Bears' Smith wants more forced fumbles
By Vaughn McClure, Tribune reporter
1:44 p.m. CDT, October 8, 2012
Lovie Smith couldn’t help but be pleased with Sunday’s 41-3 win at Jacksonville. At the same time, the Chicago Bears coach still sees a lot of room for improvement with his 4-1 team.
The defense has dominated with five interception returns for touchdowns over the last three games, including two each by linebacker Lance Briggs and cornerback Charles Tillman. The Bears lead the league with 13 interceptions. Yet the perfectionist in Smith looks at the stat sheet and sees four forced fumbles and four fumble recoveries through five games.
"How many caused fumbles have we taken away? I haven’t seen many of those," Smith said. "Interceptions when the ball is thrown your way, you’re supposed to catch it. But taking the ball away, once we really get good we’ll start yanking that ball out and you’ll see a lot more caused fumbles. You’ll see fumble recoveries from us. Again, (a lot) of football left to go, not much has been decided or done except for our players to see what we can be if we take care of business.”
Offensively, Smith was extremely pleased with the passing game and Brandon Marshall’s big contribution (12 catches for 144 yards). Nothing was more satisfying to Smith, though, than a 13-play, 76-yard drive that chewed up 9 minutes, 18 seconds to start the third quarter. The drive ended with a 31-yard field goal by Robbie Gould, giving the Bears a 6-3 lead that eventually turned into a blowout.
"One of the best drives I’ve seen around here was that drive, that balance of running the ball, draining the clock," Smith said. "You have to be able to do that. Maybe it’s just finish a game at the end. But just your will to run the ball, it’s hard to make it a physical game if you’re not running the ball and we have running backs that can do that."
In terms of special teams, Gould and punter Adam Podlesh have been solid. Now, Smith wants Devin Hester to make just as much of an impact, if not more. Hester hasn’t returned a kickoff or punt for a touchdown since Nov. 13 of last season against Detroit.
"If we talk about other areas, looking at our special teams, that’s one area that we need to pick it up," Smith said. "I don’t think we’ve scored with a return yet with our special teams, and that’s something we need to do."
Smith obviously doesn’t want his players to become overconfident going into the off week. The Bears will practice Tuesday and Wednesday and then have an extended weekend before preparing for an Oct. 22 "Monday Night Football" battle with the 1-3 Lions at Soldier Field.
"We wanted to get to 4-1, simple as that," Smith said. "You want to have a good taste in your mouth going into the bye week, which we have. A lot of work to be done, though.
"In the ideal world for a coach, you want to have the type of game we had yesterday. When you watch the video, you can correct and make improvements and be critical a lot easier coming off a game like that."
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