The first myth debunked is that the Bears have a great run defense but have struggled against the pass. In fact, the Bears are a pick-your-poison, feast-or-famine unit that can sell out to stop the run or sell out to stop the pass, but can't stop everything at once.

The Bears ended a wretched trend of allowing four straight quarterbacks to achieve a season-high in passing yardage, but at the expense of letting embattled running back Ryan Grant rush for a season-high 145 yards on 25 carries (5.8 yards per rush). The Bears didn't exactly shut down Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, mind you (23-for-30, 227 yards, two touchdowns, 105.8 passer rating).

''Everyone wants [the defense] to be what it used to be, and it's not that,'' said safety Mike Brown, whose big hits belied the fact that his teammates were getting thrown around like rag dolls all afternoon. ''It's all about performance, and we haven't been performing well. Wherever we're ranked, that's where we deserve to be ranked. It is what it is. Once we come to grips that our defense isn't what it's supposed to be, we'll all be better off.''

The other truth is that the offense doesn't have the firepower to rally from a deficit. This is an obvious one given the team's lack of front-line talent at receiver. The Bears are OK as a group, but they just don't have the big-play, go-to-guy needed to bail out the offense when they fall behind by a couple of touchdowns. This was underlined by how quickly and perhaps foolishly the Bears seemed to abandon the run in reaction to the Packers' success on offense. Green Bay has an excellent secondary, as was evidenced by the Bears completing just four passes to wide receivers.

The Packers are terrible against the run. Why not continue to run when Matt Forte averaged four yards per carry on just 16 runs?

Regardless, while the Bears might not look like a playoff team, they remain in position to win the NFC North -- if they can respond in the same way their competition has in the last two weeks.

Minnesota absolutely had to beat Green Bay last week to stay alive in the division and legitimize coach Brad Childress, who was winless against the Packers in his first five meetings. Likewise, the Packers had to beat the Bears to stay alive in the division and legitimize their coach, who had lost at home to Lovie Smith in each of his first two years. With Brett Favre leading the Jets' playoff express, it was tantamount to a must-win for the Packers.

Now it's the Bears' turn to get their season back on track. They have a road game at woeful St. Louis on Sunday to begin the process of rebuilding their confidence and then will have to be at their best the next week to win at Minnesota and put themselves back in the divisional driver's seat.

''We have to go game-by-game, man, that's the only way we're going to make it to the playoffs,'' Brown said. ''We can't think ahead. We're a .500 Football team. The good thing is, pretty much everyone in our division is a .500 Football team, so that's the silver lining.''

The real silver lining is that, bad as things seem after this loss, there's not a single team that currently has a winning record on the Bears' remaining schedule.

If the Bears can take care of business in St. Louis, it sets up a huge game at Minnesota -- and the Vikings may be seriously undermanned. The so-called ''Williams Wall'' of defensive tackles Kevin and Pat Williams (no relation) faces a hearing at the NFL offices Tuesday regarding a four-game ban both players face for violating the league's policy on steroids and related substances. Both reportedly tested positive for using a diuretic that serves as a masking agent for steroids.

The league probably doesn't want to pull players off the field for a game that could decide the division championship, but if the Bears face Minnesota without the Williams Wall, things will be significantly easier. And if the two tackles wind up being suspended after the game, the Vikings still will have a hard time finishing out the season.

But the Bears have a lot to fix, starting with the confounding defense that not only was beaten on the line of scrimmage, but refused to tackle.

''There were a lot of things that went on, OK?'' embattled defensive coordinator Bob Babich said. ''It starts with me. We just didn't stop the run, we didn't do anything well today as a defensive unit. As the leader of the unit, we've got to play better and we will play better. Our players have a lot of character, a lot of pride and we've got to get it taken care of.''

Maybe it will help now that the Bears have one thing going for them that they've been sorely lacking: a sense of desperation.

Mike Mulligan and Sun-Times colleague Brian Hanley host a sports-talk show from 6 to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday on WSCR-AM (670).