I like the killer instinct, Walleye, but Tommie is on Your team. Heel, heel!
The good from yesterday's game:
-Matt Forte. Thom Brennaman will go on a rant about how "deceiving" his stats were yesterday, but who the hell cares? The fact that he gained 98 yards on 2 carries and 23 yards on the other 10 doesn't somehow make the 98 yards not count. They both led to touchdowns for the offense. Give me a runningback worth 14 points a game and I'll take it every time.
-The offensive line. I'll go ahead and put you big fellas in the positive for once. They opened up two holes to spring Forte, and that was enough. Cutler had plenty of time to pass, although his accuracy was a bit off and the receivers struggled to get open downfield once Hester went out. The two sacks the line did give up were coverage sacks, so I'll let them slip the blame.
-Johnny Knox, Earl Bennett, and the punt/kickoff return teams- Holy shit, nice job. The blocking was absolutely outstanding, and even with Hester out the team gained 277 total return yards. That's outstanding. Shirtless man hugs for all.
-Jay Cutler. He was off a bit yesterday, and I think he'd tell you that. But he was mistake free and made the big play when it counted, with two touchdown passes (why hasn't anyone figured out the play action pass to Olsen in the endzone on 4th and goal? The Bears have scored like 1,000 touchdowns on that play since 2005. Hell, of Orton's 9 touchdown passes his rookie year, half of them were probably that exact play to either Desmond Clark or Marc Edwards). Also impressive, as the game recap on Chicago Bears.com points out, Cutler is the first Bears quarterback since the NFL merger in 1970 to post a rating of 100 or more in three straight games. Of course, the website is wrong, because he's the second, since Jim McMahon did it in 1984. My point being, of course, that I know everything, and Jay Cutler is really fucking good.
-The defensive line, and, by extension, Rod Marinelli. If anyone needed proof of how important Marinelli has become to this year's team, note the first half of yesterday's game. The defensive line struggled to pressure Stafford as he was sacked only once in the first half, and he ripped the secondary a new one, going 14-23 for 221 yds and a TD. In the second half the team went ballistic and sacked Stafford 4 times and held him to 10-13 for 75 yards before knocking him out of the game. Hell, Tommie Harris even registered an interception. The defensive line play has been nothing short of outstanding this year, and it's the one thing other than Lance Briggs that's keeping this defense respectable.
-Robbie Gould- way to drill your first career 50+ yard field goal, buddy. We're all proud of you.
The Bad-
-The secondary. Guh. From Afalava jumping offsides to give Detroit second life after the defense had held them to a field goal to Calvin Johnson just doing whatever the hell he felt like doing out there until he'd racked up 133 yards receiving, this was just an awful performance by the secondary, and there's not much else to say. Continue to pray that Marinelli manages to figure out how to rush the passer every week or it'll just be a repeat of last year's defense all over again.
-Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick. Those guys just annoyed the shit out of me, and I don't think I was alone. From the always renowned and revered Desipio.com-
"The announcers are our old pal tHom Brennaman and the always full of himself Brian Billick. The windows are off their press box booth to accommodate both egos. Not that they aren’t deserved. Billick has won a Super Bowl as a head coach, Brennaman has…um…well, his daddy got him a broadcasting job.
Billick says the Bears are “deficient” in the linebacking corps, then says, “I don’t mean deficient, I just mean they don’t have a lot of starters there.” No, you meant deficient."
The list goes on and on, but there were also frequent references to Billick's refusal to pronounce the r in Pettigrew, and the "l" in familiarity.
Either way, it was nice to the Bears come out in the second half and play like the superior team. The bye week comes at the perfect time with Hester and Knox dinged up, Forte battling a sore knee, Tinoisamoa and Hillenmeyer on their way back from injuries, Desmond Clark still dealing with a broken rib, Alex Brown still fighting an ankle injury, Charles Tillman's pride deeply wounded by Calvin Johnson, and Jay Cutler's back hurting from carrying the offense against Pittsburgh and Seattle. Everyone should be nice and healed up in time to take down the Falcons in Atlanta.
Go Bears.
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