When Caleb Hanie threw 36 passes in Chicago’s loss at Oakland, critics howled that Mike Martz called too many passes, even though the Bears also ran for 172 yards in that game.

Martz listened. Chicago has thrown fewer than 30 passes in all four games since. And lost all four.

By the way, for all those who think Martz passes too much, the Bears did throw at least 30 times in four of the five games before that Oakland game. And won all five of them.

So, to recap, in the last 10 games, Chicago is 4-1 when it throws at least 30 passes and 1-4 when it throws 28 or fewer, and people still say Mike Martz throws too much.

Another history lesson:

When Ron Turner got ahold of Jay Cutler, the Bears threw 563 passes in 2009, the eighth-most in the NFL. Chicago ran 373 times that year, 29th-most in the NFL.

In one year, Chicago went from No. 8 in the NFL in pass attempts to dead last (No. 32) when Mike Martz took over as offensive coordinator, yet somehow his greatest fault was throwing too much? The Bears threw 52 times more than they ran last year. This year the Bears are 28th in the NFL in pass attempts and No. 8 in rushing attempts. In two years under Martz, the Bears have averaged 34.5 more passes in a season than rushing attempts, about one-sixth the 190-pass gap they had under Ron Turner. That’s about as balanced as you possibly can get running vs. passing.

And Mike Martz doesn’t just call runs. He makes those runs work. The Bears have averaged 4.5 yards per carry this year. That’s their highest mark since they also averaged 4.5 yards in both their 1985 Super Bowl season and their 14-2 year in 1986. The Bears also have more yards rushing in any season in the last 20 years except for 2005. They need 173 yards against Minnesota on Sunday to have their best running season of all in two decades.

And yet the Chicago Tribune web poll this week was whether or not Mike Martz was to blame for Chicago’s five-game losing streak. Forty-two percent said yes, that he should have adjusted the game plan more after Jay Cutler was injured.

Adjusted it to what? He kept calling more and more runs, but runs don’t lead to points without a few passes. The Bears ran all over Green Bay in the first half last week, yet still scored only three points until they turned Josh McCown loose in the second half.

LAKE FOREST — Last season the Packers were ravaged by injuries, filling the injured-reserve list with 15 players throughout the course of the year. They even lost a star on each side of the ball (Charles Woodson and Donald Driver) by halftime of the Super Bowl.

Did it set them back?

“No way,” said Green Bay linebacker Clay Matthews, who was part of that 2010 Super Bowl title run.

This year it’s the Bears who have been beset by injuries, the most costly of which was the broken thumb of Jay Cutler and the sprained knee on Matt Forte.

Did they lose any steam because of injuries?

“Well,” Bears center Roberto Garza recently said, “I guess you could say they’ve knocked us back a bit.”

So why did the mounds of injuries not slow down the Packers, but they turned the Bears from a title contender into a team besieged by a four-game losing streak? Packers head coach Mike McCarthy insists his squad was able to sustain the barrage of setbacks because of the way it built its roster depth.

“I couldn’t really give you an informed opinion on how the Bears are handling their injury situation, but I know that for us, something you always want to feel strongly about is your roster. And how you train your players from one through 53 is part of the ability to overcome these types of injuries,” McCarthy explained. “We try to spend as much time as we possibly can with our younger players to make sure that when these situations arise, they’re ready to go.”

It worked well for them last year, and they may need that depth again this year. The Packers were fairly healthy throughout much of this season, but they have stumbled on hard times of late. This week alone they added rookie tackle Derek Sherrod to the injured-reserve list, bringing it up to six players, and they have already ruled out tackles Bryan Bulaga and Chad Clifton, wide receiver Greg Jennings and defensive end Ryan Pickett.

And all of this comes on the heels of the team’s first loss — a 19-14 defeat to the struggling Chiefs.

“There’s never such a thing as a good loss,” Matthews said, “but there’s definitely things you can take away from a loss, as far as how we need to play and respond moving forward into the playoffs.”

If they move forward the way they did last year — when the injuries piled up and they rattled off six straight wins capped off by a Super Bowl championship — they’ll be fine. The Bears can only hope they can pull something like that off as well.

“It’s very important to get all of our starters back out there,” Bears head coach Lovie Smith said this week. “No matter what, we’re going to have more guys than we would like on the sideline for a game like this.”

His offensive coordinator likened it to a mash unit as he looked for ways to figure out who all the new guys are.
“We’re going to put names on tape and put them on their helmets so we can get to know everybody,” Mike Martz said with a chuckle.

But the Bears have not been laughing about their injury situation much of late. Not only did they lose Cutler and Forte during their best seasons as a pro, but they just added wide receiver Johnny Knox and safety Chris Conte to IR, and they have a slew of questionable players this week. Stars in all phases (defensive tackle Henry Melton, running back Marion Barber and kick returner Devin Hester) could be missing from the Bears’ active roster Sunday in Green Bay.

And, at this most inopportune time, the Bears are turning to third-string QB Josh McCown, a recent free-agent pickup who is considered injury prone even by his own coaches.

“Unfortunately,” Martz said, “in his career, when he’s gotten going, he’s usually gotten injured or nicked.”

If he does this time, he will join a long list. Chicago currently has eight players on injured reserve, after having only two make that grade last year. And that’s not counting the two most severe losses: Cutler and Forte, who have not yet been ruled out for the year.

The Bears are clearly nervous. The Packers feel a little bit more at ease with their issues after they ignored them so well last year. But that doesn’t mean they’re not worried about it, like the Bears.

“It’s a situation everybody goes through. We had a bunch of injuries last year, and we understand how it feels and really the approach you need to take,” McCarthy added. “You don’t want to get injuries, you especially don’t want to get injuries down the stretch, but that’s part of our challenge preparing for the Bears.”

And this year, it’s part of the challenge for the Bears as well.

Jay Taft covers the Chicago Bears for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at 815-987-1384 or jtaft@rrstar.com.

LAKE FOREST — If the Bears were lucky last year, they are certainly paying for it this season.

It was well documented that the Bears caught break after break last season as they rolled all the way to the NFC championship game. They basically suffered no key injuries, while their opponents were constantly downgraded due to breaks and sprains just before facing off with the Bears. The schedule parted for Chicago like the Red Sea, setting up easy matchups all the way through. The fact that they opened the playoffs against the only postseason team (Seattle) with a losing record just fit right in to the well-paved road that was 2010.

But this year, karma is biting back.

“Unfortunately,” Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said Friday, “situations arose that have caught us off guard.”
One after another, after another.

It all started in the second week of training camp in Bourbonnais, when a regional power outage forced the Bears to move practice to a different facility midsession. Just a few days later, the condition of the field at Soldier Field was a disgrace, thus causing the cancellation of Family Weekend, and forcing the Bears players and coaches to board a bus back to camp and practice late into the night.

It didn’t seem too bad at the time, but now we see it was just a sign of what was to come.

The offensive line was so disheveled early on that line coach Mike Tice was called upon to work his magic numerous times, changing the alignment four times in the first six weeks, which included the season-ending injury to his No. 1 pick Gabe Carimi. He has brought it all back together each time, but it hasn’t been easy. And the line hasn’t even been the worst of the Bears’ troubles.

Devin Hester’s “biffing” incident in an area casino; veteran safety, and fan favorite, Chris Harris was benched, then waived; Cutler, playing the best ball of his career, broke his thumb while making a tackle after a fluke interception; Forte, leading the league in yards from scrimmage at the time, went down the next week with a sprained knee.

Then they got “Tebowed” so hard Sunday it may have just knocked them out of the playoffs, and Sam Hurd capped it all off by getting busted for trying to start a drug ring in Chicago that would have made Scarface proud.

Whew. Now that’s a season full of adversity.

“Yea, we’ve had our share this year,” Cutler said. “That’s how it works in this league. … One day you’re in great shape, the next you’re down.”

Last year the Bears were one of the healthiest teams in the league, losing starters for only five games while placing just two players (linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer and running Harvey Unga) on injured reserve. This year, they haven’t been so lucky as six players are already on IR and they have lost nearly 30 games to injured starters.

First came linemen Carimi and Chris Williams, then long-snapper and special teams’ captain Patrick Mannelly went down. And this was a young team to start with. There have been 27 different first-year Bears on the roster this year, with eight undrafted free agents trying to slip into the mix.

Chicago tried to retool in certain areas with players like safety Brandon Meriweather and Cowboy-castaway wide receivers Roy Williams and Hurd. I think we all know how those moves turned out.

“That’s how life goes,” Bears head coach Lovie Smith said Friday, shortly before it was announced that Hurd had been waived. “There are life lessons that are being learned here by our football team.”

This year, the Bears have been learning the hard way.

Jay Taft covers the Chicago Bears for the Rockford Register Star. He can be reached at 815-987-1384 or jtaft@rrstar.com.

The Kansas City Chiefs only scored 10 points against the Chicago Bears, seven of them in the first half. It was that they needed in a hard-fought 10-3 victory over the Chicago Bears Dec. 4.

The key play was a miracle Hail Mary pass as time expired in the first half when Dexter McCluster(notes) caught a ball deflected by the Bears’ defense. The Chiefs’ defense held on after that, including getting an interception in the end zone as Chicago was looking to tie the game in the fourth quarter.

Quarterback Tyler Palko(notes) had his first good outing as he didn’t throw an interception. He only had 157 yards passing and was 17-for-30, but the Chiefs didn’t cough up the football like they normally do. The only time Kansas City made a huge mistake was touching the ball on a punt that gave the ball back to the Bears.

Chicago’s mistakes also helped Kansas City throughout the game. Chad Hanie, who was starting in place for the injured Jay Cutler(notes), was sacked seven times. The special teams missed a 41-yard field goal late in the third quarter after they got to the Kansas City seven yard line before giving up two sacks.

The Bears’ red zone offense only scored three points. The interception in the end zone occurred after the ball wasn’t caught by the Bears and deflected several times before coming down to Jon McGraw(notes).

The only touchdown of the game also could have been prevented. The defending Bears deflected the ball to McCluster who grabbed it before it touched the ground. McCluster had 61 yards rushing on nine carries, including a 32-yard run in the second half.

It wasn’t pretty, but the Chiefs got a much-needed victory. In all honesty, the win could have saved the season for Kansas City. The news wasn’t all good. The Denver Broncos got another miracle comeback when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings on the final play of the game thanks to an interception deep in Vikings territory.

Backup quarterback Kyle Orton(notes) was in the game against the Bears for one play and hurt his finger after he was thrown to the turf following an incomplete pass. Orton didn’t return and his status for any future games has yet to be determined.

Kansas City improved to 5-7 on the year, just two games behind the Denver Broncos and Oakland Raiders in the AFC West standings with four games left on the year. A division title is still within reach. Kansas City would need to win while needing two teams to lose at least twice between now and early January.

William Browning is a fan of the Kansas City Chiefs after latching on to the team during the lean years of St. Louis football. Born in the gateway city, he is also a lifelong St. Louis Cardinals fan. He currently resides in Branson, Mo.

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The way the Minnesota Vikings have played this year and the benching of their quarterback Donovan McNabb in mid-October seemed to have created a bubble that finally burst on Thursday.

According to Jason La Canfora of NFL.com, the Vikings granted McNabb’s request to release him during practice. After McNabb took reps with the third team, he had a conversation with coach Leslie Frazier, and, soon after, the request was granted.

The way the Minnesota Vikings have played this year and the benching of their quarterback Donovan McNabb in mid-October seemed to have created a bubble that finally burst on Thursday with McNabb’s release. (Reuters/Chris Keane)

McNabb, who was traded from the Washington Redskins to the Vikings in the offseason to be their starter after the team didn’t offer an extension to Tarvaris Jackson, has been relatively overshadowed by rookie Christian Ponder ever since a gruesome 39-10 loss at the Chicago Bears in Week 6. McNabb’s fate as backup was truly sealed the week after when the Vikings played the Green Bay Packers, albeit a 33-27 loss. Ponder’s first career pass that game resulted in a Michael Jenkins 72-yard touchdown and, two plays later, the rookie hit Visanthe Shiancoe in the end zone for a short touchdown.

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At the time of his benching, the long-time Philadelphia Eagle said he still had a lot of football left in him. Frazier, whose relationship with McNabb coincidentally dates back to their Philadelphia days, even lobbied for McNabb to be the Vikings starter, to bridge this summer’s lockout gap until Ponder was fully ready to take control rather than rebuild.

Nevertheless, today was a culmination of declining doubt in Frazier’s heart that McNabb wasn’t the answer after all and that Ponder, although he may have been thrown into the lions in his first start, was readier than previously thought.

“You don’t want to be (in) Week 8 or 9 and flip-flopping quarterbacks,” he said to reporters in a press conference the day after he made the decision to bench McNabb and go with Ponder. “Once a decision is made, if we were to decide to go with Christian, you’d like to be able to say that this is the way to go. You don’t want to be, in my mind, going back and forth.”

In hindsight, we can now say Frazier was a man of his word in the benching respect. But, remember when he said the benching gave the team the best chance to win? Well, it hasn’t…yet. With McNabb under center, the Vikings went 1-4. With Ponder, they have gone 1-4. Still, there are games left to be played.

McNabb has 24 hours to clear waivers until teams can put a claim on him. According to La Canfora, McNabb, whose salary with the Vikings this year was $5 million, will cost $1.5 million for the rest of the season for the team that claims him.

Reports say that the most sensible destination for him would be his hometown Chicago Bears, who, according to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, holds the 24^th waiver claim. The Bears currently have backup Caleb Hanie under center after starter Jay Cutler had season-ending thumb surgery and could use McNabb to bolster their chances of getting into the playoffs.

McNabb has played in five NFC Championship Games and started a Super Bowl for the Philadelphia Eagles. He ended this season with 1,026 yards, four touchdowns and two interceptions with a quarterback rating of 82.9.

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