Game Comments: Bears at Vikings 12-28-14

Offense

1. They mixed it up but you knew that Minnesota wasn’t going to make the mistake of playing extensive man-to-man against Jay Cutler and the Bears offense. They came out in the kind of soft zone that has defeated them all year and the Bears were doomed before they ever got stated.
2. Having said that, the Bears tried to do what you should do against such a zone defense – run against it. And they did that reasonably well for most of the game. But, as usual, penalties put them in some bad spots and it wasn’t enough.
3. Minnesota was well prepared. They knew those screen passes that burned them last time were coming and they did a good job of shutting them down all game.  The Beas never adjusted and never stopped calling them.
4. And Josh Morgan makes an appearance, everybody. Welcome to the team. It only took you 16 games to show up.
5. I thought Martellus Bennett had another nice game. I thought his play this year was Pro Bowl worthy but the voters apparently didn’t agree.
6. The Bears failures in the red zone were awful today and they’re probably the biggest reason they lost. You can’t win many football games settling constantly for field goals.
7. I’m not going to waste my time pounding Jay Cutler too badly but needless to say he was once again going with the one read and panic when its not there method of quarterback play. Similar to the Saints game, he looked more like a rookie out there than Bridgewater did. He wasn’t particularly accurate again, either.

Defense

1. The Bears did pretty much what they’ve been doing. Mixing it up on defense and occasionally bringing an extra guy.
2. They had some success on defense. I’m not as down o the Bears defense as everyone else is right now. They’ve improved over the course of the season and at least they show some spirit every once in a while. I thought that they had a great stop when they held the Vikings on fourth down in the fourth quarter to give the Bears offense a chance to win it.
3. The pressure on Teddy Bridgewater was there but it was inconsistent. I’ll say the same thing now as I did last game – if you are going to rush five you’d better get there.
4. Nice pick by Kyle Fuller on one of the few really bad passes I can remember coming from Bridgewater.
5. The difference in the game was really the touchdown on the busted coverage by Tim Jennings, who looked to me like he was playing cover-2 while everyone else was playing cover-1. It wasn’t as damaging as Chris Conte’s goof in the last game last year but its these types of plays that are undoubtedly going to see the coaching staff fired tomorrow.

Miscellaneous

1. I was, once again, in a bar and couldn’t listen to Dick Stockton and Brady Quinn. I’m going to guess that I was fortunate.
2. Special teams were competent. Marc Mariani had a nice kick return. The missed field goal in the second half really hurt. Can someone explain to me the theory behind the short pooch-type kickoffs the Bears have resorted to occasionally the last few games?
3. Unlike the last game, there weren’t too many bad drops. Josh Morgan had a notable one that forced the Bears to make a 4th and 3 in the 4th quarter.
4. Both teams had too many penalties. The offside by Corey Wootton took a Minnesota interception off the board.
5. Only one turnover so not complaints on either side there.
6. The Bears season could be described in the last series of the year and, probably, of the Marc Trestman era. Three stupid penalties kept the Bears from making a desperately needed first down on their own 20 yard line with less than 3 minutes left to play. At least they got the seventh pick in the draft. Here’s hoping they’ll be looking for a quarterback.