Coaches rarely will admit publicly what they'll concede privately, that sometimes the best scenario is for a team to win now -- and get good later. That's where the Chicago Bears are now. They're not particularly good yet, not after losing two straight and having to cling to victory at home over the historically awful New York Giants.

Brandon Marshall said it's nice to be able to get a win while still trying to improve. Andrew Mills/USA TODAY Sports

The takeaway from beating the Giants is that the Bears won. That's it. On a night (Thursday) when essentially nobody in his right mind wants to play an NFL game, the Bears survived to reach 4-2. They botched an early fourth down on a drive that should have yielded either a field goal or touchdown, they stopped their own momentum numerous times by failing to convert third downs, they allowed the Giants' Brandon Jacobs to look as if he'd bathed pregame in the fountain of youth. They let the Giants hang around way too long and get within one dropped pass from 1st-and-10 at the Bears 15 with plenty of time left to steal a win. The Bears did a lot of things really good teams don't do.

But the Bears also did the things you have to do, in the meantime, to win, like not commit a turnover or allow a single sack and win the turnover battle, 3-0. And a guy who wants desperately to lead rather boldly led the way.

It didn't look like Brandon Marshall was going to lead anything when he dropped that fourth-and-1 pass on the Bears' first offensive series after Zack Bowman's interception set the Bears up for what really good teams consider an easy score. Marshall, as he came back to the bench, even asked Jay Cutler if catching that pass would have equaled a touchdown, and Cutler truthfully answered that not only was there no touchdown to be scored on that pass, there probably was not a first down in it either. It made Marshall feel marginally better, though he admitted afterward, "It sucks when it starts that way."

But that was Marshall's only real miscue of the night. Cutler threw to him 10 times and completed nine of them for 87 yards and a pair of touchdowns. The thing I liked most about Marshall afterward -- actually it was Marshall and Cutler -- was his unflinching honesty about where this team is six games into the season. Marshall and Cutler don't spin it or sugarcoat it or give you any Belichickian double-speak. Plenty of folks felt Marshall was out of line or on the verge of stirring up trouble, selfishly, a week ago when the Bears lost to the Saints and Marshall was a nonfactor.