Game Comments: Buccaneers at Bears 11/23/14

Offense

1. The Bears started in their usual fashion failing to give the ball to Matt Forte on a run play. A false start by Brandon Marshall and a drop from Marquess Wilson helped force a three and out. It was the way the half was going to go.

2. In fairness the Bears gave the ball to Matt Forte the first play in the second possession. Ka’Deem Carey got it on the second. Coming out in the second half it seemed that they were determined to run the ball more.

3. The Buccaneers did a good job of getting pressure on Jay Cutler. Some of it was good coverage and some of it was poor protection and some of it was Cutler just not being able to let go of the ball. But most of it was simply the Bucs dominating the line of scrimmage. They’ve got a very good defensive line and they showed up today.

4. The Bears love that screen play to Matt Forte on third and long. It’s almost too predictable. OK, there’s no “almost” about it.

5. Like everyone else, Jay Cutler wasn’t very sharp. His accuracy was farther off than usual.

6. There was a lot of talk about moving Jay Cutler’s launch point more and getting him out of the pocket. If they did much of it, I missed it.

Defense

1. It looked like the Bears came out playing mostly man-to-man defense with Kyle Fuller on Mike Evans and Tim Jennings on Vincent Jackson.

2. Vincent Jackson is huge. He’s not just tall but he’s built like a tight end.

3. The Bucs were picking on Lance Briggs in the underneath passing game, taking advantage of his lack of speed.

4. The Bears gave up first downs on an awful lot of third downs. I’m a little surprised that they didn’t clamp down harder at the sticks on those plays.

5. You could see exactly what was going to happen on the first touchdown. They sent Evans all the way to the sideline away from everyone else and it was going to be him and Fuller in press coverage all the way. Fuller even called out as if to tell everyone that they were over there but they were way too far away for him to get the help he was probably supposed to get. It was a good play by the Bucs.

6. Though they got to McCown on occasion, to my eye the Bears weren’t applying pressure with anywhere near the consistency they needed to. They did a lot of blitzing to compensate. To their credit, they did get enough to visibly affect McCown’s game. And, of course, once they were up by 11 in the fourth quarter, they loaded up and went after him.

7. Huge game by Stephen Paea. Jared Allen also applied more than his share of pressure.

8. I was happy to see the defensive players pick up a ball that hit the ground and run after a Josh McCown dump off screen. It was an incomplete pass but you don’t treat it that way until you hear a whistle. That was a lesson learned, I hope.

9. Some awful, awful tackling on the last Buccaneer drive of the first half. After some bumbling on the part of the Bucs offense it resulted in only three points.

Miscellaneous

1. Thom Brennaman, David Diehl and Laura Okmin did the game. Brennaman was the odd ball out as both Diehl and Okmin are from Chicago. He’s from North Carolina.

   Brennaman repeatedly asked the question that typified not only the game but also the Bears season – “What’s wrong with that expensive Bears offense?” Diehl made a good point that the Bears defense was spending too much time on the field, implying that they were going to wear down latter in the game if it continued.

2. Robbie Gould missed another field goal. He’s now officially in a slump as far as I’m concerned. He had an interesting kickoff, dropping the ball at about the twenty late in the third quarter. It could have resulted in another Bucs turnover. It was nice to see a returner on another team constantly bring the ball out of the end zone on kickoffs only to be tackled short of the twenty. A short Bears punt put the Bears defense in a difficult position 8 points down with about 3 minutes left in the game.

3. Marquess Wilson at least two drops, one on the very first drive. Martellus Bennet had a drop on the second. There were some dropped Bears interceptions that hurt them as well.

4. Time after time the Bears shot themselves in the foot during this game with penalties. They did it all from false starts to a blocks in the back. Lovie Smith’s team showed an uncharacteristic lack of discipline with penalties like roughing the kicker and a taunting. If possible, they were even worse than the Bears. You can certainly see why they’ve had a hard time winning games this year.

5. Turnovers were huge in this game, especially for the Bears.

   1. Chris Conte had a very nice interception on the Bucs’ first possession. Stephen Paea deserved a lot of credit for that one as he hit Josh McCown as he threw it.

   2. Jay Cutler gave it back with a fumble of his own. Brian de la Puente at left guard got beat like a drum by Gerald McCoy on that one.

   3. Huge fumble forced by David Bass in the third quarter gave the Bears a touchdown.

   4. That was followed by and interception by Ryan Mundy deep in Buccaneer territory. That led to seven more points.

   5. Another fumble by Vincent Jackson stopped a Buccaneers drive that could have easily led to points. The officials apparently felt that it was close enough to where they couldn’t over turn the call on the field but Jackson’s elbow may have been down.

6. I’ve been thinking about it. I think I’d take David Diehl more seriously if he lost the mustache. Well, that and if he started pronouncing the names of the Bears players correctly.

7. Well, you could copy what I said about the Bears offense last week and paste it here. The special teams only hurt them a moderately badly with the short punt near the end of the game so you can mark that down as an improvement.

As embarrassing as it is to have the Packers put up 50 on you, there’s little doubt that the defense has been saving the season for this team. That, and the tendency of teams like the Buccaneers to hand them the game. The Bears are bad but they aren’t so bad that they’re going to ordinarily refuse gifts. That’s what this game was. A present of dumb penalties, turnovers and undisciplined play. Merry Christmas.