2010 WEEK THREE: Huh.

Judging by this picture, Devin Hester HAD to run back a punt, because otherwise, that inflatable Bear would eat him.

Man. Ugly wins. Ugly wins are a thing. Because a win such as this has my brain in a complete war with itself, where the lobe or whatever that's all plastered with posters of Richard Dent sacking Steve Grogan, piled high with gem-mint Walter Payton rookie cards all in the plastic sleeves, and probably has an Iron Maiden poster hanging up somewhere is wanting to say "YEEEAAAH THE BEARS ARE FOR REAL BEAR DOWN WOOOOOO," while the other side of my brain, where there's a whole big pile of credit card bills and magazines about how politicians are killing the environment, and where resides the part of me that totally understands sad, old country music lyrics, is all "man, the Packers gave us that game, and the wheels are gonna come off pretty fast." But you know, such is the way of Bears Football, and I guess you really do have to take the good with the bad, and well, a win really is a win. But it wasn't the "well, we know what we can do now" definitive win that we needed, so I'm left rooting for the NFC's only undefeated team, while still expecting them to lose every week. Such is life. On the other hand, spotty QB play, defense that's talked up as being world-beating when it's really just kind of decent, complete luck, and Devin Hester running back punts was what got us to the Super Bowl in 2006, so HELLS YEAH, DALLAS, HERE WE COME!

THE GOOD:

GOOD: The Peppers effect. Well, his Dark Imperial Majesty, Herr Überklaw really didn't have much of a real statistical presence Monday night, but his overall impact was huge. I mean, the hurries and pressures and whatnot were kind of meaningless, since Aaron Rodgers is not of our planet and cares not for our human mistakes, but it wasn't long before he had absolutely put the Fear into both Green Bay tackles, leading to what felt like a million free yards in holding and false start penalties. So it was like Julius Peppers didn't do a whole lot to the Green Bay offense, but his shadow did so very much indeed.

"brb saving your job LOL"

GOOD: We're finally learning to live without Tommie Harris. I've probably mentioned a million times how that big ol' contract they gave Harris effectively ended his career, and he's just been Haynesworthing it out there for the last few years. Well, Marcus Harrison AND Jarron Gilbert were both drafted to try and scare him into playing football again, and with binge-eating and pool-jumping not being instrumental to playing the three-technique tackle position, both moves failed. So they just went ahead and did what they should have done back in '08 and put my man BIG TOE, Matt Toeaina in there, and sat Harris's millionaire ass on the sideline in street clothes. Honestly, though, he didn't have much of a game, but he was at least moving at full speed, which Harris hasn't done in a long-ass time. On the other hand, I'm sad to report that he's apparently grown his hair and beard way out, so he really no longer resembles DJ Khaled at all anymore. Now, he doesn't really look like anyone, but if I had to compare him to anyone off the top of my head, it would probably be a really, really tan version of Andreas Kisser from Sepultura, which is a bummer, since he's the guitar player and not the singer, and it wouldn't make sense to Photoshop an image of him with the words "WAR FOR TERRRITTTOOORAAAYYYY" underneath him. But it's also awesome, because I fully endorse Sepultura in all their efforts, including the more recent, post-Cavalera stuff, which is still awesome, FUKK U IF U DISAGREE. So screw it man, just screw it.

UNDER A PALE GRAY SKY, WE SHALL ARISE

GOOD: The TV people's obsession with Mike Martz. What this means is that whenever something terrible happens, the camera immediately pans to see what Martz's reaction is, which saves me from another year of the same shot of Lovie Smith looking up at the scoreboard with his jaw slackened just a little. This will get old soon, but hey, at least it's different.

THE BAD:

BAD: If it ain't fixed, don't... fix... it? Wait... Still no functioning offensive line. Still no running game. Still no pass defense. So it was, as always shall it be. We've already been over these things twice, and we'll probably go over them again thirteen more times after this week, so I'll just leave it at that.

BAD: Special guest appearance by 2009's own Jay Cutler. If the Packer's weren't so boneheaded when it came to the whole "oh yeah, you're not allowed to helmet people in the face or tangle up with a wide receiver before the ball gets there" thing, he seriously might have thrown as many as four or five interceptions. I said last week that the dude sucked in prime-time games, (which makes me oh so excited for the Giants game) and for the most part, I was right. It wasn't all bad, though, because whereas last year, he would have fallen completely apart and become the quarterback equivalent of that dude with his guts hanging out in the opening of Saving Private Ryan, he managed to get his head back together at least half the time, and the True Cutler we saw in the first couple games showed up to make some nice throws here and there. But it's going to be upsetting all year to remember that the 2009 version of Blood Sugar Sex Magic is always going to be there, waiting in the shadows, ready to throw a whole bunch of passes to the wrong team. And there are still a few more night games to come, so this won't be the last time Cutler scares the piss out of me.

I have prepared a visual aid.

THE UGLY:

UGLY: John Gruden really likes Aaron Rodgers. Am I the only one who noticed how many times, hopefully in reference to the dude's passing arm, that Gruden referred to Aaron Rodgers having a "big hose" during the game? Seriously, did no one ever say anything to him about what else that could possibly mean?

Maybe they were afraid...

UGLY: The Tampa 2 defense explained. During the game, in a rare burst of insight, one of the announcer dudes (I can't fully remember, but I'm going to assume Ron Jaworski, since he actually knows things) completely broke down Lovie's cover 2 scheme in a way I had never thought about before. He broke it down all sorts of ways, but it really came down to this: That whole "bend, but don't break" philosophy, where they allow short plays but try to prevent the shit out of the long ones, is actually designed to force the other team into having long, sustained drives. The reason for this is that by forcing the offense into running a whole lot of plays, you greatly increase the chances of them screwing up sooner or later, as in throwing a pick, fumbling, or doing something else foolish. And you know, I had never really thought of that before, and now, I know why every time a team has the ball against the Bears, it's almost certain to be a huge, clock-eating drive, and the time-of-possession ratio always seems to be 2:1 in the other team's favor. And you know... That is absolute fucking madness. That is the worst sort of twisted logic, unseen in even the most degenerate mind. Why would you intentionally hand the other team so much clock time and yardage, tiring out your defense beyond belief, (Ever wonder why the Bears typically finish the year with a third of the D on Injured Reserve? There you go.) and eliminating any chance of getting your offense into a rhythm, just for the slightest shot at getting just as many turnovers as teams with regular, sane defenses get? Shit man, do they even think about what would happen if they used the "force the other team into running a ton of plays to get them to make a mistake" strategy against a team that's not going to make many (or any) mistakes, regardless of how many times the quarterback takes a snap? Oh that's right, it's happened in a whole bunch of games over the last few years, you assholes.

Like THIS game, for example.

NEXT WEEK: The Bears travel to New Jersey to take on the Giants, where things are in pretty rough shape. Peyton Manning's retarded little Oreo-lickin' brother Eli hasn't been having a career year, and a whole bunch of players on the defense are hurt. So I know I'll probably regret this later, what with Evil Nighttime Cutler and all, but I say the Bears will... WIN. Oh damn, first time I've said that so far this year. It still won't be the big "oh shit, this time is ready for the big time" win that we need, and total dumb luck will probably be involved somewhere, but ugly is how this team plays, so there you go.

PREDICTION: Bears 24, Giants 17.