The Bears' Third Quarter: Fading to Black

While not yet technically eliminated from the playoffs, it seems to be a safer assumption that this first season of the Trestman era will end immediately after Week 17. For me, it's more or less what I expected coming into this year, although the loss to the Vikings in Minnesota that concluded this most recent quarter of the season was more discouraging than anything I could have imagined. Much of the week on Chicago sports radio has been spent calling to question the logic of attempting a 47-yard field goal on second down in overtime. Indeed, for a guy who has seemingly been as smart and analytically aware as Marc Trestman has seemed to be all year long, his defense of the decision left a lot to be desired. Then again, perhaps a poor defense is the best summary of this Bears season.

The team continues to deal with a set of highly consequential injuries to arguably two of its most important players on the two sides of the ball in Cutler on offense and Briggs on defense. There's been plenty of bright spots on the offense this year (for once), what with Matt Forte's continuing efficiency, Alshon Jeffery breaking out, and Martellus Bennett being a tight end who can actually, you know, catch. Oh, and that McCown guy's been pretty effective too. The defense, however, is even more dreadful than my initial fears about depth led me to fear they would be. Never in my lifetime can I recall Chicago having a league worst run defense.

I don't doubt that the team will continue to battle in these final four games, what with the North being similarly pathetic and underwhelming. Oh, and Jay Cutler has a payday coming up.

The division (and I'm pretty sure much of the NFL) resembles pretty much what I forecast at the beginning of the year, and I'm pretty sure the Packers will leapfrog the Bears in the standings here before year's end. While my uncle had picked Chicago to end up 10-6 and in the playoffs, I'm still feeling like it's going to be a break-even type year with everybody able to find some good, some bad in an 8-8 season.

There's going to be a lot of questions to be answered in the off-season for the Bears. They'll have a lot of money to play with but a lot of holes to fill. And the entire thing is seemingly going to hinge on coming to an agreement with Jay Cutler. There will be plenty of thoughts on that and the other needs to come, but for now the remainder of the season will probably be spent taking solace in the moments where it seems like Chicago has something to build around. For most of the year, Trestman has made me feel confident. This last game in Minnesota, however, finally brought the first real time for concern.