Chicago Herald-American

I wrote a commentary for the Sun-Times Web site Thursday, listing six reasons why the Bears are heading downhill. You can read it here, but the gist of it was this: 1) They can't evaluate offensive talent; 2) They can't develop offensive talent; 3) They can't properly rehabilitate injuries; 4) Lovie Smith has mismanaged his coaching staff; 5) They are poor at player-management; and 6) Their chain of command includes no one who can identify these systemic problems.

Thursday's Sun-Times reminded me of one more: 7) They are incapable of avoiding bad publicity. The Bears know how to make themselves look good. But they don't know how to avoid making themselves look bad.

The Sun-Times' Brad Biggs reported Thursday that the Bears would not be making Jay Cutler, Lovie Smith and Jerry Angelo available for interviews with NBC's Bob Costas, whose network will be broadcasting the Bears' game against the Eagles on Sunday night at Soldier Field. Lovie Smith explained in this follow-up story that "there's nothing more to say."

''We try to do whatever we can for anyone that's coming in,'' Smith said. ''We've played quite a few Sunday night games. There's not a whole lot more to talk about. We're making our players available right up until game time. But as far as participating an awful lot right now, it's kind of time for us to play football. We try to do as many interviews as we can during game week, but once you get a little bit closer to it, you're kind of reeling things in a little bit.

''There's nothing else to say. We're disappointed with where we are at this point in our season. We're anxious to play this game this week. We need to get to the game.''

That's their right, but it shows just how little they grasp the concept of public relations. For one thing, it's OK to control the message, but to try and control whether there should be a message is bad form. "Needlessly petty cowardice," as the Score's Dan Bernstein put it. And here's the kicker: Lovie Smith and Jay Cutler don't say anything anyway. They go out of their way to say nothing. There's no risk for them in doing the interviews, just the inconvenience of taking the time to talk to Bob Costas.  Don't they realize that when they say "There's nothing else to say," it comes across as "There's something to say, but we're not going to say it."

But then, that's the problem. They not only have no idea how bad this move makes them look publicly, and there's NOBODY at Halas Hall to tell them. Just do the interviews, say nothing and everybody's happy. Instead, almost as many columnists in town are weighing in on this issue as there were responding to Rex Grossman's dad's criticism of the Bears earlier this week for screwing up another quarterback.

Then again, public relations never has been a strongpoint for the Bears under the McCaskey regime. When I covered the Bears in the late 1990s, it seemed like every day brought a new episode: Curtis Enis' bizarre press conference -- including a head-spinning give-and-take with the Score's Dan Bernstein --  upon joining the Bears in 1998; Erik Kramer being healthy one minute and having a rotator-cuff injury the next; Dave Wannstedt announcing starting defensive end Mark Thomas being cut in the middle of answering a question at a press conference; and the piece of resistance: the botched hiring of Dave McGinnis to replace Wannstedt.

And they either don't know when their players are acting like imbeciles or don't care: Brian Urlacher's petulant, and bizarre, behavior in 2008. Unhappy with the way the local media (mostly the Sun-Times) was treating him in the wake of his dalliance with a stripper that produced a bastard child, he announced that any substantive information from him would come from Fox Sports' Jay Glazer, then acted like an idiot with curt, juvenile responses in mandatory press conferences.

The Tank Johnson incident. Cedric Benson having his moments. In each case the Bears had no clue how to manage bad news.

So this flap with blowing off Bob Costas is not surprising. You'd think somebody at Halas Hall would have the sense to tell Lovie Smith that not doing the interview is going to cause more problems for the organization than doing them. But there is no voice of reason at Halas Hall, where everybody thinks everybody is doing a heckuva job.

Interestingly, the Tribune's David Haugh wrote a column in Thursday's paper on the Blackhawks' John McDonough and how his attention to detail is helping drive the Blackhawks to a level of popularity not seen since the heyday of Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita. McDonough even noticed that Brent Seabrook "should be facing the camera straighter when he talks" in his postgame interview the other night.

Even with gaping holes on offense and defense, that's the kind of guy the Bears' organization needs most.

A Two-Week-Old "Exclusive" Interview?

ESPN radio's Marc Silverman of the "Waddle & Silvy Show" called out the Sun-Times for playing fast and loose with the selling of Mike Mulligan's "exclusive" interview with Jerry Angelo in this story  in Friday's paper. It was billed as "What Jerry Angelo Wouldn't Tell Bob Costas," and featured Angelo telling Mulligan "I am not alarmed," about the plight of the Bears.

''If we continue to develop our young players, play good on both sides of the line -- the quarterback has to play well -- I don't see why we can't compete with just about anybody,'' Angelo said. ''There are some teams, obviously, that really have it going, but there are always going to be those two or three teams. And we would certainly like to be one, but we're not at that level now. Do I think we could be? Yes. But we're not.''

Silvy called it a "bait-and-switch" for selling the story on the back page as a response to the uproar over his refusal to talk to Costas. I'm not so sure about that, but there is an interesting incongruity with the "exclusive" interview: it was exclusive, but it also was at least 10 days old.

"Angelo talked to the Sun-Times before a recent game about the short-term goals and long-range plans for the franchise," Mulligan wrote in his story.

Silvy brings up a good point: if Mike had an exclusvie interview with Angelo, why did he wait this long to run it? And "before a recent game" is a little cryptic, suggesting the interview might have been almost two weeks ago. If it was before the most recent game against the 49ers last Thursday, he would have said -- or should have said -- "Angelo talked to the Sun-Times before the 49ers game." If not, it was probably at least one game prior -- before the Nov. 8 against the Cardinals.

That would render much of what Angelo said obsolete, because it doesn't address the Bears' putrid performance against the Cardinals, nor Cutler's five-interception performance against the 49ers. Those were "alarming" performances -- indicators that the Bears as a team and Cutler in particular might not be making the progress Angelo thinks they are.

At the very least, we erred in not giving specific information about when the interview was conducted. Considering what's happened of late with the Bears, it makes all the difference in the world.  Jerry Angelo not being alarmed when the Bears were 4-3 after beating the Browns is one thing. Angelo not being alarmed after the Bears fell to 4-5 with losses to the Cardinals and 49ers is quite another.