Call them lucky, but you can’t call them good. The Chicago Bears may have beaten the Detroit Lions yesterday, but it was pure luck on a strange ruling, which Bears Coach Lovie Smith claimed in his post game comments did not really need review.
“I saw it exactly the way [the ref] did. Didn’t really think they had to look at the replay. The rule says you have to come down and complete the catch all the way through. The ball came out at the end, so I thought it was pretty cut and dry.”
Detroit Lions Coach Jim Schwartz couldn’t disagree.
“The rule is if you are going to the ground in the process of making the catch, you need to finish with the football and we didn’t finish with the football.
The time I stand up here and start blaming officials for a loss is the time that I don’t need to be doing this anymore. We had chances to win the game, we had chances to put the game away. We battled the entire way but to point to one play like that for the reason we won or lost is not going to be us.”
This time the automatic ruling was made in Chicago’s favor. But what about next time? What do the Bears need to do to convince fans they are more than just a mediocre team? Sacks and turnovers need to be elimated, especially the sacks, but Smith was upbeat about how his team played, especially Matt Forte.
" I saw Jay [Cutler] make play after play, getting the ball, distributing the ball around. Matt Forte, of course, was outstanding catching the ball and running the ball…"
But everyone knows that two players cannot carry the team. Everyone needs to pitch in, not turn the ball over and score when events present themselves.
It was only week one, but the Bears need some more work to make fans believe they really have a contending team this year.