Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Adam L. Jahns at the Chicago Sun-Times on the frequency with which the Beas resorted to the blitz Sunday night to get pressure on the quarterback:

“[Bears head coach Marc] Trestman acknowledged the Bears increased their number of blitzes against the Steelers, going from roughly 25 percent of their plays in Weeks 1 and 2 to around 33 percent. It resulted in two sacks by D.J. Williams and one by Lance Briggs.

“‘It was just two or three more blitzes than we probably normally run in a game,’ Trestman said.”

It seemed like a lot more than that. In any case the frequency was too high. The lack of pressure from the front four is a major concern. The Bears gave up huge chunks of yardage in the second half as the Steelers burned then repeatedly when they blitzed to make up for the deficit.

Offense

1. The Bears came out executing well. They came out with a good mix of the run and the pass with lots of short passes.
2. The Steelers came out blitzing a lot. The Bears offensive line handled it surprisingly well early.
3. Jay Cutler looked really calm in the pocket under pressure in the face of the blitz. Much better than in previous years under these circumstances.
4. Cutler seemed more willing to throw the ball away this game than he has been in the past.
5. Alshon Jeffery was getting a lot of balls early. That’s good. He’ll need to be a major part of the offense when it’s a finished product.
6. Brandon Marshall looked like maybe he was having a tough time catching some passes. Admittedly most looked like tough catches. I thought he had a tough time getting started this game. He finally made a huge catch in the fourth quarter.
7. In contrast to the first half, it was a different story in the second half. They had a much tougher time with the blitz as the receivers apparently failed to get open. It looked like maybe the Steelers started taking away Cutler’s dump off option. The game started to look more like some of the others we’ve seen from the offense against similar defenses.
8. I loved what Martellus Bennett did with a little shuffle pass in the third quarter. Cutler was under pressure and found him. He should have been tackled for no gain but used some quick feet to dodge some tacklers and make about 6 yards. Nice work for a big man.
9. Jermond Bushrod had a bit of a rough game allowing some pressure on Cutler.
10. It was nice to see earl Bennett make a big catch in the fourth quarter.

Defense
1. Like the Steelers, the Bears came out blitzing a lot. It was reasonably effective but risky for both sides as they dared the other team to make big plays. The Steelers touchdown in the second quarter was on a blitz that was picked up. So was the touchdown at the end of the third quarter. There were a number of other big plays.
2. The Bears continue to have trouble getting pressure with a four man rush.
3. I thought the Bears did reasonably we’ll defending the run.
4. The linebackers did their usual mice job.
5. Man Ben Roethlisberger is tough to bring down. It’s like tackling a linebacker.
6. Once again the defense did a reasonably nice job in the red zone. They generally held the Steelers to field boas once they got down there.
7. However, once again the defense had trouble stopping yet another team on third down.

Miscellaneous
1. I thought that the Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Michelle Tafoya did their usual good job. For my money this is the best announcing team in the game right now.
2. The Bears didn’t get burned *too* bad by penalties though the roughing the kicker penalty on Anthony Walters in the second quarter certainly hurt. The Steelers had too many that hurt too much.
3. The Bears receivers did their usual good job in terms of dropping passes. You could argue that Marshall should have caught one or two that he didn’t come up with but they were tough catches to make. The Steelers had more drops but not an unusual number.
4. Special teams were unremarkable on both sides.
5. Turnovers were the story of this game as they so often are. The Steelers gave the ball away far too often and the Bears took advantage.
6. The Bears picked up a nice win on the road largely because of their penchant for getting turnovers. They generally played clean, too, not beating themselves. That’s as important as anything and often makes the difference as it arguably did tonight. That said, I can’t let this summary pass without noting the lack of a pass rush from the front four. They’ve simply got to get more pressure on the quarterback without blitzing. They’re giving up too many big plays for too much yardage. As for the offense it was a story of two halves. Good the first half, not so good the second as Cutler apparently had trouble finding receivers under blitz pressure. Cutler is going to have to start getting rid of the ball quicker in those situations to hot receivers. He’s dropping back and holding the ball too long with too many defenders coming at him.

Bears head coach Marc Trestman talks about the Steelers 3-4 defense, contrasting it with the type of 4-3 defense the Bengals and Vikings prefer. Via Patrick Finley at the Chicago Sun-Times:

“’They’re not playing their front to rush the passer and defend the run on the way to the quarterback,’ Trestman said. ‘They’re rushing the passer to stop the run — and they’re doing it with internal blitzes and people coming from different levels, which makes it harder to one-on-one block.’”

“It also makes a draw play less dangerous because defensive linemen aren’t always selling out to sack the quarterback.

“Expect to see more power running from the Bears than when they faced the cover-2 defenses of the Bengals and Vikings the first two weeks.”

Noted. We’ll see if they can execute it on Sunday night.

Mike Mulligan at the Chicago Tribune echoes my thoughts on this point:

“[Charles] Tillman isn’t the best cornerback in the NFL, but he’s the best system fit in the league. And he’s an essential playmaker at a position where the Bears are dangerously thin. One longtime NFL scout said Tuesday that the Bears are very thin at cornerback and predicted teams would start to go after Isaiah Frey at nickel back.”

Frey has performed well but he hasn’t been asked to do much. I’ve been wondering why teams haven’t picked on Frey more. I think this might be something to keep an eye on.

Jay Cutler gets it. From the Chicago Tribune:

“They’re going to be as calm as I am and I try to stay relatively calm out there, especially in the fourth quarter.”

I wouldn’t necessarily say that “calm” is necessary in these situations. I believe what made the difference here might be better described as “confidence”.

Cutler isn’t necessarily using the right words but there’s a recognition in his statement that the team goes as he goes in these situations. No matter what he’s feeling inside, outwardly the one thing that you can’t show is that you lack faith in your teammates or the team’s ability to perform as needed. This is what’s known as “bad body language” and Cutler hasn’t shown it yet this year. It’s going to be fascinating to see if it rears up at any point. But the one thing that we can plainly see is that he understands the problem. That’s a great start.

Rick Morrissey at the Chicago Sun-Times puts yesterday’s game agains the Vikings in perspective:

“Football purists might have cringed at all the messiness of this game, but there was a terrible beauty to it.”

Indeed there was. Both sides overcame adversity with wonderful, uplifting play intermixed with plenty of flaws. It was human.

Defense

1. The Vikings game plan was pretty similar to the Bears – take what the defense gives you. They alternated between runs with Adrian Peterson and going to the air. They were particularly effective passing the ball in the second quarter. Stopping Peterson first was obviously the right thing to do but whenever they went seven in the box, Peterson almost always made yardage.
2. The Vikings obviously liked Greg Jennings matched up with Tim Jennings in the first quarter. The Bears made an adjustment in the second quarter because Christian Ponder looked for him but didn’t throw it. I’m not sure what the adjustment was but it was effective.
3. Ponder has been under siege in Minnesota and was more good than bad for most of the day. He was effect running outside the pocket and made some accurate (if not very strong) throws.
4. Another quiet day for Julius Peppers and Henry Melton. In fairness to Peppers, I think he got some pressure on Ponder to force a turnover.
5. The Bears looked to me like they were blitzing more today, often out of the eight man fronts they were using to stop Peterson.
6. Nice to see Cory Wooton get a sack.
7. Matt Kalil has been under scrutiny in Minnesota after a bad pre-season and a rough game last week. He looked solid today.
8. I thought the Bears needed to do a better job of keeping Ponder in the pocket. A more disciplined pass rush was needed.
9. Give some credit to the Vikings for coming out and executing some long, time consuming drives that ended in field goals in the third and fourth quarters. The Bears had a lot of guys at the the line but The Vikings didn’t completely abandon the run. They sustained each drive with good blocking up front and few mistakes. The Bears defense spent a lot of time on the field in the second half.

Offense

1. The Bears came out running. The Vikings responded by bringing an extra guy in the box, the Bears responded by passing, for example to Brandon Marshall. That’s pretty much how it went all day with both teams mixing it up.
2. Marshall, of course, had a great game.
3. The Bears still were running a lot of double tight end and max protect.
4. I loved the way the Bears took advantage of the Vikings aggressiveness on defense. The Alshon Jeffery end around in the first half was a brilliant call. As pointed out by color man Brian Billick, the Beas were also using a lot of counter plays and inside traps.
5. Passes just don’t come any better than the one from Jay Cutler to Marshall for the touchdown at the end of the first quarter. Cutler hit Marshall in stride on a pass that couldn’t have been more accurate.
6. Cutler’s tendency to hold the ball still worries me. His day was up and down and he frequently looked jittery. He was finding himself trapped in the pocket more often than last week, I thought.
7. Martellus Bennett was once again catching everything he could (not to mention the game winning touchdown). I thought he had as good of a game as can be reasonably expected.
8. I loved the way the Bears used Matt Forte. Catching passes, running the ball, he was all over with shifty running and good vision.
9. Kevin Williams, who sat out last week with an injury, didn’t do much in his first game back beyond a fluke interception in the end zone. Earl Bennet was quiet again. I was surprised we didn’t see more Dante Rosario. I wanted to see what he could do.
10. The play where Jared Allen cause Cutler to fumble the ball (which resulted in a Vikings touchdown) was a strange one. The Bears lineman and Matt Forte looked to me like they were running a screen play to the left. Cutler, instead of throwing the ball to Forte, rolled right and was caught by Allen, who both Bushrod and Forte let go. Weird play. It wasn’t the only play this game where the Bears offense didn’t look like they are on the same page with Cutler.
11. The Minnesota defense needs to limit big plays like a couple of the throws to Marshall and the last one to Martellus Bennett. They killed them this game.

Miscellaneous

1. Brian Billick and Laura Oakmin did their usual professional job. Billick pointed out that the Bears were taking advantage of the Vikings single high safety look and that the Bears were running a lot of inside traps and counters to take advantage of the Vikings defensive aggressiveness. I wasn’t as happy with the way that Thom Brennaman responded to adversity. He apologized repeatedly for the technical difficulties but did point out what, exactly they were. When it eventually became apparent that it was graphics and replays (mostly), he didn’t adjust by giving, for instance, the time on the clock or the down and distance more often.
2. Special teams were big this game with the opening Vikings kickoff return by Cordarrelle Patterson. Devin Hester had some good returns as well which gave the Bears some excellent field position. Though Eric Weems was getting pats on the back for it, unless I’m misunderstanding something the way he batted the ball out of the back of the end zone on one punt almost resulted in a Minnesota touchdown.
3. Not too many dropped balls today. Jeffery had one.
4. Turnovers played a big role here as the Vikings got 6 points on a Cutler fumble and the Bears got six on a pick six fro Tim Jennings. Letroy Guion took the ball away from Matt Forte on an important fourth quarter drive. And, of course, John Carlson’s loss of the ball to Blake Costanzo on the last kickoff was a killer. There were a number of others that had varying impact but all of them hurt. Not good.
5. Way too many penalties on both sides today. Twelve men on the field is always inexcusable.
6. There was a lot of slipping and sliding around the field this game. Let the pissing and moaning about the Soldier field tug commence.
7. One word describes this game. Sloppy. Sloppy field. Sloppy teams. It’s little comfort that the rest of the NFL currently generally doesn’t look a lot better. A win is a win but everyone has to take a long look at themselves and clean this mess up.

Dan Wierderer at the Chicago Tribune talks about the field conditions anticipated at Soldier Field on Sunday:

“Sunday’s Bears-Vikings game at Soldier Field is scheduled to kickoff at noon. If you’re keeping tabs, that will come roughly 15 or so hours after the University of Illinois football team completes its game against Washington on the same field.

“The Fighting Illini and Huskies will begin their clash at 5 p.m. Saturday night in Illinois’ “Chicago Homecoming” game.

“Also of note: Sunday’s forecast, according to Weather.com, calls for scattered thunderstorms and a 30 percent chance of rain in the city. So it’s very possible field conditions for the Bears and Vikings could get messy.”

Like many regular football fans I get extremely tired of hearing the complaints and debates about certain topics. Steroids, race relations, whether college athletes should be paid. The list goes on and on and the fatigue sets in early and often on all of them. But whether Soldier Field should have artificial turf is one of the worst. Unfortunately media people never seem to tire of it and there’s always a certain segment of Bears fans who always want to chime in. So I’m bracing myself for another long round of hearing the debates over this issue next week.

Though it wasn’t the focus of the article (which was Brian Urlacher‘s mouth), Rick Telander at the Chicago Sun-Times shared this interesting tidbit:

“As [quarterback Jay] Cutler admitted, it was a surprise when the refs wouldn’t let him run the plays as quickly as he wanted, because if the Bears substitute players on offense, they have to allow the foes to substitute, too.

‘‘Kind of a learning experience for us,’’ Cutler said. ‘‘I talked to the ref about it. If you want to do it, don’t sub, and you can go as fast as you want to go.’’

I’m a little surprised the Bears didn’t know about this rule or at least didn’t account for it. But it will be interesting to see what they do about it. It was fascinating to watch the Philedelphia Eagles run their frenetic offense against the Washington Redskins last week. I doubt the Bears will go quite that fast but it will be interesting to see if they begin to forgo substitutions to pick up the offensive pace this week.

Hub Arkush at the Chicago Sun-Times addresses the differences between the current Bears offense and those in recent years:

“Which brings us to another point about where the offense is at and where it’s going. It’s hard to get five receivers out if you only have three.

“Marquess Wilson was inactive against the Bengals, and Joe Anderson dressed but didn’t take a snap on offense. That speaks volumes about where [head coach Marc] Trestman believes his receiving corps is at.

“It’s not to say the kids can’t play, but apparently they’re not ready. It appears that Kyle Long and Jordan Mills are ready. But they’re not playing because they were so ready Trestman couldn’t keep them off the field; they’re playing because they have to.

“Anyone who suggests this offense isn’t dramatically different from what Bears fans are used to isn’t paying attention to personnel groupings, play-calling and execution.

Arkush’s second point is better than his first and they’re probably related.

Though he might not be wrong, I would suggest that the absence of Wilson and Anderson might have more to do with wanting to keep tight ends and running backs on the field than the fact that Wilson and/or Anderson would only be capable of limited contribution. I think instead that, consistent with comments in the rest of the article, the Bears are more concerned with protecting quarterback Jay Cutler at this point. Specifically, they might be looking to provide as much help as they can afford to Mills and Long. It certainly looked that way to me.

I’d also point out that, in my opinion, the Bears have the best running back in the league outside of Minnesota in Matt Forte. I don’t think anyone wants to take him off the field too often.