For some reason, half the lights at Candlestick Park were not on Thursday night, and if it was a California thing about conserving energy, OK, I kind of get that.
It made it difficult to see the numbers on the players’ backs from the cheap seats, but it couldn’t obscure the fact that the Bears seemed to be conserving energy too.
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Actually, that’s being extremely kind. That would seem to imply there’s something left in the Bears’ tank, physically and emotionally. There isn’t. They’re bad, their quarterback gets night terrors and they play with empty craniums.
Staring at a wall would have been better than watching this.
Jay Cutler threw five interceptions, including one in the end zone as time expired in a 10-6 loss. If somebody can explain why he plays poorly in night games, the Bears would love to hear from you. From his four-interception game in Green Bay to his two-interception struggles in Atlanta to Thursday’s head scratcher, the guy seems to have an aversion to the darkness. I say this because he has taken to wearing a garland of garlic around his neck.
His first interception was one of the worst you’ll ever see. From the San Francisco 1-yard line in the second quarter, he tried to throw a touch pass over three 49ers. It didn’t get over the first 49er, nose tackle Aubrayo Franklin, who, at 6-foot-1, 317 pounds, would seem to have the vertical leap of a fire hydrant.
There is no excuse for that pass, especially with the Bears on the 49ers’ doorstep.
Cutler no doubt is lacking a supporting staff, but in a game like Thursday night’s, nobody was asking him to do everything. He was being asked to do something, anything. He threw two picks in the red zone. Those aren’t the things.
He looks as down as anybody on this roster, and when he said last week he wasn’t sure if leadership was a problem after the Bears’ woeful loss to the Cardinals, no one would have suspected he might have been wondering about himself.
He seemed to play in a daze Thursday night. That kind of thing can happen on a struggling team. Fair or not, though, it’s not supposed to happen to a quarterback for whom you gave up two No. 1 picks. If he can’t rise above, who can?
What you kept coming back to was how absolutely awful the 49ers are. They made so many mistakes, it looked like remedial football. Flags flew, blocking schemes broke down, passes went nowhere.
“When you have two teams hungry for a win, you know you’re in for a game,” Bears coach Lovie Smith.
Sure, Lovie.
Here were two boring, evenly matched teams going at it like a pickup game at a somnambulist convention. The Bears’ defense, so bad last week, couldn’t give up 41 points to the 49ers in a best-of-seven series.
If the 4-5 Bears were looking for momentum coming out of this game, the only place they found it was on the charter jet heading down the runway toward home.
“We’ve got seven games left,” tight end Greg Olsen said. “We don’t have a choice. We can’t pack it in. We’ve got a lot of fight and a lot of character. As bad as things went early in the game, pretty much the entire game, that last drive (68 yards until the interception) kind of sums up what we’re about. We’ve got a lot of fight.”
No, that last drive kind of sums up that the Bears were playing the 49ers.
Everybody was in a firing mood after the debacle against the Cardinals. If it wasn’t Smith whom the people wanted, it was general manager Jerry Angelo. This game? I’m guessing people were too drowsy to get their ire up.
That might change Friday morning when the blood starts pumping again, but the truth is that this is not a good team. It doesn’t seem to be in position to be a good one next year either. Or the year after that.
Other than that, things are warm and sunny in Bearland.
The grisly details of Thursday’s game won’t soon go away. Cutler’s second interception occurred because Devin Hester slipped on his route, leading to a 51-yard return by Tarell Brown in the second quarter. Cutler made the tackle, but he wasn’t on the field to stop Frank Gore from running 14 yards for a touchdown.
The Bears had a chance to take one more shot into the end zone before trying a field-goal attempt at the end of the first half, but with six seconds left they decided to go for the field goal instead. That is the sign of a dumb team or one that lacks confidence. Which do you prefer?
Right. Both.
Cutler’s third interception — collect them all! — was tipped at the line of scrimmage into the hands of safety Dashon Goldson.
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The Bears picked off a pass too, in the third quarter, but an offside call against Adewale Ogunleye nullified it. The Bears had 10 penalties, four days after having nine against Arizona.
And so it goes for the 2009 Bears, who appear intent on tumbling over the edge.
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