Short-Cutting the Bears

(I mentioned a few weeks ago that I felt like my Friday game previews kind of sucked and that I wanted to try something else.  Here's something else.)

One part of the DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket package I've never taken enough advantage of is the 30-minute "short cut" provided for each game during the week.  I've had my reasons for staying away ("Yes, honey, I am watching NFL football on a Tuesday night..."), but I think I've hit on a way to finally bring something to the table with my game preview columns:  watch the next week's foe and then write about what I saw.

I know, revolutionary.  Should have thought of this years ago.  

Anyway, on to five things I learned about the Bears from watching last week's game fast forward style:

1)  The Bears clearly should have won that game.  If that game had been played 10 times, Chicago would have won at least eight.  They controlled the clock, completely shut down the Bucs' running attack, and had maybe a dozen chances to put that away.  I lost track of the number of sure interceptions they dropped.  Even in overtime, Orton hit one of their receivers right at the TB 32-yard-line ... and the guy dropped the ball.  If not for a bunch of fluke occurrences and an inexplicable hot streak from Brian Griese, Chicago has a much prettier 2-1 record coming in to this game.

2)  Kyle Orton looks like a real NFL quarterback.  He doesn't look like a really good NFL quarterback, but he's certainly not tripping over himself back there.  Two things I noticed in particular:  1) he moves constantly in the pocket, never seems to get set, and throws almost every time off his back foot; and, 2) He plays the game kind of like Koy Detmer with a legitimate arm.  I swear I'm not saying that just because of the beard thing.  He really does look like Detmer back there, except that he can also get the ball downfield.

3)  The Bears' defense really jammed the line in this game.  Both Reid and Mornhinweg have mentioned this week that Chicago has changed some of the things it's doing on defense.  It was really noticeable in this game, as Chicago jammed all three linebackers -- and often even a safety -- up to the line of scrimmage, kind of like the way the Eagles did against Pittsburgh, but more so.  Unless it was almost a sure passing situation, they were stacking that box. 

(Note:  I'd be surprised to see Chicago play the Eagles the same way.  I'm sure it will be part of the package, but that's not Brian Griese standing back there.  You get too aggressive with this Eagles' offense and suddenly you're going to be doing a lot of chasing downfield.  With Westbrook either limited or out, I still think the way to defend Philly is just to keep everything in front and dare the other guys to make enough plays to beat you.)

4)  Matt Forte is a good looking running back, but the rushing offense as a whole doesn't look that dangerous.  I really like Matt Forte.  The guy is big, seems to have good vision, nice speed.  Really seems like the whole package, if perhaps a little oversized for your typical every-down back.  But the Bears' rushing statistics were ultimately pretty misleading, as 38 yards came on a fake punt and 21 yards were the result of six Orton scrambles.  Take those away and you have 30 carries for 99 yards between the two backs (mostly Forte).  It looks like a "plugging ahead" running game rather than a "big play" running game, so I don't expect to see the Eagles struggle too much with slowing it down. 

(Another Note:  I have been known to be wrong about these kinds of things before.)

5)  What is the %$#@! deal with Brandon Lloyd?  The guy had six catches for 124 yards last week and flashed the hands and playmaking ability that enticed the Redskins into dumping all that money into him a couple years ago.  That's three times the number of receptions he had all of last year.  Generally I'm a believer in the idea that situations make players, but really, Chicago?  Kyle Orton?  What is going on with this guy?  (Although he may not be 100 percent this week.)

Bonus Observation:  Not to sound like a broken record, but Eagles fans unsatisfied with the team's quarterback situation should really be forced to go back and watch the 101 passes tossed in this game by Griese and Orton.  They were both consistently good on the checkdown stuff, but beyond that, shweeooo.  We're talking guys being missed by five yards in all directions.  Ugly.

Comments

[bigmyc]

Sarley, I THOUGHT that we had this straightened out.

We are NOT the Bears. We are the Eagles.
"Iggles," if you're a long (suffering) fan....

McNabb is getting paid much more than those two pot warmers that you mentioned...the reason is simple; We (the rest of the sports world) expect more out of him.

We don't have time to support "almosts," "maybes" or "pretty goods."

..and this is all I've been saying on the handling of McNabb and Kolb (A.J. Feeley)

[Eric]

Is the 30 minute thing part of the Super Fan package? I never shelled out the extra 100 for it.

[Derek]

Ah yes, it appears to be. SuperFan = "We charge another 100 bucks so you can watch in HD," so I don't really have a choice there, sadly.

A nice young woman from DirecTV actually contacted me a few weeks ago to see if I would be interested in a "partnership opportunity" that could include "paying for articles/posts" as an "organic approach" to getting the word out about DirecTV.

Remember that the next time you read a blogger saying something nice about those guys.

[Michael]

I still have nightmares about Brian Griese's "inexplicable hot streak" from last year's Eagles-Bears game. That's another one where the team that played better managed to lose.

Seriously, we should not lose this game. Even without BWest, we are the better team and if we are serious about being a playoff team, we need to take care of business here.

[Eagles Fan in San Fran]

Not to dredge up bad memories (but I will), but your fellow blogger at Bleed Eagles Green has a YouTube video up of the last 1:57 of last year's train wreck vs the Bears. I watched it out of morbid curiousity. The interesting (?!?) thing is that it's actually worse than I remember it.
It wasn't just 97 yards in 1:57 and no time outs. It was actually 68 yards in just 0:53 with no time outs. The D had actually done a good job in controlling things, with the Bears wasting over a minute to go just 29 yards.
The problem was that the next 4 plays (omitting in-between spiking of the ball to stop the clock) were completed passes, ending in the infamous "Considine got turned-around" TD pass to win it (with 9 seconds to spare).
I wonder how many times JJ showed that clip this week in the D meetings?