Defense
- The Bears came out mixing their defense up quite a bit nothing too fancy but it didn’t look like there was any one form that they stuck to initially. Perhaps they were trying to confuse the Giants offense and keep them off balance by simply showing different things. It seemed to work.
- There was a lot of cover two later in the game. The Giants did a good job against it with some classic cover two beaters.
- The Bears blitz quite a bit to get pressure. The front four alone wasn’t getting much pressure.
- The Giants decided (correctly) that they could run the ball successfully as a response to what the Bears were doing. The Bears flat out refused to bring an eighth guy into the box.
- The poor tackling reared its ugly head again tonight. The Giants ran right through some for some long gains.
- The Giants are a pretty talented team but there were a surprising number of mental errors out there on their part. The Bears took advantage.
- Major Wright was not good tonight. The Giants did a good job of take advantage of him.
Offense
- The Giants seemed to be playing a lot of cover two. Like the Bears, they also blitzed quite a bit.
- Despite wanting to get a fast start, the Bears once again spluttered on the first series wasting a golden opportunity as they failed to take advantage of a turnover deep in Giants territory.
- Unlike the Giants, the Bears had a tough time running the ball at the beginning of the game. Things loosened up a bit in the second quarter.
- Brandon Marshall was a happy man tonight as the Bears were able to go to him more against a zone defense with some good results. I loved the way he shoved the cornerback four yards off the line of scrimmage past the goal line to create space for a touchdown pass in the second quarter. The commoner complained but it looked clean.
- Quarterback Jay Cutler used his mobility well tonight. He also showed more than his usual degree of willingness to throw the ball away to avoid problems.
- Cutler got good protection.
- Like the Giants offense, their defense suffered from a lot of mental mistakes. That’s not like past years.
- Cutler didn’t have a bad night but he missed Alshon Jeffery on a couple long throws that could have been big plays.
Miscellaneous
- To the surprise of no one who thinks I’m too easy on the announcers, I like Brad Nessler and Mike Mayock. I think Mayock does a good job of diagraming out plays and immediately telling you exactly what happened.
- There were many drops on either side. Marshall drop on fourth down in the first quarter. Other than that, both sides were pretty clean.
- Turnovers were, as usual, a major factor in this game with the Bears getting all of them. The Bears got two turnovers early with an interception by Zack Bowman early in the first quarter followed a pick six by Tim Jennings. Jennings had the final major interception with 2 minutes left in the game.
- Both teams had too many penalties. The holding penalty against the Giants defense with about a minute and a half left in the game was a killer.
- Special teams were unremarkable except for the long kick return by the Giants in the second quarter. There was a time when the Bears made a living off of big special teams plays. No more.
- I thought the Bears played a decent game tonight. The offense looked good against a largely zone team and the protection for Jay Cutler was pretty good. The defense was fine but I’m a mildly worried about the tackling again. They weren’t great against the run. Honestly, I found the Giants to be the more interesting team. I thought they might well have been the more talented team but major mental errors on both sides of the ball killed them. You can see why they’re 0-6. This is a reasonably talented team that’s playing really poorly and you have to wonder if it doesn’t reflect on the coaching staff.