Olsen bad to the last drop

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Nobody felt worse than tight end Greg Olsen after Sunday's loss to the Carolina Panthers. And nobody should have. It was a pair of turnovers by Olsen, fumbles in the first and third quarters, that turned the game against the Bears. Well, it was the second fumble more than the first that doomed the team, but fumbles are never a good thing.

''Anytime you have two critical errors that lead to your team losing, it's tough to swallow,'' Olsen said. ''That's really all there is to say. It's unacceptable.''

The first came on the Bears' second possession after the team had reached the 25-yard line with a chance to add to a 7-0 lead after driving down the field from the shadow of their own goalpost. Olsen coughed up the ball after taking a hit from linebacker Thomas Davis. The ball was picked up by Jon Beason and returned 12 yards, but the Panthers couldn't get anything going.

The second fumble came one play after the Panthers closed the deficit to 17-6 with their second field goal. Olsen caught a pass in the flat from Kyle Orton and turned upfield for a nine-yard gain before former Bears safety Chris Harris poked the ball out while tackling him.

''It was a takeaway on their part, but we look at it as a turnover,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith said. ''We have to secure the football. It's kind of as simple as that. We know coming in, both defenses, that's what they live by, stripping the football. Learning experience for us, we have to protect the ball better than that.''

NFL coaches hate turnovers, and Olsen is lucky he's a good enough player to survive those kinds of mistakes. The coaches put him right back on the field for the next series. Former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson once famously cut a player on the Soldier Field turf as he walked back to the sidelines after a second fumble in the season finale. The Cowboys won the game in a blowout, mind you, and went on to win the Super Bowl. But two fumbles in one game is simply not allowed.

''Both times the same thing happened,'' Olsen said. ''I caught it and I was bringing it in to tuck it and he reached around and punched it before I could tuck it away,'' Olsen said. ''The fact is you can't turn the ball over, especially in those situations. You can't do that to your team. You can't put them in those situations.''

Harris forced a league-high eight fumbles last year and already has two this season.

''That's an easy one when I'm tackling on the side,'' Harris said. ''Most ball carriers will try to give you a stiff arm or something, or they are not paying attention. It's kind of like when you are playing basketball with lazy defense and the guy tries to poke it out from behind. Those are the easy ones in football.''

(suntimes.com)