One Down

I suppose there are 5 games of interest to Packer fans this NFL weekend -- games with implications for us and our playoff hopes.

One of them was the Thursday Night tilt between the Bears and 49ers. In a sense, of course, we want both teams to lose, but at 4-4 the Bears were more of an immediate issue for us than the 3-5 49ers. And so we were looking for a San Francisco win on Thursday night.

And we got it.

Both teams needed this game. The Bears have been humiliated in 2 of their last 3 outings. The 49ers, meanwhile, have quickly forefeited their early advantage in the NFC West, with last week's loss to the one-win Titans being a particularly bitter blow.

In the end, it was a close game, which is something of a bright spot for the Bears compared with their other two most recent losses. On the other hand, the Cutler experiment blew up in their faces again: this time it was a 5 interception performance. FIVE!

Bears fans were so giddy when they traded Orton for Cutler. It looked like a steal of a deal. They talked about having their first franchise quarterback since the days of leather helmets. "Da Bears" were back!

Well, Orton is sitting atop the AFC West with the 6-2 Broncos. (And Cedric Benson, another former Bear that Chicago happily jettisoned, is sitting atop the AFC North with the 6-2 Bengals.) Meanwhile, the Cutler-led Bears are under .500, they're three-and-a-half games back in the Division, and they've lost 3 of their last 4 games.

Things are even uglier in Chicago than they are in Green Bay, which is almost enough to bring a smile to the otherwise sad faces in Packerland this week.