Steve Silverman

Every team takes its cues from the head coach.

In the NFL, every head coach is expected to be a teacher, a strategist and a leader.

Dennis Green does a good job at the first, a mediocre job at the second and fails miserably at the third.

His Arizona Cardinals were devastated Monday night in their 24-23 loss to the Bears, and there will be no coming back from this defeat as long as Green stalks the sidelines in suburban Glendale.

We’re not just talking about his postgame rant in which he demeaned the Bears. “Go ahead and crown them if you want but they are who we thought they were. … We let them off the hook,” Green screamed.

Poise and leadership? Both flew out the window long ago with Green.

That tirade was just the guacamole on top of the nachos. His demeanor on the sidelines during the second half smacked of panic. Everything about Green’s persona was imploring his team not to choke. Of course they followed suit.

The Cardinals shut down the Bears’ previously explosive offense and dominated the game with their defense. But while Green frantically tried to figure out a way to get his team to hold on, Bears coach Lovie Smith cut a stoic figure on the other sideline and watched his team fight back and take the game with its defense and special teams.

Before meeting the Cardinals, the Bears had looked like the best team in football. On a night when quarterback Rex Grossman had an embarrassingly bad performance — four interceptions and two lost fumbles — they still figured out a way to win the game.

Green’s team had a 20-point lead into the final seconds of the third quarter. But when Mark Anderson crashed around right end into quarterback Matt Leinart and forced a fumble that Mike Brown scooped and returned three yards for a touchdown, it set off a chain of events that Green and his losing team could not prevent.

They had their opportunities, especially after Grossman threw fourth-quarter interceptions to Darnell Dockett and Robert Griffith that would have put the game away if another team besides the Cardinals had been involved. But the picks just played into the Bears' hands by putting their defense back on the field.

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The Cardinals had done a great job of moving the ball and putting two touchdowns on the board in the first quarter. After that, the Bears defense controlled Leinart and the Arizona offense. That's because Green became more conservative in his playcalling when he should have stayed aggressive.

The Cardinals showed no ability to move the ball on the ground, but Green kept calling Edgerrin James’ number in a fruitless attempt to shrink the game. If James had run for three or four yards per carry, the strategy would have been successful. But James had 36 carries for 55 yards — not even a yard and a half per attempt. The Associated Press, citing the Elias Sports Bureau, said that was the most carries in an NFL game by a player while averaging less than 2 yards per carry.

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Even with all those pratfalls, the Cardinals still had a chance to win. But Neil Rackers, the best kicker in the NFL last season, missed a 41-yard field goal attempt at the end of the game. Even that speaks to Green's conservative play: The Cardinals moved down the field on the final drive but resorted to run plays at the end to wind down the clock instead of trying to get closer.

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