Cardinals make the Bears butt of joke after Harris' immature smack

Published online on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009

CHICAGO - Is it "dumb ass" or "dumbass?" I can never get that straight. Or does proper English demand that a hyphen be used to break things up?

Tommie Harris is not solely to blame for what happened to the Bears on Sunday in a 41-21 loss to the Cardinals, but his outrageously stupid punch and ensuing ejection certainly greased the skids for an atrocious defensive effort by his teammates.

To ask Harris what he was possibly thinking when he threw an uppercut on prone Arizona guard Deuce Lutui four plays into the game would be to presume there was actual brain activity going on.

To ask Harris anything after the game was impossible because he was long gone by the time the media were allowed inside the Bears' locker room.

It was left to his teammates to explain his behavior, and some of them were in no mood for it.

"I'm not talking about Tommie," defensive end Alex Brown said angrily. "I'm not talking about him. Don't want to talk about him."

After Harris' inauspicious beginning and end, the Bears fell apart in the presence of Arizona quarterback Kurt Warner and wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. But it was more than those two players. The ultimate indictment of the defense Sunday was that the Cardinals, the worst running team in the league going into the game, ran for 182 yards and averaged 5.9 yards per carry.

For the second time in three weeks, the Bears gave up 31 points in the first half.

Do you know how many times the Bears had given up 31 or more points in an opening half before the Oct. 25 Bengals game? Five. Five times since 1920.

"For this to work, we've got to believe it's going to work," Brown said. "We've got to have a sense of urgency, and we don't have that right now. I don't know what the hell is wrong, but we've got to change it.

"This is the eighth game of the season, and I know a lot of people would like to think that we're better than 4-4, but, hell, our record is 4-4. So that's what we are."

The Cardinals scored on their first six possessions and were perfect on their first eight third-down conversions. As the beating wore on, the boos at Soldier Field grew louder. When the Bears finally did stop the Cardinals on a third down, fans cheered derisively.

With Arizona leading 34-14 early in the fourth, Matt Leinart replaced Kurt Warner at quarterback, a move that helped the Bears crawl back.

You could almost hear coach Lovie Smith practicing his opening statement for the postgame news conference: "Anytime you can battle back the way we did ..." But the Cardinals picked off a bad Jay Cutler pass, and the truth stared Smith in the face:

His team is a mess.

If it isn't looking hopeless in the red zone in a victory over the awful Browns, it's looking helpless defensively against the up-and-down defending NFC champs.

"I know we're a better football team than that, but of course our play didn't say that," the Bears coach said.

As Smith will point out if you ask about his family or the price of gas or the state of health care, "we do have a lot of football left." After Sunday's debacle, that sounded dangerously like a threat.

The Bears play in San Francisco on Thursday, then face Philadelphia and Minnesota in successive weeks.

Their nine penalties and Harris' sucker punch are evidence of an undisciplined team. The only thing worse than being an undisciplined team is being a bad undisciplined team. Say hello to your 2009 Monsters of the Midway.

Not only did the Cardinals dominate the Bears, they beat them up. By the third quarter, cornerback Charles Tillman (shoulder), safety Al Afalava (shoulder) and running back Garrett Wolfe (back) were gone. For Tillman, it was injury being added to insult; Fitzgerald had his way with him, and others, on the way to nine catches for 123 yards and two touchdowns.

Except for their brief second-half comeback, the Bears did not put much of a pass rush on Warner, and that had something to do with Tillman's difficulties. You can put some of the blame at the invisible feet of Harris, whose job is to collapse the pocket, as well as stop the run.

Warner redeemed himself from last week's five-interception game with five touchdown passes Sunday. If you're a Bears fan looking for more reasons to be depressed, the Cardinals were playing without star wide receiver Anquan Boldin, who had an ankle injury.

If, like Smith, you're looking for silver linings, at least the offensive line blocked competently for Cutler. And at least Greg Olsen, with three touchdown receptions, looked like the star tight end he was hyped to be during training camp.

But silver linings are for delusional thinkers.

"We keep saying, 'Go home and soul-search and look at yourself,' but I don't know," Brown said. "There might be something more. There might be a little more than that."

Forget the soul. Search the heart. And Tommie Harris' brain.