I suppose it's somewhat fitting that the Bears ended their season playing a game representative of their whole body of work.
At times they looked brilliant. Most of the time they looked thoroughly beatable. And yet they hung around with a chance to win it for most of the game.
With the exception of two passes, Rex Grossman actually looked OK throwing the ball. His bigger problems were the snaps. He wasn't helped out much by a running game that never established itself outside of one big Thomas Jones run, though it didn't help that Cedric Benson only saw two carries.
The Cover 2 defense was again vulnerable over the middle without any pass rush up the middle. No pass rush up the middle meant no pass rush on the outside. Manning had his way with the dink-and-dunk passes, especially since the Bears seldom blitzed.
Throw in a satisfactory performance by special teams (though the kick coverage wasn't nearly as crisp), and that was pretty much the second half of the season encapsulated in one game.
The Bears got pushed around without two of their three best players on defense. The offense tried to minimize mistakes and get whatever yards they could. The only difference was that the Colts were a far better team than any the Bears played after the New England game, and the Bears couldn't keep up.
Because they had a number of chances to tie it up, I'm sure we'll hear how the Bears choked, gagged, or some other synonym that means they lost more than the Colts won.
I'd disagree. They played their game. They tried to limit big plays on defense, because they're no longer a great attacking defense without Mike Brown and Tommie Harris. They tried to be a run-oriented offense, and took chances that had a significant probability of backfiring when that didn't pan out. If it looked like they beat themselves, well, that's because they always do. Even when they win.
It didn't work, and mostly because the Colts are a very good football team. The Bears are merely good, and they weren't good enough tonight.
In a way, it would've been somewhat unsettling if the Bears won. It's hard to imagine a 13-3 Super Bowl run more joyless than this season. Far flimsier Bears teams -- say, the ones that had to start Kyle Orton and Jim Miller/Shane Matthews for entire seasons -- received far more support in general, and the tone surrounding them was different. Close victories were the cause for celebration, not panic, and bad individual performances were overlooked because the ends somehow justified the means.
Neither of those teams could hold a candle to the 2006 Bears, and yet we were inundated with controversy over Rex Grossman, Tank Johnson, a shaky secondary and defensive ends who lost their bite. Even when they racked up wins, there were 5,000 voices loudly dismissing their legitimacy.
A Bears Super Bowl win would've been sweet vengeance against all doubters, but it would've rendered the parade rally disingenuous. It's hard to get amped for a celebration of a team nobody celebrated.
Twelve days until pitchers and catchers.