The Balance of Power and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Patrick Finley at the Chicago Sun-Times quotes Bears linebacker Lance Briggs:

    “Asked on his Comcast television show about a radio report he was out partying until 4 a.m. Saturday, linebacker Lance Briggs said that ‘what I do on my off time is my business — it’s my business.'”

    That’s not a denial.

  • Adam L. Jahns and Mark Potash at the Chicago Sun-Times make some good points in this video:

    One thing. If you are depending upon quarterback Jay Cutler to “lead you to victory”, your trust is misplaced. I think its now well established that he might perform well but he won’t lead. If the Bears are paying him to do that then they’re fools.

  • Hub Arkush at the Chicago Sun-Times gave what I thought were some fair grades after reviewing the tape of last week’s game:

    “The linebackers earned a C-minus. Jon Bostic was the best of the bunch against the run. It was particularly interesting to see how many times Shea McClellin arrived at the pile in time to look down at it just after the whistle blew.”

    Briggs and D. J. Williams weren’t mentioned…

One Final Thought

Potash asks Bears head coach Marc Trestman if the Bears will ever just run up the middle more on 3rd and one:

“‘You look at the third-and-one reel that we looked at during the course of the season and teams do throw the football in those situations.’
“That they do. But the numbers show that nobody does it as much as the Bears. On average, NFL teams rushed 66.7 percent of the time on third-and-one in the 2013 season. The Bears rushed 46.2 percent of the time. But whether the Bears run or pass on third-and-one — or third-and-short for that matter — one thing remains the same. They need to get better at it.”

The Bears are a finesse team. They’re never going to have the fire power up front to just out muscle people because that’s just not what they’re designed to do. That’s what makes the 49ers such a terrible match up for them this week. Its OK if you, as a finesse team, have answers for teams that do out muscle everyone. Unfortunately the Bears don’t and it frequently shows. It did last week. It will this week.

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