Week 14- BEARS @ Vikings, Game Preview

The Bears went 3-1 in the 1st quarter of the season.  4-0 in the 2nd quarter.  Just finished a troubling 1-3 in the 3rd quarter.  Now starts the 4th quarter of the season.  The Bears were once a 7-1 team, thought of as possibly the best team in the league had they beat a 7-1 Houston team at home.  But losses in 3 out of 4 games and injuries starting to mount has Bears Nation concerned.  That being said, most Bears fans know that this team has a pretty good shot at making the playoffs.  The question most of us have though, "what good is it going to do if the Bears can't beat a good team"?  All 4 of the Bears losses have come to teams currently in the playoffs (if the season ended).  And the only of the 8 wins against a "good" team was at home in Andrew Luck's NFL debut with the Colts in Week 1.  But have no fear Bears fans!  I will try to put your wandering minds at ease!

Breaking down the Bears 4 losses, they may not be as bad as they seem on paper.  As I mentioned, all 4 losses were to teams that are likely playoff participants.  However, the 1st loss was on a short week on the road in Green Bay.  Granted it sucks to lose to the Packers at any time, but that loss was on the road, against a division rival, on a short week.  But not just any short week, it was Week 2.  Four days after the season opener.  If you throw in the fact that many Bears starters either didn't play or played very sparingly in Week 2 of the preseason, and absolutely NONE of them played in Week 4 of the preseason....you're talking about a team that played half a game together, had essentially 2 weeks off, then had to play 2 games in a span of 4 days.  While the Packers had to do the same, it's a lot easier to deal with when you don't have to travel for either of those games.  The next 2 losses were a close one with Cutler missing 1/2 the game, and a blowout with Cutler missing all the game.  That leads me to last Sunday.

While the Bears did lose the game vs. the Seahawks, there were some positives that came out of it.  The Bears are a different team without Cutler, and that team ain't pretty.  But the last 2 weeks, the offense has really shown signs of putting it together.  The Cutler led Bears offense has gone 17-31 on 3rd downs since he's come back from the concussion.  That number is even skewed to the lower end by Mike Tice essentially giving up on a handful of 3rd downs with late leads.  The Bears moved the ball to the tune of 7.16 yards per play on Sunday, and even taking out the desperation bomb to Marshall, that number would still be over 7...which is a pretty good number.  The Bears put up 358 yards of total offense, which isn't an astounding number, but has been a magic number when it comes to the Bears.  When Cutler has led the offense to over 350 total yards, the team is 12-2 and averaging over 26 points per game (that's with taking out defensive scores too).  Despite 2 injuries and a walkout, the Bears OL has been impressive in pass protection also the last 2 weeks.  Cutler has been sacked just 1 time each of the last 2 games.  And even those sacks came on a Cutler dropped shotgun snap on Sunday and him tripping over his center the week before.  Tice has done a decent job the last 2 weeks of mixing in short, intermediate and long drops.  He's moved the pocket.  He's put Marshall in the slot often and run crossing routes to get guys open.  Bennett, Rodriguez and Forte have gotten involved more in the passing game.  Sunday was especially impressive considering the Bears were down to Marshall and their #5 and 6 WRs for half the game, against maybe the best secondary in the league.  The Bears offense should be getting Jeffery back this week, followed by hopefully Bennett and Hester by next week at the latest.  Should only go up from here on offense, especially now that the big defensive tests are over......for now.

Did I give you a ray of hope yet?  Well, now I gotta call it how I see it on the other side of the ball.  The last 4 weeks the Bears defense has been very lackluster.  Granted, they've only given up 321 yards per game over the last 4 (even with a 450 yard output allowed Sunday), but they have been exposed.  Houston opened up a huge can of worms with their stretch run plays.  This is the play that is a long-slow developing handoff where the OL all takes hard slants to the play side, blocking anyone who tries to cross their face.  Sometimes there are crackback blocks, TEs in motion or pulling weakside linemen.  Arian Foster was able to get a couple of big runs and Gore, Peterson and Lynch have now followed suit.  The Bears OF old would have little trouble stopping this play, but now the Bears ARE old at some key spots.  A young Brian Urlacher would have been able to scrape to the outside and beat the slanting/pulling OL to the punch and stop the RB for minimal gain.  And he did do that on occasion the last 4 weeks, but he typically cheated to the outside to do so.  The Bears have also been hurt a couple times because of the cheating outside and are susceptible to the cutback.  But Urlacher doesn't get all the blame here.  The Bears DEs have done a horrific job holding the edge.  Julius Peppers and Israel Idonije have allowed OTs to block them away from the edge to allow RBs the corner to pick up positive yardage way too often.  Russell Wilson joined into the act Sunday as the Bears DEs consistently lost contain and he picked up any 3rd down he needed with his legs.  The coverage also suffered Sunday as Wilson kept plays alive and the CBs couldn't stay with the Seahawks speedy WRs for that long. With Urlacher now out for possibly 3 weeks, I'm interested to see how Nick Roach handles this at the Mike LB position.  He really looked good in the preseason and a good end to this season could mean he takes over the job full-time in 2013.  Minnesota will definitely test him this week with Peterson and with Kyle Rudolph the TE in the middle of the field.

But basically, this Bears D has become entirely dependent on getting turnovers.  It feels like when they don't get a turnover, they really don't know what to do.  Of course, the Bears D has gotten multiple turnovers in all but 2 games so far.  But the 2 games they didn't, the 49ers dominated them and the Seahawks beat them with TD scoring drives of 94, 97, and 80 in OT.  They have won every game that they've forced at least 2 turnovers, other than when they've given up 4 TOs on offense themselves. 

Going forward, I can see the Bears offense continuing to get better.  Cutler-to-Marshall is as good as any QB/WR combo in the league.  But as the Bears get some guys healthy and get more guys involved, it's only going to make them more dangerous, with 350 yards as the benchmark.  Defensively, turnovers may not be as easy to come by once they get the better teams in the playoffs (if they make it there).  But it has been the one phase of the Lovie Smith era that has been consistent.  Don't discount this team's chances to move the ball with a healthy offense and to take the ball away with an opportunistic defense.  As for this week's game, I expect more of the same from 2 weeks ago.  I think the offense will move the ball, and put up points.  I think the defense will struggle some against Peterson, but don't feel Christian Ponder is good enough to beat them with his arm.  And while he is mobile, he's not Russell Wilson back there, so he shouldn't be able to beat them with his legs either.