Thread: What we learned Saints/Packers

Originally Posted by soulman

Matthews is a pass rusher par excellence but he's nowhere near as dominating against the run when it comes right at him. If we're gonna have success running the ball it will probably have to be to the right and aimed at him. His quickness is gonna give Carimi fits all day long so I'm guessing we'll play a TE on that side quite a bit of the time.

If we can't run the ball and control the TOP we play right into the Packers hands in in all likelihood we get beat. We need to make them play Bears football, not Packer football.

I agree, Soul. As I said before, outside of right at Raji, we can run on Green Bay and will need to.

The 2nd statement is going to hold true against any of our upcoming high-quality opponents (Saints, Pack, Bucs, Eagles). Itwas true against the Falcons too. Bears didn't have a great running day on the stat sheet last Sunday but the style of offense is what counts here (the screens are glorified runs anyway, aren't they?) I was really encouraged by the game Martz chose to call. He mixed it up well and didn't get deep-crazy on throws. I really like the fact that MM got KDavis involved--that play that Cutler overshot was a brilliant, well-executed call I hope we see again.

You probably didn't see this on TV but I was right there: JC knew he had blown a sure TD due to emotion. He was rolling towards the Bear sideline, turned and over-heated it (to the disappointed groan of the whole place), and knew it immediately. Ran full tilt off the field even before the ball hit the ground and hurled his helmet into the ground in self-anger. He then went right back to sideline as the O was coming off the field and gestured "ON ME--MY BAD!" to all of them. The guy was hot (at himself), passionate (nice to see), and showed a lot better leadership & responsibility than sulking on the bench like he might have done in prior years. The fans saw it and applauded him.

I bet he won't make that same mistake next time--the guy was just fired up and put too much juice on the ball. Great play call though...