Let’s call it the Jometer. That would be shorthand for the Jay-o-meter. It is possible that the Jometer will peg again this week or even the next, making it three weeks in a row that it is OK to love Jay Cutler.
In short, disaster.
The Bears are playing another team nearly as hopeless as themselves, and on such occasions Cutler may rise to the occasion, resembling the quarterback everyone wishes he actually was.
As a Bear, Cutler has beaten only 10 teams that finished the season with winning records and none since the Bengals in the opening game in 2013.
Cutler is a level-playing-field kind of quarterback, best when he doesn’t have to go uphill.
Cutler’s special kind of torment is to be just good enough often enough to cause overreaction, which, according to the present Jometer, has him somewhere between one tough son of a buck and Jesus.
John Fox, the coach of the Bears, seemed genuinely surprised Cutler could be resilient and productive, adjusting himself to the Curse of Cutler that has damned those who have come before him.
He can fix this guy. There is too much there to give up on him. A team can be built around him. The problem is not the quarterback, it is the quarterback’s support. No need to get a new quarterback, just get a new plan.
Encouraged, the Bears now might waste a season that seemed so promising. Excuses were there, sympathy was on the Bears’ side, high — very high — draft picks loomed.
They were being referred to as “the once-proud Bears,” and while there is a compliment implied in there somewhere, it was unnecessary to point out exactly when “once” was.
“Once proud” is one of those damning prologues like “with all due respect,” sure to be followed by anything other than respect, or pride for that matter. No problem.
Rebuilding was understood to be the most valid and honest strategy. Players were shown both sides of the door, coming, going, standing around waiting to know whether to push or pull.
It’s October: Do you know who your Bears are?
No reason to. No reason to commit to memory any of the vagabonds who wear the blue and orange. By season’s end — and that was the goal — the Bears could be turned over more than a stiff omelet.
We all knew why, we knew to ignore any of the new arrivals, whenever they get here. Just give them jerseys with the names Flotsam and Jetsam on the back. We knew what we thought of Cutler.
The goal to be as awful as possible was apparent and sound. The worst thing to be is mediocre and, gasp, the Bears might still be good enough to be that.
A glimpse of success might give the Bears renewed ambition that can only end up neither good enough for today nor bad enough for tomorrow.
Winning a single game, especially one that could easily have been lost, exaggerates everything, leading not only to a Jesus association for Cutler but to referencing Michael Jordan, not a savior in a religious context but a redeemer in his own way.
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The Jordan similarity was made by kicker Robbie Gould, whose job is to do one thing again and again whenever he is asked to do it. Kicking a game-winning field goal has as much in common with sinking a game-winning shot as posing for a picture has to do with painting one.
It seems only just and fair to have comparisons at the ready for the times when failure is the outcome, when a late interception costs the game or the field goal drifts right or left. No Jesus or Jordan then. More like Edsel and Ehlo.
The Bears were Betamax and New Coke and Crystal Pepsi, ready to join the pile of famous failures. And now where are they? Full of self-belief and confidence.
Giddiness is so rare among the Bears that maybe it can be allowed, but it should never be believed. As old reliable William Blake reminded us, the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Blake was obviously not a Bears fan.
Bernie Lincicome is a special contributor to the baiduhai.