Bear(ing) the News – A Chicago Bears Blog

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune also addresses the situation of practice squad tight end Fendi Onobun:

“There probably was a spot on the 53-man roster for Fendi Onobun if he had performed better in the preseason but that’s in the past. He is on the practice squad now and working to improve and earn the trust of coaches and teammates. What’s interesting is this is the longest Onobun, the former college basketball player, has been with one club – he was added late last season – and had the benefit of an entire offseason program.

“The practice squad is an opportunity to go against our first defense and work on the little parts of the game that I need to improve,” Onobun said. “It is a great opportunity and I am working hard every day to improve and get better. I hoped to be called up but it is evident I am in a situation where the organization sees I need to improve. I am right on the cusp but not quite there yet. I am doing everything in my power to continue to bust my tail and get better every day against the first-team defense.”

I don’t want to over react because we only got to see Onobun in the preseason games. But having said that, if he thinks he’s “right on the cusp” he’s going to have to learn a bit about what it takes to get on the field. Onobun regularly dropped the ball and showed pretty definitely that he couldn’t make plays in games when it counted. Most of the fans were surprised he was resigned, even if it was just to the practice squad.

I hope head coach Marc Trestman and general manager Phil Emery haven’t fallen in love with Onobun’s potential. Maybe he’ll work out. But if he was a quarterback he’d be the kind of guy who would get you fired.

Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune addresses the linebacker play in his excellent “10 Thoughts” article:

“Lance Briggs made a big play when he stuffed BenJarvus Green-Ellis for a four-yard loss on first-and-goal from the 1-yard line in the third quarter. But it was a relatively quiet game for the linebackers. According to press box statistics, Briggs had seven tackles, James Anderson made five and D.J. Williams was credited for three.

“The biggest play by a linebacker might have been Anderson deflecting [Bengals quarterback Andrew] Dalton’s pass for Marvin Jones in the fourth quarter. The Bengals were facing third-and-10 on their own 20 and Anderson showed a blitz in the A gap along with Briggs. On the snap, Anderson dropped into zone coverage with defensive end Julius Peppers also dropping off as Briggs and strong safety Major Wright blitzed. Dalton threw early and Anderson was there to deflect the pass with his left hand.”

The statistics don’t show Anderson’s true value Sunday. He was everywhere in coverage from beginning to end. Former strong-side linebacker Nick Roach was solid but Anderson showed some athleticism that I thought Roach to some extent lacked. This was a definite upgrade and general manager Phil Emery deserves some credit for pulling the trigger on it.

Steve Rosenbloom at the Chicago Tribune doesn’t believe head coach Marc Trestman‘s biggest call was going for it on fourth and one in the fourth quarter:

“Instead, the big call came about 15 minutes earlier after the Bengals shredded the Bears defense to open the second half. Despite trailing 21-10 halfway through third quarter of the Bears’ season opener at home and his career-opener as a head coach, Trestman stuck with the run.
“He and [quarterback Jay] Cutler balanced the pass-run play-calls because that’s what professional teams do. The balance also prevented the sack terrors along the Bengals defensive line from teeing off on Cutler. It seems simple and smart, and there was still a lot of time remaining, but that never meant squat to the likes of the Ironheaded Mikes, Tice and Martz.

“This is big-boy stuff. Matt Forte darted around and through a Bengals team that was sucking wind, then Michael Bush thumped a Bengals team that didn’t feel like playing much tackle football at the end.”

“Trestman decided the Bears could run the ball when it mattered. He decided they would run the ball when it mattered. Big call. The biggest, actually. Testicular fortitude.”

Rosenbloom makes a good point. It is entirely possible that past coordinators would have started throwing the ball around at that point. And doing that does put a great deal of pressure on the offensive line, as they are then blocking defensive linemen who are doing nothing but rushing the passer all out with no fear of being burned on a run.

But I will say this. They were only about one possession away from throwing the ball around as Rosenbloom describes. Which means you could argue that, literally, they were one possession away from losing the game. That’s how close a thing it was.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune reviews the tape from Sunday’s game:

“Cutler spread the ball around and made some plays while improvising, including a 24-yard completion to Forte. In the face of pressure, he was strong. Cutler didn’t fall into his past habit of regularly throwing off his back foot. The ball came out quickly and he completed 66 percent of his throws, not counting the spike to stop the clock.”

The point about Cutler not throwing off of his back foot got by me and it’s a good one. Cutler’s mechanics were notably better last week than they had been in the past and this can almost certainly be credited in part to the efforts of head coach Marc Trestman and quarterbacks coach Matt Cavanaugh.

But I’m inclined to give the most credit to offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer who insists that the offensive line be strong up the middle with an emphasis on good guard play. Keeping a pocket in front of Cutler almost certainly had as much to do with allowing him to step into his throws. I don’t remember Cutler stepping up into the pocket much but ideally that’s almost certainly what we’re going to see him start to do more as its kept clean and defenders are not allowed into his face.

Many people noted after the Bears game that they liked the “adjustments” that the Bears made at halftime of the Bengals game last Sunday. I actually couldn’t put my finger on anything that could be identified as different (other than they moved the ball a lot better). Indeed, when I pressed people to tell me something more specific, freely confessing that I’d missed the boat, they also struggled to tell me exactly what changed.

As far as I can tell, it turns out that the biggest adjustment was fairly simple. Head coach Marc Trestman explains via Adam L. Jahns at the Chicago Sun-Times:

“We’ve got to get our pads down on both sides of the ball. It’s not unusual to see players playing high in the first game and the team that has the lower pad level is usually the team that moves the line of scrimmage. Our pads got much lower in the second half and we played better.”

That was undoubtedly not the only adjustment. But it’s good to know that the game still comes down to fundamentals when its all said and done.

One of the primary concerns from the Bengal’s perspective was how fill in left tackle Anthony Collins, who hasn’t had a start since 2011, was going to fare against Bears defensive end Julius Peppers. My assumption was that if Collins was going to handle Peppers, he was going to need a lot of help. According to Paul Dehner, Jr. at the Cincinnati Enquirer, that wasn’t the case:

"Collins shut down Peppers and his 111.5 career sacks, keeping him without a number on the stat sheet.

"No sacks, no pressures, no hurries, no tackles, no knockdowns, no anything. Much of that came without assistance from running backs or tight ends.

“’I don’t need no help,” Collins said. “I asked coach (Paul) Alexander, I asked coach (Jay) Gruden, don’t give me no help. Let me prove myself. He’s a $100-million man, but I’m a grown man, too.”

Hard to argue.

Mark Potash at the Chicago Sun-Times writes about the balance in the offense yesterday:

“But this time, Marshall had the most help. And his team won. Hmmmm .?.?.

‘’‘That should be comforting to him as well,’ Cutler said regarding the more balanced production. ‘We had a lot of guys get touches. He went for over a hundred [yards] and had a touchdown — still a big day for him.’’’

Marshall was the focus of the offense last year almost to the exclusion of the other receivers on the field. It was evident that he both liked the production and didn’t like the wear and tear on his body. He was torn on whether he wanted the situation to continue or not continue and his comments indicated that he didn’t know where he fit in to the new plan.

Yesterday was an example of how it should ideally work. He still gets plenty of production by not being the sole focus. My guess is that, as Cutler put it, how it worked out should be comforting to him. Hopefully Marshall does, in fact, now know where he fits in – as the center of a balanced attack.

Offense

1. It was evident that the Bengals had their choice of paths to attack the Bears. A. They could attack Jay Cutler by offering tight man coverage and forcing him to release the ball early and trust his receivers, something he’s yet to show he can do. Or B. they could defend the West Coast Offense in the typical manner with a soft zone, keeping everything in front of the defensive backs and forcing the offense to execute by taking yardage in short chunks. My guess B, was the direction the Bengals chose to go in.
2. The Bears started executing OK on offense. They did make mistakes with drops and penalties but they overcame them. For instance, on the drive leading to the first touchdown by Martellus Bennett, Matt Slauson’s ineligible man downfield penalty should have killed the drive. But sloppy play by the Bengals defensive back field let Brandon Marshall surge forward past the linebacker covering him underneath for a first down.
3. Speaking of Marshall, I love the way the Bears moved him around. Putting him in the slot in the first quarter with Matt Forte on the outside put Forte up against Leon Hall, a cornerback, with Marshall covered by safeties and linebackers.
4. Nevertheless, it was evident that the Bengals were keying on Marshall. They figured, correctly, that when Cutler is under pressure or when he needs a play, he’s still going to try to go Marshall’s way.
5. Having said that, the zone the Bengals played most of the time played into Cutler’s hand in that he’s much more comfortable throwing against that kind of a defense and he had a decent game with good accuracy. Because the Bengals rushed four most of the time, he wasn’t under tremendous pressure, a tribute to the offensive line.
6. The zone defense did, however, stop the Bears for most of the first half after the nice start. Executing mistake free football where every player does his job is the challenge in this kind of game. Significantly, the Bengals did a good job of stopping the Bears on first down.
7. Cutler went to Alshon Jeffery a lot today. He did a great job of taking advantage of his opportunities. That was good to see.
8. If Earl Bennett was out there, I didn’t see him much. He didn’t have much of a role today after missing most of camp. He had one catch in the third quarter.
9. I saw Jermon Bushrod get pushed into the backfield to stop a running play at least once. But other than that, I thought he had a good game and lived up to his billing. Overall the offensive one had a good game. There were a few growing pains on the part of the rookie right side but nowhere near what I expected. A good sign for the Bears although blitzing wasn’t much of the Cincinnati game plan. That right side is going to face bigger challenges.
10. Interesting that the Bears left Matt Forte in the game in the red zone in the third quarter. He rewarded them with a very nice power run.
11. It also looks like that stretch play is going to be a staple run for the Bears this year.
12. Third and seven, third quarter. Bengals come with an all out blitz. Cutler, instead of quickly getting rid of the ball to a hot receiver, takes off with the ball and the play becomes a Chinese fire drill. He completes the ball to Martellus Bennett on the run for a first down. The good? It worked. The bad? This isn’t how its supposed to work. Cutler and the Bears offense will have arrived when they execute in this situation correctly. If they can.
13. On a related note, also interesting that Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis was apparently upset that the Bengals let Cutler out of the pocket on second and twenty in the fourth quarter for a long run. A disciplined pass rush is one of the keys to stopping Cutler. You have to put pressure on him and force him to throw from the pocket.

Defense

1. The Bears came out mixing it up with more blitzing than we saw last year. For instance, the interception by Charles Tillman was forced by a Cris Conte blitz that came free.
2. I thought the long completion to A.J. Green setting up the Bengals first touchdown was interesting. Second and four. The Bears put Charles Tillman in what amounted to single press coverage on A.J. Green with no help. That’s something that would have never happened in the previous regime. Andy Dalton has struggled in the past with his arm strength and his ability to complete a long pass has been questioned. Kudos to him for throwing a nice pass to Green on that play.
3. Speaking of Dalton, he had a great game. So much for not being able to make the big play. He and A.J. Green are a dynamic combination that is going to win the Bengals a lot of games.
4. Speaking of Green, I was disappointed by how much of a hard time the Bears cornerbacks had with the sizable Bengals receivers. The defense was getting beat with some standard routes that they really should have been able to defend. Charles Tillman had a rough, rough game. He could have used some safety help and, in fact, defensive coordinator Mel Tucker eventually gave him some. It didn’t seem to help much as Green appeared to continue to do what he wanted.
5. I didn’t notice much of the Bears using the defensive linemen in this “jack” position where they stand and can either rush the passer or drop into converge. Didn’t see much zone blitz, either. They may be saving it for later or the right situations may not have popped up.
6. Anthony Collins name wasn’t called much. That’s good for the Bengals as he drew his first start since 2011. He was blocking Julius Peppers and did a good job.
7. Stephen Paea had a nice game as I saw him get penetration quite a bit.
8. On the other hand, Henry Melton didn’t cause much disruption after remising most of camp.
9. Nickel back Isaiah Frey’s name wasn’t called much. That’s a good sign for him and the Bears.
10. D.J. Williams looked winded on occasion but otherwise I can’t see that he had a bad game depute missing much of training camp.
11. I thought the tackling needed some work. The Bengals seemed to be breaking far too many of them to pick up extra yardage after contact.
12. I was underwhelmed by the Bears pass rush. Dalton was getting rid of the ball fast but when he went long, he had a lot of time. Other than the blitz from Conte I mentioned above, it didn’t succeed much. Certainly not as much as it needed to.

Miscellaneous

1. I can see that we might be on our way to yet another year where I’m gong to be constantly told I’m too soft on the announcers. Nevertheless, I thought Jim Nantz and Phil Simms did a nice job. Nantz has a particular tendency to let you know which relevant players are on the field where and Simms, though nowhere near the best teacher on TV, does tend to pick up nice, relevant facts that fans might not typically notice. A good example was on the Bengals quarterback sneak where Simms pointed out that the Bears had only a single nose guard to stop Dalton and the Bengals simply took the play that was given to them.
2. One pick that I have a particular problem with. Nantz said that the Bears “didn’t elect to resign” Brian Urlacher. They, in fact, offered him double his market value as a free agent and Urlacher chose not to accept it.
3. Bears special teams were pretty good though the day could have been easily marred by a long Adam Jones return that was called back for a block in the back. Robbie Gould hit a massive 58 yard field goal near the end of the first half. Adam Pdlesh had a particularly good day inside the 20 yard line. The Bengals did a good job of handling Devin Hester either kicking away from him or pinning him to the sideline.
4. Two Charles Tillman interceptions gave the Bears the edge on turnovers. They could have had a fumble after Tim Jennings stripped the ball and kicked it out of bounds.
5. Martellus Bennett had a big drop to start the game. Matt Forte dropped one. Not a horrible day in this respect.
6. Too many penalties, especially by the Bengals, marred this as the first regular season game. The Bengals lost some big plays to them. The Charles Tillman was forced to commit a pass interference on A.J. Green basically gave the Bengals a touchdown. Martellus Bennett had a couple costly holding calls. Rey Maualuga had an inexcusable personal foul which effectively ended the game for the Bengals. Both teams need to clean this up.
7. On a similar note, both teams occasionally didn’t look well organized during the game. Cincinnati used their last time out with 8 minutes left because they had 12 men on the field. Again, first regular season game… need to clean that up…. blah, blah, blah…
8. Overall this was a marvelous start for the Bears against a very good football team. Not that they didn’t make a lot of mistakes – they did. But it was good enough to win a game that I freely admit I didn’t think they’d get. They’ve got to clean up the penalties and M. Bennett is going to have to stop with some of the bone-headed errors he committed. If the defense didn’t look quite as good as last year, it wasn’t far from it. It was a reasonable offensive performance against a reasonable game plan executed by a good football team. It’s a start.
9. The first day of the NFL season is one of the highlights of my year. I’m not a big fan of most other sports. Not like football. Today is when I can finally concentrate on something I really love after a long off-season.

There are so many variables, so many things to find out, there’s so much to look forward to. It provides a focus that blocks out all of the troubles that I face during the week and allows me, if only just temporarily, to live completely in the moment. Those times are rare and I’m grateful.

So many people think it’s about whether their team wins or loses. It’s not. It’s about the journey. And today, just for today, I’m among the happiest men on earth.