Guard Kyle Long remembers the last time the Bears played the Steelers. He was a rookie in his third NFL game in 2013, playing on the road for the first time, on national TV, against a defense that had been ranked No. 1 in the NFL the previous three seasons.
“I remember playing [next to] Jordan Mills,” Long said. “We ran a power play, and they ran a cross-dog [blitz], and we picked it up somehow. And we sprang Matt Forte for, like, 60 yards.”
Forte’s 55-yard run to the Steelers’ 5-yard line — his longest run in three seasons — set up a touchdown that gave the new-look Bears a 17-0 lead in the first quarter en route to a 40-23 victory at Heinz Field. It was a memorable night for the Bears, who had five takeaways, scored two defensive touchdowns and responded to a Steelers rally by scoring clinching touchdowns on offense and defense in the fourth quarter to move to 3-0 under first-year coach Marc Trestman.
The Bears’ 40 points are still the most allowed by the Steelers at home since the 1999 season and the second-most points allowed by the Steelers home or away since 2006. The Bears scored on the run (Forte, Michael Bush), through the air (Jay Cutler to Earl Bennett) and with returns of an interception (Major Wright) and fumble (Julius Peppers, off a sack by Lance Briggs).
Coming off back-to-back fourth-quarter rallies to beat the Bengals and Vikings, Cutler had emerged as Mr. Clutch under Trestman. In his last five drop-backs of the first three games — all in games within a touchdown — Cutler was 12-for-14 for 208 yards and three touchdowns with no interceptions for a perfect 158.3 rating.
It’s hard to believe the Trestman era once was filled with hope, but on that night, Trestman was making second-year general manager Phil Emery look like a genius. Earlier in the day, the Cardinals (1-2) were ripped by the Saints 31-7, and nobody was pining for coaching-search runner-up Bruce Arians.
As it turned out, though, that victory against the then-struggling Steelers (0-3) was as good as it would get in the post-Lovie Smith era.
Defensive tackle Henry Melton, a Pro Bowl player the previous season, suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament in the fourth quarter and was out for the season. His replacement, Nate Collins, suffered a knee injury in his second game in place of Melton. By Week 6, Landon Cohen, signed off the street two weeks earlier, was starting at Melton’s three-technique position.
Old age and injuries accelerated the demise of the defense. The Bears, who had lost five games to injury among defensive starters in 2011 and nine in 2012, lost 39 games to injury in 2013 — including Briggs (seven games) and cornerback Charles Tillman (eight).
The Bears’ defense was losing its bite. Since that five-takeaway game against the Steelers, it has had 65 takeaways in 63 games (44 interceptions, 21 fumble recoveries). They had more than double that — 135 takeaways (80 interceptions, 55 fumble recoveries) — in the 63 previous games from 2009 through Week 3 of 2013.
Trestman’s style and message, which resonated so well early in his tenure, progressively faded as the Bears finished 8-8. And they have yet to recover. They’re 19-44 (.302) since that victory. The Steelers, who will face the Bears on Sunday at Soldier Field, are 42-21 (.667).
“It seems like yesterday, and it seems like a long time ago,” Long said. “We were foot to the pedal — it was Bengals, Vikings, Steelers. I guess I took winning for granted because I was so young.”
Follow me on Twitter @MarkPotash.
Email: mpotash@suntimes.com
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