Week 5- Bears @ Jaguars, Game Preview

Lovie is known for breaking the season down in quarters, by each set of 4 games.  Well, the Bears got out of the 1st quarter of the season in pretty good shape.  At 3-1, the Bears are about where I expected them to be.  Won the 2 games at home against teams they were clearly superior to.  Beat the Cowboys sounded on the road.  Only loss was losing the home opener for the Packers on a short week.  Granted, I was pretty optimistic about the GB game given both team's openers, but that wasn't a game that was circled on the schedule as one the Bears "had to have".

The 2nd quarter of the season starts, and while I don't like to look ahead, 3-1 looks again to be worst acceptable case scenario.  Four straight 1-win teams on the schedule.  On paper, the Detroit game looks to be the toughest, but that is a home game with the Bears having 14 days off before welcoming the Lions back to a place they got annihilated last year.  A home game the following week is sandwiched by road games at Tennessee in Week 9, and this week in Jacksonville.

Many are going to point to this game as a potential letdown game because of the short week and bye coming up.  But if there is any letdown with this team, I expect it to happen defensively.  The defense hasn't had to completely carry the team like in years past, but they have done their part in keeping the offense in the game in Green Bay and vs. the Rams until they got going (or didn't in Week 2's case).  Monday night, the D provided all the momentum plays with 2 TDs and a big turnover in the redzone when the Cowboys looked to make it a 1-score game again.  A couple years ago, the Bears beat the Eagles in a national televised game of what most thought were two evenly matched teams.  The Bears won the game, but then kind of went thru the motions the next week vs. the 2-9 Lions.  The defense didn't force any turnovers and allowed the Lions to convert 6 of 14 third downs (1 of 2 fourth downs), only forcing ONE 3-and-out the entire game. They didn't get a ton of pressure in that game. A poor running team was able to get 5 yards a pop against them. And backup QB, Drew Stanton had a 102 QB rating.

However, even a "going thru the motions" game by the D should be good enough to beat the Jags.  For one, the offense should be able to move the ball and put up enough points to beat a Jags teams that has struggled to score points for several years now.  Secondly, the Bears defense is really, really tough to score on.  The Bears have allowed 68 points this season.  But you have to take out 14 allowed by a Cutler pick 6 in the opener and the fake FG TD in Green Bay.  That leaves 54 points in 4 games.  While that is good, consider that the Bears have given up their share of points in garbage time.  The Colts scored their last TD when down 20 points in the 4th quarter.  The "great" Packers offense got a last second FG before halftime, as did the Rams.  The Cowboys scored 15 of their 18 points in the last 35 seconds of each half.  The Bears defense has allowed a grand total of 33 points in the first 29 minutes of the 8 halves of football they've played this season.  9 of those 33 have come on FGs over 45 yards, 7 came on a 1-play, 26 yard drive in the GB game after a Cutler INT, and the aforementioned 7 came with the Bears up 20 on the Colts.

On defense (and I hope the Bears coaches are taking note here), the Bears might just see a lot of Maurice Jones-Drew.  It's no secret the Jags will try to get the ball to MJD in the run game, in the pass game, they will do everything they can to test Urlacher's health.  And while Gabbert is the least productive QB in the league (again), he doesn't make a ton of mistakes (hard to mess up a check down throw), so the Bears shouldn't count on padding their league leading 11 INTs much.  Gabbert though, won't always check down.  I expect him to take a couple shots deep in Cecil Shorts' direction, especially if the Bears start to commit Wright and/or Conte in the box to stop MJD.  Shorts is a big play threat with 1/2 of his 6 catches going for 20+ this year, including a game-winning 80-yarder vs. the Colts.  Then again, the Bears also are among the league leaders in sacks, and the Jags can't pass block very well so deep shots may not even be possible for Blaine.  With Laurent Robinson out, the Bears will likely allow Charles Tillman to follow Justin Blackmon around the field and get physical with the Jags' 2012 first round pick.  Blackmon showed vs. a much smaller Leonard Johnson, last year vs. Iowa St that he can struggle with tough coverage.  It doesn't get much tougher than Peanut.

On offense, the inconsistent Bears offense faces a defense that doesn't do very much well.  They don't rush the pass well, with only 2 sacks so far on the season.  They have only caused 4 turnovers in 4 games.  And they are 30th in the league in run defense.  Not going to provide much insight this week, but basically the offense has to take what the Jags give them.  If they sell out to help that porous run D, then the passing game will be wide open.  If they try to drop back in their typical 2-deep coverage, Forte and Bush will eventually gash them in the run game.  If they blitz, they don't have anyone that can cover Marshall or Jeffery's size or Devin Hester's speed. 

Not necessarily expecting a blowout this week, as the stature of the two teams suggest.  But the Bears should be able to win this game.   It'll probably be another boring game like the Rams.  If the Bears come out flat, the Jags may be able to score a couple times, but I don't see many scenarios where they get more than 17 points offensively (with that being the very high end).  And if the Bears offense doesn't completely crap the bed or allow defensive scores, the Bears should be able to win.  Whether they beat the spread (-5.5) or not depends on if the offense completely clicks or just does enough like the Rams game.