The Bears head into Sunday as 10-point home favorites against the Lions. I wish it were higher. Not for gambling reasons, either. At this point, I think I'm past laying down money on sports, outside of fantasy football and March Madness, of course. I want this line to be doubled - 20 - and I want the Bears to play like they are fighting against it.

Because, to be honest, I don't think "a win is a win" works this week. Against the Steelers at home? Oh sure. In Seattle, but against a banged up Seahawks team? I guess. Not this week. The Bears can't win this game on a Cutler-led fourth quarter drive. If it's that close, they're in trouble.

This isn't to say that Detroit is the equivalent of playing a college team, because they're not. But even after last week's win, this is still one of the two or three worst teams in football. The Bears don't need to beat them on Sunday, they need to dominate them.

I'm setting the offensive bar at four touchdowns, at least. Any less and I'll be disappointed. This offense has proven the last two weeks that it has mad firepower. It's time to piece it all together and go for the kill with a bad team in your own division.

The defense doesn't concern me as much. Stompy called the Steelers a '15' in the comment section a couple weeks ago, meaning they were just average. The Bears' D is probably a 15, too. Maybe they're better than that because they don't give up many points, and rarely yield a touchdown, but it seems like hoping for more than a '15' will only lead to disappointment. The defense should look great this week, because the Lions are terrible, but it's going to take a lot of convincing before I think they're back to being able to carry this team.

And they shouldn't need to carry this team, because the offense, I think, is really good. It's time they prove it, though. If we exclude the first half against Green Bay, Cutler has been Grade-A incredible. These receivers are good enough. Forte will get going, at some point. Still, the Bears haven't put it all together yet this season. Sunday is the time to do it.

*
Cutler's place: The other day, I got into a bit of a tiff with my main man, and former Top Ten'er, Danny Sheridan at work. After watching the Bears just squeak by in Seattle, he proclaimed that there are "at least 10 quarterback I would take over Cutler".

He started to list them off, "Ben Roethlisberger, Carson Palmer, Aaron Rodgers...." and kept going. I'm 99 percent sure he said Matt Schaub, but I can't remember because I momentarily blacked out from frustration. I rarely get worked up when arguing about sports at this point, but goddammit Danny you are stupid.

Well, he's not stupid, but sort of. Here's the problem, one that infects lots of people, not just Danny: we are over-critical of our own guys because we watch them so much, and we think too highly of dudes on other teams because we only see the highlights.

In baseball, this isn't a problem. A quick look-up of OPS usually solves all arguments. Even if it isn't a perfect metric, it's good enough and simple enough.

We can't do that in football, really, so you have to go off basic stats and your eyes. My eyes tell me that Cutler is one of the best quarterbacks in the league. He doesn't have the resume yet, or the playcalling to take him to the next level in everyone's mind, and I sort of get that. But I ask you this: the last two games, can you imagine a quarterback playing better in Ron Turner's system, behind that offensive line?

Give Cutler an offensive genius like the Schaub has calling the plays (not to mention a receiver like Andre 3,000), and we'd be seeing Jay over the 300 yard mark every week. A better o-line would be quite beneficial, too.

That's not the reality, though. This year, Jay is working with an inexperienced group of receivers that really don't do him any favors. He's working with Orlando Pace, Chris Williams, and Frank Omiyale. He's working with a very, very bland - while not completely terrible - play-caller in Turner.

The big stats, and the wins, and the awards will come for Cutler. He's that good, and I think he's there already. It's everyone that needs to catch up.

*
More Marinelli: Continuing the theme from Wednesday...

Sunday's game against the Lions organization that fired him after his winless 2008 campaign is sure to trigger his emotions, right?

"For me? No," Marinelli said. "I'm not built that way. All my energy is to our team."

This man is clearly a cyborg.

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