BEARS 34, Buccaneers 31, OT: I Am Not Amused

Not funny, guys. Not cute, not impish, not daring. Blowing a three-touchdown lead against a woeful team while trying to tune up for a Super Bowl run is nothing but alarming.

In fact, the need for overtime to finally dispatch of the 3-11 Tampa Bay Buccaneers despite second-half leads of 21-3 and 31-17 belies a disturbing trend in which the BEARS defense lets up after the team builds a three-touchdown lead.

It happened twice last week against St. Louis, but both times it was covered up, once by an offensive TD drive and once by a Devin Hester kick return. You have to go all the way back to the San Francisco game (Game 7) to find the BEARS’ last three-touchdown lead, but remember that he 49ers outscored the BEARS 10-0 in the second half of that game.

Fast-forwarding back to this week, you can blame Hester’s fumble at 24-10 for letting the Bucs back in the game, but if the defense shuts the door on the previous drive there’s no kickoff to fumble. And only the defense is to blame for a 95-yard drive with a 64-yard catch-and-run touchdown play, or the 44-yard scoring play on the next drive. The BEARS allowed more yards on those two plays than they did in the first 40 minutes of the game (80), for crying out loud.

You’ll notice the Patriots didn’t let up after building a 40-7 lead on Sunday, and you also may notice that the Patriots have won three of the last five Super Bowls. There is a correlation.

I’d like to think the defensive problems are nothing more than a result of the jaw-droppingly long list of missing players. But on the other hand, Ian Scott, starting in place of troubled Tank Johnson, had three batted passes, two tackles, two assists, and one fumble recovery in overtime that should have been the game-defining moment.

On the other hand, the 49ers’ two long touchdown plays in the fourth quarter were in large part because rookie Daniele Manning -- who probably wouldn’t be starting if Mike Brown OR Nathan Vasher OR Todd Johnson was still healthy -- got flat-out outplayed.

All of this overshadowed a monster game for tight end Desmond Clark, whose seven catches for 125 yards included two touchdowns, one while getting bulldozed. It overshadowed a gritty touchdown to restore a late 14-point lead by Cedric Benson, who earned the score for the pass protection he gave Rex Grossman on that drive. And it overshadowed a 300-yard day for Grossman, who started out looking shaky by ended with an All-Pro-quality line: 29-for-44 for 339 yards, 2 TD/0 INT.

OK. I got that out of my system and a feel a little better now. And with the win, no matter how harrowing, the BEARS did clinch home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, which makes them the heavy favorite to come out of the NFC. But I remain very concerned that despite the inability of any of the other 15 teams to establish themselves as a worthy competitor, the BEARS will go out and beat themselves in the playoffs.