The Cutler Did It: Bears beat Steelers 17-14 behind Cutler, Gould

Judging by your texts, tweets and Facebook status updates, there is not anyone in Chicago regretting the Jay Cutler trade.  Well, not this week, at least.


After a forgettable Week 1 effort which saw Cutler throw four INTs in a 21-15 loss to the Green Bay Packers, Bears fans saw the pros behind having a gunslinger under center.  Cutler threw for 236 yards and two touchdowns -- but most importantly -- zero interceptions in the Bears' 17-14 win against the defending Super Bowl champion Pittsburgh Steelers..  One of the best debates on any sports blog is the definition of clutch, and no matter your definition, it would be difficult to make me think Cutler's TD passes were anything but.

The first tied the game at 7-7 before halftime, capping a 97-yard drive, which would have been unthinkable had Rex Grossman or Kyle Orton been slinging the pigskin around the gridiron.  The second, a 7-yard strike to Johnny Knox, tied the game again in the fourth quarter to end a 72-yard drive with an exclamation point.

To Bears fans, this is experience is kin to a first kiss with a real girlfriend after years of drunken debauchery and slumming with hoodrats.  Sunday's performance has brought the Chicago Bears offense into the 20th century.  As long as Ron Turner is calling shots as the offensive coordinator, I'm not going to be ready to upgrade the team to 21st century status ... but having Cutler in the pocket makes me feel a lot better than Kyle Orton ever did.

It would be easy for Steelers fans to point at Troy Polumalu's absence due to injury for the three-point loss.  But the Bears were without their best defender, too.  So wipe that excuse off the board.  Then there was Jeff Reed's inability to make field goals in the final stanza.  Those two boots weren't gimmes by any stretch of the imagination, so to say the Bears were lucky would only be doing a disservice to a Bears defense that stiffened up when it needed to.  Take your Haterade and put it in a cooler and save it for next week's game at Seattle.

Then there was Robbie Gould.  There aren't enough superlatives to say about Mr. Gould, who seemingly always finds himself winning or tying games with what I assume to be a goulden platinum right foot.  Other than Adam Vinatieri, who taught Gould everything he knows about kicking, I'm not sure there is any other kicker I would want in the NFL if my team was in a tight spot.  I say this of course knowing full well that Gould has yet to make a 50-yard field goal in his career.  Part of that blame can be laid on the Bears offense, which has struggled at times to get the ball past the 50-yard line in the first place.

In the end, a victory against the defending Super Bowl champs to open the home schedule is exactly the kind of start the Bears needed after losing a very winnable game in Green Bay.  There are still problems lurking in the secondary, but those can be addressed at a later time, date and blog post.

Until then, drunken debauchery with hoodrats can ensue as the Bears beat the Stealers 17-14.