Bears Find Team With Worse QB Than Theirs, Win 23-6

That's it, Todd Collins. I've stood up for you not once, but twice, and this is how you repay me? A 6.3 QB rating? An interception at the goal line, plus three other INTs? All this after an 8.1 rating last week? You know it's bad when your team has the ball at the 40 yard line, with just under two minutes left in the first half, and they're content to run out the clock (huddling up and calling slow-developing run plays) rather than risk having the QB throwing it down the field to try to put points on the board. So go find some other blogger to write good things about you, Todd Collins.

So how does a team with a starting QB with a 6.3 rating win? Playing a team whose starting QB has a 29.7 rating helps. So does rediscovering your running game at an opportune time (thank you, Matt Forte, for producing more yards rushing (166) than Carolina's entire offense (147)). And of course, the defense was outstanding again, forcing three turnovers and never letting it feel like Carolina was in the game, even with a lead of only 17-6 in the 4th quarter.

All in all, a grind-it-out win against a vastly inferior opponent still counts, and with the Packers losing in Washington (and losing their All-Pro QB to a concussion as well), the Bears are back on top of the NFC North. It would be nice to have Jay Cutler back next Sunday (and by the way, after today's display, I hope no one complains about Cutler again this year), because if the Bears continue to run the ball as well as they did today, a healthy Cutler will make for an explosive offense. Maybe the Bears will not only be a first place team, they'll even look like a first-place team too.