Second down-and-seven at the Vikings’ 30-yard line. Overtime. Sudden death.
Try for more yards? Settle for a tough 47-yard field goal?
Marc Trestman, the Bears’ head coach, faced this decision on Sunday. He knew he had one of the most accurate kickers to ever play the game, Robbie Gould. He knew his defense was having trouble keeping the Vikings out of field goal range. And he knew his team had the ball in the middle of the field.
So he opted to try the 47-yarder.
By now, you know how that turned out. Gould missed the kick wide right, the Vikings took seven plays and 2:24 to get into field goal range and Blair Walsh nailed the game-winning 34-yarder.
So why did Trestman make that decision, you ask? Matt Forte had just carried the ball on five straight plays and gained 7, 4, 9, 1 and 3 yards, respectively, you note, questioning. Robbie Gould hits field goals 90.5% of the time from 30-39 yards but only 72.7% from 40-49 yards, you find, perplexed.
“I didn’t do it from an analytics standpoint. I did it from having been around Robbie the entire year and knowing how he kicks the ball and watching him kick in practice,” said Trestman, according to chicagobears.com. “I had no doubt that he was going to make the kick.”
Why on second down, when you could gain just a couple extra yards and make the field goal attempt just a percentage point or two more likely to be made on third down?
“The next rush could have put it on the hash mark, and you want to kick it on third down,” said Trestman, explaining that he would rather kick from the middle of the field.
If he makes the same decision and Gould makes the kick, the whole thing is not an issue. No one remembers that it was second down, no one recalls that Forte had just been running well and no one gives a second thought to the yardage.
But, unfortunately for Trestman (and the Bears), Gould did not make the kick.
As a result, the Bears (6-6) lost the game to a very beatable opponent in the Minnesota Vikings (3-6-1), playing without their starting quarterback.
You may remember that the last time the Bears knocked their opponent’s starting passer out of the game, the night ended with a 27-20 win in Green Bay.
You might think that, given that the Packers’ collective talent is greater than the Vikings’, it should have been a cake-walk.
You might even think that, with Alshon Jeffrey breaking his own franchise record for most receiving yards with 249, the Bears should have blown out their Norse foes.
Yet, Jeffrey’s two touchdowns (one that went 80 yards) were squandered. Forte’s 120-yard game was wasted. And Josh McCown’s 355-yard Sunday afternoon was frittered away.
Yes, the most obvious cause—mainly because it directly led to the Vikings’ game-winning score—was Trestman’s decision to kick the second-down field goal.
But if the offense manages to score more than two touchdowns (while gaining 480 yards from scrimmage), the point is moot.
If the defense manages to stop Matt Cassel, Christian Ponder’s backup, from converting on fourth-and-11 near his own goal line late in regulation, Gould does not even need to attempt the overtime field goal.
The point is simply this: Yes, we can dissect the games the Bears lost this season and find underlying causes. We can point to one player, one coaching decision, one costly penalty, one missed block, anything.
But what good does it do to look at those underlying causes? This is a team that, as currently constituted, is not realistically going to contend for a championship.
Maybe something crazy happens and the Bears make the playoffs. Maybe Detroit (read: Jim Schwartz) finds a way to blow their full-game lead with the tiebreaker over the Bears in hand.
Maybe Charles Tillman comes back from his torn triceps injury, Lance Briggs returns from his shoulder injury and Jay Cutler comes back from his groin/ankle/whatever-else injury for the playoffs.
Even then, are the Bears really better than Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans or even whoever the heck comes out of the NFC East?
I don’t profess to have the answers on how to fix the Bears, but I do know this: they’re just not that good.
Tim Carroll
Senior Sports Editor