Bumbling Bears bear the brunt

It was Chicago Bears weather, rain blowing across Dolphin Stadium in dark and flapping sheets.

It was a Chicago Bears crowd, the huddled orange masses filling the place with monosyllabic chants and multicolored cheers.

It was even a Chicago Bears lead, eight points up on the stunned Indianapolis Colts late in the first quarter.

Then, at the worst possible moment Sunday, the worst possible collection of party crashers showed up.

The Chicago Bears.

Flirting with disaster all season, the Bears finally married it, ending five months of luck with 3 1/2 hours of lousiness in a 29-17 loss to the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLI.

Da Bears? Da Bums.

While the Colts danced off the confetti-strewn field with more relief than joy, the Bears trudged away with their heads down like impetuous children who had really messed up this time.

“Emptiness,” said linebacker Lance Briggs, shaking his head. “It’s like we did so much to get here and then ... we definitely could have put on a better showing.”

Even their postgame meal was straight from the school cafeteria, the giant Bears standing in their quiet locker room sheepishly holding paper plates filled with chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese.

All around the place, stools were overturned and trash was piled up and name plates were torn down.

And to think, they left the field even messier.

Of 48 offensive plays, they had only two truly good ones.

Of 81 defensive plays, they had 430 yards’ worth of bad ones.

In what the rain turned into the Slurpee Bowl, they were the cheap straw.

The Monsters of the Midway? They were the Munsters of the Midway.

Rex Grossman was the bumbling Herman, fumbling twice before throwing consecutive fourth-quarter interceptions that ended all hope.

Brian Urlacher was the erratic Grandpa disappearing under a flurry of short passes and hard runs that turned the cover boy into a help-wanted ad.

It was dark comedy indeed, uglier than even the bandanna that brave Prince wore at halftime to keep his hair in place.

The Colts outgained the Bears by 165 yards, ran 33 more plays, held the ball for nearly 17 more minutes, and stole their ball five times.

Before the Bears’ last two meaningless drives in the fourth quarter, they had gained a total of 168 yards.

By the time the game ended, they had crossed midfield on only two possessions since the first quarter.

In typical fashion, their comeback chances ended when Desmond Clark dropped a fourth-down pass around midfield with five minutes left. He promptly froze in place on the field, arms and legs extended, as if waiting for a road crew to carry him away.

Also in typical fashion, Grossman finally showed smarts only after the game ended, when he sprinted across the field to retrieve his baseball cap for the interview session.

When later asked if he thought his 68.3 passer rating would add fuel to the fires of criticism that have burned around him all season, Grossman fumbled again.

“That’s a weird question, and I’m not going to answer it,” he said.

When Urlacher was asked how the Bears could allow the Colts to dance over them as if playing on dry pavement, he missed another white jersey.

“We just needed to do a better job of tackling,” he said.

Since when do the Chicago Bears not tackle?

The most reasonable explanation came from Briggs, when asked if the Bears lost it instead of the Colts winning it.

He paused, sighed, shook his head.

“Absolutely,” he said.

Although they were certainly the best team in the NFC this season, the Bears may, in fact, have been one of the worst teams to appear on a Super Bowl field, a realization that began occurring late in Sunday’s sloppy first quarter.

They had the ball, and an eight-point lead, and were nearing Colts territory when running back Cedric Benson was crushed by Bob Sanders.

The ball popped out, the Colts’ Dwight Freeney recovered, and Chicago never did.

After that play, in the ensuing four possessions of the first half, the suddenly timid Bears gained 23 yards, punted three times and lost one fumble.

The Colts, meanwhile, were gaining 152 yards and scoring 10 points to take a two-point halftime lead they never lost.

Although the Colts surely spent the late Miami night with champagne, Bears running back Thomas Jones -- whose 52-yard run was one of their two good plays -- left with a different souvenir: His tattooed left arm was caked with a painted orange-and-blue chunk of the field.

It was as if he had been run over.

It was as if they all had been.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke, go to latimes.com/plaschke.