Week 6: CHICAGO BEARS V. NY Giants

The Bears get right back at it after a tough loss, with a Thursday night game against the 0-5 Giants.  Not much to say about Sunday’s loss to the Saints, but the Bears got beat by a team they aren’t quite ready to compete with yet.  The offense wasn’t bad.  Forte got 4.6 ypc.  Cutler had a 128+ QB rating.  And Alshon Jeffery broke the Bears all-time record for receiving yards in a game.  Even the defense wasn’t terrible.  Completely stopped the run.  Completely shutout the Saints’ WRs.  And held Brees to mostly checkdowns to RBs and TEs (which did eat them alive).   But the ultimate takeaway from Week 5, is that without takeaways on D and some fine-tuning on offense, the Bears are not ready to “hang with the big boys”.  That’s not to say they aren’t good or a playoff caliber team, but they are clearly not championship material in any league that crowns champions after 5 weeks.

Thursday, the New York Giants come to town, and they are honestly, a mess right now.  They are the league’s worst rushing team with just 57 yards per game on the ground.  They have the fewest rushing attempts in the league, but still have managed to lose the most fumbles.  And speaking of turnovers, Eli Manning is the anti-Peyton this year, with a league-leading 13 INTs, 4 more than any other team has thrown.  If that’s not enough, the once feared front 4 has the fewest sacks in the league and have been a non-factor in disrupting opponents’ passing games so far this year as the Giants rank in the bottom 10 in both rushing and passing yards allowed per game.

That being said, the Giants do pose some threats to the Bears.  Eli still is top 5 in the NFL in passing yards.  While a lot of it has come due to being behind on the scoreboard most of the season, the Giants do boast possibly the best 3-deep WR corps in the league.  Hakeem Nicks, Reuben Randle, and mostly Victor Cruz do pose potential matchup problems for the Bears CBs.  Brandon Myers at TE can also make you pay if you forget about him in the middle of the field.  If matched up on Cruz in the slot, Isaiah Frey is going to have to have a really big game to keep Cruz from salsa dancing after a big play.  I do worry about a desperate Giants team looking at the standings and seeing themselves only 2 games out of 1^st place despite the disaster so far.  This is still mostly the same time that won a Superbowl just 2 season ago, with absolutely nothing to lose at this point in the season.  If Eli can figure out how to not throw the ball to the wrong jersey, the Giants can move the ball and will put up points.  

A struggling Bears defense will be faced with the task of keeping the Giants among the league’s lowest scoring teams.  The Giants will likely be without 2 interior starters on the OL, with Chris Snee already sent to IR, and David Baas having missed Sunday’s game.  Unfortunately, the backup OL will be facing a makeshift defensive line.  DT, Nate Collins joined Henry Melton on the ACL surgery waiting list and Stephen Paea hasn’t been able to practice or play in over a week.  If Paea can’t go, the Bears DT roster will be 2 deep…..1 rookie who just made his NFL debut Sunday, and a guy who will have been on the roster about 15 days at kickoff on Thursday.  Luckily, the Giants have struggled to block edge rushers also and all of Peppers, Wootton, McClellin, and David Bass (not to be confused w/ Giants center) have shown flashes of a good pass rush the last couple weeks, though not really at the same time.  Should see a lot of the aforementioned 4 DEs on the field together, on pass or run downs.

As I said last week, it will need to be more of the same offensively.  The offense is headed in the right direction.  Have gobbled up a lot of yards and points in garbage time the last 2 weeks, but that’s a huge improvement over the complete disasters of the previous 3 seasons.  The Bears now officially have offensive weapons, with 4 players over 25 catches thru 5 games.  The focus this week needs to be on getting better in the red zone.  Despite scoring the 3^rd most points in the NFL so far, the Bears have left several points on the board the last couple weeks.  1^st and goal from the 9 (after a penalty), and 3 straight incompletions lead to 3 points instead of 7.  Would have made the score 23-14, and a FG instead of a 4^th down drop by Earl Bennett on the next drive makes it a different game.  The previous week in Detroit, the Bears ran out of time before the half, but did get a shot to score a TD from the 10 before needing to kick a FG.  Later in the game, the Bears couldn’t punch it in after a 1^st and 10, from the Lions’ 12.  They also failed to move any further on 2 other occasions after having first down just outside of the red zone.  The Giants also have injuries in the defensive backfield, so this would be a good time to work the no-huddle.  The Bears have had success going hurry-up late in games, but have also had much better redzone play designs with late, short TDs and in converting 3-for-3 two-point conversions.  

Even if the Bears aren’t championship material yet, they should still be considered strong contenders for a playoff spot in the NFC.  And if they are a potential playoff team, they frankly have no business losing this game.  The Bears are the clearly superior team so far.  They are playing at home on a short week.  They are facing a team that has serious health and underperformance issues all over the field.  This looks like a win on paper, but as the saying goes, “any given Thurs….er, Sunday”.  Win and feel good about a 4-2 record and 10-6 pace.  Lose and the playoff chances look pretty bleak after a promising 3-0 start.