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.