Bears vs Raiders Preview................

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Bears-Raiders Preview

By MATT BECKER, STATS Senior Writer
November 23, 2011

The Chicago Bears have been playing as well as just about any team in the league over the past month, but it now appears a thumb injury will keep Jay Cutler sidelined for the next several weeks.

The Oakland Raiders experienced a similar setback last month when Jason Campbell suffered a broken collarbone. But while the Bears are turning to an unproven quarterback to lead them down the stretch, the Raiders perhaps upgraded, handing the offense to a two-time Pro Bowler.

Caleb Hanie will make his first NFL start for surging Chicago on Sunday when they visit Carson Palmer and AFC West-leading Oakland.

A five-game winning streak has helped the Bears (7-3) move into possession of one of the NFC's wild-card spots, but making the playoffs could be tough.

Cutler fractured the thumb on his right throwing hand while trying to make a tackle on an interception return in the fourth quarter of last Sunday's 31-20 victory over San Diego. Bears general manager Jerry Angelo said team doctors believe Cutler, who had totaled eight touchdowns and three interceptions during the winning streak, has a chance of getting back on the field before Chicago's regular-season finale in Minnesota on New Year's Day.

In the meantime, the Bears, who haven't won six straight games since opening the 2006 season 7-0, will turn to Hanie.

Although Hanie has yet to attempt a pass this year, he came up with an inspiring performance in last season's 21-14 loss to Green Bay in the NFC championship game. Playing for an injured Cutler, Hanie led the Bears to two touchdowns and finished 13 for 20 for 153 yards with one TD and two interceptions.

Hanie, who'll be facing an Oakland defense that is tied for sixth in the NFL with 28 sacks, says he won't played scared, won't be ultra-conservative and won't play dumb in his first NFL start.

"I know where I am in the offense, I know what I'm doing in this offense. I've been waiting for this opportunity,'' he said.

The Bears certainly hope Hanie's first start goes better than Palmer's first game of the season.

Two days after Campbell's injury, Oakland (6-4) acquired Palmer from Cincinnati. He appeared in the Raiders' very next game and threw three interceptions.

With time, Palmer has become much more proficient in the offense, averaging 265.0 yards with six touchdowns and four interceptions in the last three games for a 102.2 passer rating, helping lead the Raiders to sole possession of first place in their division.

"Every chance I get to go on the field, whether it's practice or games, I feel more comfortable with it,'' Palmer said after last Sunday's 27-21 win in Minnesota.

Although Palmer is more familiar with the offense, he is running out of people to throw to.

The Raiders, losers of two straight in Oakland, are down to three healthy receivers in Chaz Schilens, Louis Murphy and rookie Eddie McGee, who is on the team's practice squad. The status of Denarius Moore, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Jacoby Ford and Darrius Heyward-Bey are uncertain.

``It makes it difficult,'' Palmer said of the injury-plagued receivers. ``You don't get the same guys on the field from the week before, that rhythm and timing thing slows down a little bit. So we have our work cut out for us.''

Oakland is also unsure if star running back Darren McFadden will play after missing the last three games with a right foot sprain, but backup Michael Bush has proven to be an adequate replacement.

Bush has rushed for 461 yards in the last four games but will be facing a Chicago defense that is allowing an NFL-low 66.8 rushing yards over the last six weeks.

This defense, which is tied for second in the NFL with 23 turnovers, is one of several reasons the Bears feel they can still reach the postseason despite Cutler's injury. A return game featuring the dangerous Devin Hester and an offense revolving around running back Matt Forte, who leads the league with 1,391 yards from scrimmage, has Chicago believing the playoffs are still very realistic.

"I wish it wasn't the issue, but I think you look at the way we're set up, in my mind, we're still a defensive team and (on) special teams, we can score at any time, which is a good thing,'' Brian Urlacher said. "We run the ball this year better than we have in years past, I think, so that helps our whole situation when you can do that and turn to a guy like Matt and your offensive line and say, 'Hey, we need to run the football.'"

Forte is tied for the league lead with 11 runs of at least 20 yards, while Oakland has allowed an NFL-worst 15 such runs.

The Bears might also be able to move the ball simply by Oakland's mistakes.

The Raiders have already committed 17 defensive personal fouls this season - more than double the total of 29 teams and most in the league since the Chiefs had 19 in 1998.

"We've got better players than we had in the past,'' defensive tackle Tommy Kelly said. "But we're also making the job a lot harder than we have to. We say that to ourselves a lot on the sideline. But in the end all you've got to do is win the game.''

These teams haven't met since Chicago's 17-6 win in Oakland on Nov. 11, 2007.

11-24-2011, 04:00 PM
soulman

Sounds like the Raiders may have as many or more key injuries than the Bears. Their coach is bragging about how great a return man Jacoby Ford is and they don't even know if he'll play.

Just like the last three weeks we face a top rated passer and the pass rush has to get untracked. We can't blitz worth a damn using our LB's so we need the front four to step it up. If we are gonna blitz I'd suggest we do it with Graham from NB or cross then with and unexpected Safety or CB blitz. That's not something we show often.

After a shaky start the run D has been back to playing good old fashioned tough against the run again. Less than 70 yards per game is working wonders for our turnover ratio. If they can't run we force them to pass and we get some picks when they go to the well once too often like Rivers did. Carson Palmer is a good QB but he and his receivers don't worry me as much as Rivers and the bunch for Dago.

Good news for the Bears running game. The Raiders are prone to allowing big runs and teams have averaged over 5 ypc against them. We need Forte to get back on his 100 yds + per game track again. In fact a team effort that gets us around 200 yards on the ground would make life a lot easier for Hanie in his first start. Be nice is he doesn't have to throw more than 20 times or so.

Good defense, some ST magic to give us a field position advantage and good ball control wins this game.
11-24-2011, 06:34 PM
Dagan81

The problem with getting 200 yards on the ground in this game is that we don't sub in other RBs often enough to keep Forte's legs fresh. There, again, lies yet another problem in the durability of Barber. He has been very brittle the past couple of years, and I don't know what the Bears will do about that. My guess is that you could see Kahlil Bell some in the game in order to keep legs fresh.

This situation is going to be much like the Steve Fuller fill-ins for the Bears from 1984-86. The difference is that I think Caleb Hanie is a far superior passing quarterback to Steve Fuller. The only thing Fuller would do would be to hand off the ball to Walter Payton or any of the other running backs on the team during those years. Hanie is going to probably throw the ball 25-30 times Sunday, and I have confidence that he will not make too many mistakes doing so. This Raiders defense isn't exactly the Packers top-ranked D of 2010, so I think that if he can manage the game effectively with intelligently-selected passes, we'll be fine.
11-24-2011, 07:01 PM
soulman

They can and should start using Barber more. Since he's not having to carry 20 times a game anymore he's sort of rejuvenated. They should be running him 10-12 times per game instead of 4-5.
11-24-2011, 07:20 PM
Dagan81

My thing is this: if Marion Barber can't handle 10-12 plays from scrimmage per game, then he doesn't need to be playing in the National Football League. Still, it doesn't make me worry any less about his durability. It's kind of like that really emotionally awkward pubescent kid you come across. If you say "Boo" to him, he cries. It's like if you play Barber too much, he gets injured. He's too good to simply lie around idly and not be more active than he is. The past two weeks, he's actually be pretty good when we've taken Forte out for breathers. The good thing about Barber is that he is a power back, and thus can push the line of scrimmage forward due to his power and strength. Kahlil Bell can do the same as well, but he's not as fast. He reminds me a little bit of Ron Dayne, only not as big. We need to use all three backs in the upcoming games in order to keep the rotation fresh.
11-25-2011, 12:10 AM
soulman

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dagan81

My thing is this: if Marion Barber can't handle 10-12 plays from scrimmage per game, then he doesn't need to be playing in the National Football League. Still, it doesn't make me worry any less about his durability. It's kind of like that really emotionally awkward pubescent kid you come across. If you say "Boo" to him, he cries. It's like if you play Barber too much, he gets injured. He's too good to simply lie around idly and not be more active than he is. The past two weeks, he's actually be pretty good when we've taken Forte out for breathers. The good thing about Barber is that he is a power back, and thus can push the line of scrimmage forward due to his power and strength. Kahlil Bell can do the same as well, but he's not as fast. He reminds me a little bit of Ron Dayne, only not as big. We need to use all three backs in the upcoming games in order to keep the rotation fresh.

Barber can easily handle a dozen carries in a game. He's been doing that and more for years but when you have a feature back like Forte then it limits his carries. That's made him more effective when he is in there and being injury prone is not what limits his carries. Forte's running limits them. Although when teams are stacking the box and taking away the outside and his cutback lanes like Dago did Barber should get more carries. Better to attack that defense by going straight at it with quick hits between the tackles.

I like Kahlil Bell too but as long as Forte is doing so well he won't see much of the field except on ST. Don't know about the comparison to Ron Dayne though. Dayne was huge at 250 +. Bell only goes around 215 lbs.