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Bears' great defense overlooked in Sunday's offensive debacle
Bears' great defense overlooked in Sunday's offensive debacle
By Matt Trowbridge
RRSTAR.COM
A horrifying loss.
An encouraging sign.
Inept.
Inspiring.
All four descriptions fit Sunday night’s 17-3 loss to the Giants. It just depends which side of the ball you are on.
Nine first-half sacks that left Jay Cutler concussed made this the scariest defeat for a supposedly good Bears team since a 33-6 Halloween night loss in a monsoon to Green Bay on the night Dick Butkus and Gale Sayers had their numbers retired.
But even in defeat, it was the Bears’ most encouraging defensive game since the 2006 miracle in Arizona, the game that made a YouTube star out of Arizona coach Dennis Green after Chicago became the first NFL team to rally from a 20-point deficit without scoring an offensive touchdown.
You can crown Chicago’s defense again. For the first time in four years.
It’s easy to overlook how good Chicago’s defense played because the Giants finished with 372 total yards. But most of those yards were gained after the game should have been over.
The Giants went three-and-out on eight of their first nine possessions. This is how the No. 6 offense in the league fared against a suddenly aggressive Chicago defense on those first nine drives:
Three plays, 9 yards, punt
Eleven plays, 76 yards, field goal.
Three plays, 3 yards, missed field goal.
Three plays, 4 yards, punt.
Three plays, minus-5 yards, punt.
Two plays, minus-4 yards, lost fumble.
Three plays, 7 yards, punt.
Three plays, 7 yards, punt.
Three plays, 6 yards, punt.
On eight of those first nine drives, New York combined to gain 37 yards on 23 plays. Eli Manning, the $106.9 million quarterback, was 6-for-13 for 34 yards with two sacks and a lost fumble on those drives. The running game had 13 yards on eight carries. Even with the one long scoring drive, the Giants had 3 points on nine possessions, despite twice taking over in Chicago territory.
This, as I wrote last week, is what happens when you stop playing soft pass defense. Chicago challenged New York receivers. Taking away the easy short pass gave Julius Peppers and Brian Urlacher time to get to Manning. Until Chicago’s defense wore down, Manning was almost as harried as Cutler. The only difference is Manning threw hurried incompletions while Cutler held the ball and took sacks.
If Chicago’s offense had moved the ball at all, New York might not have gotten a 10th chance on offense, much less 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th chances.
This season was the first time in maybe a half-century where Chicago was expected to be better on offense than on defense. Sunday night showed that’s not true. But that news was only half bad.
But, man, that half was really, really bad.
Therein lies Chicago’s despair.
Woody Hayes preached moving the ball with “three yards and a cloud of dust.” The iconic curmudgeon said: “There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them ain’t good.”
Woody meant incompletions and interceptions.
If he’d watched the Bears, he would have added two more: sacks and injuries.
But then, Woody Hayes believed in blocking and tackling, so it probably never occurred to him that a team could give up nine sacks and get two quarterbacks knocked out of one game.
The Bears need to get Jay Cutler back and they need to find a way for the offensive line to keep him upright. How? Who knows?
But at least the Bears showed they know how to play defense again.
Assistant sports editor Matt Trowbridge can be reached at 815-987-1383 or mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.
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On eight of those first nine drives, New York combined to gain 37 yards on 23 plays. Eli Manning, the $106.9 million quarterback, was 6-for-13 for 34 yards with two sacks and a lost fumble on those drives. The running game had 13 yards on eight carries. Even with the one long scoring drive, the Giants had 3 points on nine possessions, despite twice taking over in Chicago territory.
That is the Shame of the game- a great "D" performance goes down the drain in the 4th quarter, because of the 3 and out's... and what still would be probably the best statistical "D" is not anymore. Still feel we are a deep playoff team on "D" and getting better- just need the "O" to have the Giants game be the abberation and like Jim miller said about jet's, their one bad game was just that, and go out and make a statment to league against panthers sunday
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Originally Posted by
dabears54 
and go out and make a statment to league against panthers sunday
Oh theyll make a statement all right...that the OL is just as bad as people think it is.
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Originally Posted by
Jimmors Oh theyll make a statement all right...that the OL is just as bad as people think it is.
So are you stating the bears are not going to win and the oline can't play well sunday?
Should we to save injuries just forfeit now? of its already decided the oline will not improve?
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Originally Posted by
dabears54 So are you stating the bears are not going to win and the oline can't play well sunday?
Should we to save injuries just forfeit now? of its already decided the oline will not improve?
The line is regressing.
4 to 1 then up to 3 and up to 10
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Bears may win...they may not. What i "say" is irrelevant since nobody can predict the outcome of the game. The OL will not play well, because they cant because they suck. Martz tries his best to work around that, but i told you before that it wold catch up to the Bears. If a win against a shitty team like the panthers will make you feel better about this OL, then more power to you. I am repeating the same thing ive said for weeks...either they start playing better or its going to cost us, and right now its costing us huge when we lose 2 friggin QBs in one game.
So yeah, they might look better against some crappy teams like the Panthers, but dont kid yourself into thinking they will be able to somehow magically step up against teams with halfway decent QB rushers. They have gone beyond just sucking and now are a liability to this team.
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What i "say" is irrelevant since nobody can predict the outcome of the game
then why claim the oline will play bad, seems you are doing the opposite of what you claim no one can do? how can you be clairvoyent when you already said "no one can predict the outcome"?
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but dont kid yourself into thinking they will be able to somehow magically step up against teams with halfway decent QB rushers
you got me there, how many sacks did clay mathews get against the packers? how many did allen have last year when played the vikes in december? i'm struggling to remember..
guess there can be magic in this world..
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Originally Posted by
dabears54 then why claim the oline will play bad, seems you are doing the opposite of what you claim no one can do? how can you be clairvoyent when you already said "no one can predict the outcome"?
They havent played well yet, so im hedging my bets by assuming they will continue that "trend" (since youre all about trends).
But youre right, you caught me...i cant "predict" they will play well, and neither can you. But what i DO know is that they havent played well YET, so to play well would actually mean they would have to change how they play to accomplish that goal, something i dont see as very likely. Now, seeing how they have been playing poor, then to play poor again only requires to simply continue doing what they have been, which is much more likely to accomplish, hence, im siding with the "keep doing what they have been doing" prediction, opposed to the "suddenly change how they have been playing" prediction. Feel free to pick which ever you want, guess we shall see which one happens on Sunday.
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Originally Posted by
dabears54 you got me there, how many sacks did clay mathews get against the packers? how many did allen have last year when played the vikes in december? i'm struggling to remember..
guess there can be magic in this world..
Really? thats your counter-argument? They stopped Matthews and Allen, so it must be magical after all? Packers still managed to sack Cutler 3 times and 3 times in the last game in 09 and 4 times in the game before that, Vikes sacked Cutler twice last season in that game you mentioned.
So give the OL a cookie for not allowing people who usually get sacks to not get any on Cutler while allowing others to get them instead. Just make sure everyone gets one.
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