Week 1: CHICAGO BEARS vs. Cincinnati Bengals

After 252 days of offseason, opening day for the 2013 Chicago Bears is finally upon us!  The new look Bears open the season with a bang, facing a team considered an AFC favorite by some, the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Bears are probably going to be pretty status quo on the defensive side of the ball.  9 of 11 starters return, different coordinator, but the same language and scheme will be used.  While I won't allege that the Bears will score 10 TDs on defense, but they still should get plenty of turnovers and put the offense on short fields more consistently than any other team in the league.

The matchup everyone is watching for will be Bengals stud WR, AJ Green vs. Charles "Peanut" Tillman.  Peanut was the best CB in football last year, IMO.  Even with a record breaking number of forced fumbles last year, Tillman showed the world how good he is by basically shutting down Calvin Johnson, who had almost 2000 yards against everyone else he faced last season.  While Green isn't as good as Megatron, he does pose some different challenges for Peanut.  He's a little twitchier and Tillman won't be able to play his physical style as much against him, because Green knows he can't win those matchups (whereas Calvin could, but didn't).  I'd imagine the Bears will play a similar gameplan though, with Tillman crowding at the line and then getting safety help over the top on every necessary play.

Green will get his stats, but the Bears are going to force someone else to beat them thru the air.  The thing I do worry about is Cincinnati has a ton of bodies to throw out there to give the Bears several different looks.  I was a big Sanu fan out of Rutgers and he looks to be starting to find a role in the offense in Cincy.  They also have Marvin Jones, another recent draft favorite of mine, to potentially take the top off the defense on the outside.  But the real concern has to be the inside.  Jermaine Gresham is effectively, the Bengals #2 receiver.  He provides a tough matchup, though isn't a huge difference maker at the TE position like guys like Gronkowski or Graham.  But this year, Gresham has some help to muck up the middle.  The Bengals drafted TE, Tyler Eifert in the 1st and RB, Giovani Bernard in the 2nd.  Both figure to be huge factors in the passing game between the numbers.  Fortunately for the Bears, this is an area they have been fine at in the past and look to have improved this offseason.  James Anderson is widely regarded as one of the top pass covering LBs in the league, and has shown just that so far in the preseason.  The Bengals though, will try to take advantage of rookie, Jon Bostic (when he's out there) and Major Wright, who can be liabilities in coverage.  Worth noting is the fact that Andy Dalton has typically struggled vs. strong pass defenses so far in his career.  Last year, Dalton played 4 games vs. teams top 10 in defense vs. the pass (where the Bears have been each of the last 2 years).  Dalton completed about 55% of his passes with just 2 TDs and 5 INTs.  As a rookie, Dalton threw 10 of his 13 INTs against playoff teams with top pass defenses.  Both seasons ended with terrible showings in the playoffs vs. a strong Houston pass D each time.

I don't expect the Bengals to be able to do anything special in the run game.  The Bears have long been a strong run D and frankly, the "Lawfirm" isn't that good of a runner.  Bernard could cause problems with quickness, but I think this Bears D is faster than last year with Urlacher on his last legs.  A huge factor to the pass rush will be if LT, Andrew Whitworth is unable to go this week for the Bengals.  I'd take my chances with Julius Peppers against most starters, with a backup in there, he could have a great opener. 

Offensively, this is a good test for the Bears to see if Trestman holds true to his west coast principles.  The revamped Bears OL gets possibly the best D-line this league has to offer right off the bat.  Rookies Kyle Long and Jordan Mills were excellent on the right side in preseason, but they will see a ton of Carlos Dunlap, Michael Johnson, and the league's best DT, Geno Atkins.  So, the key will be getting the ball out of Cutler's hands quickly, because frankly, there's no way the Bears can consistently block this front 4 for very long periods of time. 

But if you can get past the front 4, that's where the Bengals can be exploited.  Cincy has maybe the slowest group of LBs in the league, including James Harrison, who is now over 35 and playing in the 4-3 for the first time in his career.  Last year, the Bengals LB corps was taken advantage of to the point of being 22nd in the league in yards given up to the opposing TE.  They also gave up a ton of catches to RBs out of the backfield as their LBs simply cannot stay with any kind of speed in the flat or down the middle of the field.  Conversely, the Bengals gave up the 3rd fewest yards to WRs last year.  So again, Trestman's vow to get players other than Marshall involved in the passing game is imperative right away.  Marshall and Jeffery have tough matchups vs. a pair of very strong CBs.  But you can throw all day on Maualuga, Burfict, and whoever the starter of their mediocre strong safeties will be. Forte and Martellus Bennett will be key factors in the passing game.  Worth noting, Cutler has been outstanding early and has thrown for at least 300 yards in all but 1 of his 6 career Week 1 starts.

In the run game, again you have to exploit the lack of speed on the second level.  For the last 2-3 years, the Bears have really been a superb team running the ball outside the tackles.  Pulling guards, sometimes tackles (see long Forte run in preseason) has paved the way for huge gains in the recent past.  And while it was the Raiders the Bears dominated a couple weeks ago, the new zone blocking scheme gets Forte on the edge, which is something the Bengals really struggled with vs. Houston and Arian Foster.

The Bengals are one of the few teams in the league that can matchup with the Bears in the return game.  They have very dangerous punt and kickoff returners, so the Bears coverage teams need to play well also.  Special teams may be close to a wash, so this game will come down to the main 2 phases of the game, between 2 teams that, I think, are very similar.  Both teams have big-time WRs, with role players trying to find their niche in the offense.  The Bears have the better RB.  The Bengals have the better, more experienced OL and TE.  Both teams have strong front 4s and back 4's.  But the Bears have better LBs, though there are 2 new guys here.  I'm expecting a close game.  Bears will win if they can keep the pressure off of Cutler and get Dalton to turn the ball over on defense.  The Bengals will win if they can exploit matchups in the middle of the field and stop the Bears run game, forcing them into 3rd and longs and becoming 1-dimensional. 

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