikes me as spending their entire season fighting to get to or be above .500. Maybe 9-7 can be good enough to get into the postseason, but I'd be very surprised if I'm not typing 4-4 the next time I do one of these updates.