Thoughts on a 31-7 beatdown at the hand of the Ravens …

For as bad as the Bears looked in the first half — two Cutler picks that didn’t need to happen (one in the red zone, surprise!); the defense letting Ray Rice run down their throats — they only trailed 14-7 at half and were moving the ball pretty well.

They certainly didn’t have any momentum, but they were very much in this game. Then the third quarter hit, and before you could blink, the Ravens had scored twice — a Rashied Davis fumble in Bears’ territory on a kickoff helped there — before the Bears’ offense even got their hands on the ball. That was all they needed.

Turnovers are going to happen; they’re a part of the game of football. But when you’re the Bears, a team that has a very low margin of error thanks to an anemic offense and a defense that hasn’t held like it has in recent years, you can’t turn the ball over six times and expect to have a good shot at a win. The Ravens capitalized early and often on them, and the Bears simply had no answer of their own.

As far as Cutler was concerned yesterday, well, it’s getting harder and harder to blame his woes on a weak offensive line and no running game. He was downright dreadful yesterday (10-of-27, 94 yards, three interceptions, 7.9 QB rating), and seemed to be in one of his sulking, I-don’t-give-a-crap moods. And each time the FOX announcing crew mentioned how he’s guaranteed $20 million by the Bears, you sort of wanted to find a hole and crawl in it. It was nice seeing Caleb Hanie get some snaps at the end of the game just to see someone else behind center, until he threw a pick. D’oh.

And when you see Joe Flacco put up a highlight reel day — 21-for-29, 234 yards, four TD (career high), 135.6 passer rating (career high) — for the Ravens, it makes it that much worse.

It felt like Matt Forte had a pretty good game yesterday thanks to a couple of runs in the 8-10 yard range, but a quick check of his numbers show that it was just another ho-hum day for the second-year back: he rushed 20 times for 69 yards, good for a pedestrian 3.5 yards per carry. Cutler — four rushes, 23 yards — and Kahlil Bell — six rushes, 30 yards, 5.0 yards per carry — were more productive in their limited sample size of runs.

Thankfully, we only have three more weeks of this mess left.