The Bears coaching staff might not have all the answers this year, but they can successfully diagnose a problem.
That led to a frank halftime speech, after they fell behind 10-0 to the Buccaneers yesterday.
“Basically at halftime coach was telling us that basically we just played the worst half of football and we’re only down 10 to nothing,” Forte said, via Jeff Dickerson of ESPNChicago.com. “Our defense definitely kept us in the game with that. We can’t come out and lay an egg in the first half and expect to come from behind all the time. Luckily it was only 10 points. Our defense did a great job in the second half causing turnovers that we could convert into touchdowns down in the red zone. Our defense did a great job doing that and helped us win the game.”
They were able to survive thanks to the defense (14 of their 21 points came off Bucs turnovers), but it helped that the offense did a little something, after gaining 68 yards in the first half.
“It was all on us,” Forte said. “Penalties ... backing us up first-and-15 and not executing little nuances of the plays. If all 11 aren’t on the same page, sometimes the play can work but most times it won’t work. Halftime we came in and Kyle [Long] wrote on the board, ‘Execute and no excuses.’ Don’t make excuses of why we didn’t do this or why we didn’t do that, just go out there and execute the plays and drive the ball down the field.”
Ah, so it’s that simple. It also helps to be playing the 2-9 Buccaneers, I suppose.