This Weeks Odds and Ends.................

Notebook: Odds and end zones from Bears, Cowboys

October 2, 2012, 11:40 pm SHARE THIS POST

http://www.csnchicago.com/common/med...158/610698.png	JOHN "MOON" MULLIN http://www.csnchicago.com/common/med...158/610664.png Archive

Getting into the corners of the notebook in the wake of the Bears’ 34-18 whacking of the Dallas Cowboys…

The play of the defense most of this season and the offense in the four Dallas quarters overshadowed another spectacular performance by Bears special teams, in particular kicker Robbie Gould.

Besides pushing his field goal work to 8-for-8 through four games, including ones from 43 and 21 yards Monday night, Gould put five (of seven) kickoffs too deep to be returned. The two that he didn’t, the last two, coverage teams put Dallas returner Felix Jones down at the 15- and 17-yard lines.

Two of punter Adam Podlesh’s boots put the Cowboys inside their 20.

What that all combined to mean was that Dallas’ 10 possessions that started with a Chicago kick (they had one begin at the Chicago 27 after a fumble) started on an average of the 18.5 yard line.

The Bears have outscored opponents in every quarter this season.

The Dallas touchdown in the final 14 seconds of the first half Monday night continued a mildly troublesome trend for the Bears defense in 2012. (There haven’t been many “troublesome’s” for this defense.)

In all four games opponents scored within the final 4 minutes of the first half. Indianapolis scored with 3:17 remaining. Green Bay scored 10 points in the final 1 minute 50 seconds. The St. Louis Rams managed a 56-yard field goal with 22 seconds remaining in the closest thing to a “stop” by the defense in the late second quarter.

Kellen Davis had minimal impact through the Bears’ first three games. Then he caught three against Dallas, giving him a sub-modest total of 34 career catches.

No Bear in the last 60 years has done as much damage with his receptions. Davis’ TD rate of one every 3.4 catches is 10th all time among Bears receivers with at least 10 catches.

The Bears have outscored opponents in every quarter this season.

Is this when they win? B/c there is no way we'd be 3 and 1 if we outscored GB in every qtr.

Missed in all of the praise of the defense and criticism of the offense is that once again Robbie Gould is not only proving himself to be one of the best kickers in the NFL again this year but also one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history. His improved leg strength now makes him a consistent threat even from beyond 50 yards out and over half his kickoffs are not returnable.

He has my vote for the best undrafted FA the Bears have ever signed. I'll even throw Jerry Angelo a kudo for this pick up. And we have Adam Vinateri to thank. If he hadn't still been with the Pats when Robbie tried out then he'd be kicking for them now instead of the Bears.

Adam Podlesh continues to be an excellent investment as well as do the Bears coverage teams. Now if we can just get the blocking a little more coordinated on kick off and punt returns we'll be in business all over that side of the board.

We finally got Kellen Davis involved in the passing offense too. Happy Days! That one catch he made where he just took the pick away from the Cowboy DB was a sight. He's big, fast, and brutishly strong. That was a bad read and Davis saved Jay's ass on that one big time. Davis is also a TD machine and we need to go to him more often in the red zone.

Its all in the name for Robbie... Robert Gould III. The REAL RG3! Threes are just darn near a given with him.

We can also thank Doug Brien for getting injured as the reason for Angelo finding Robbie.