Defense
- The Saints are a really nice offensive ball club that came out executing. They did a nice of mixing it up on the Bears defense.
- It all started with the running game and the screen game with the Saints. Once they established those two plays, they did a nice job of playing on the defense’s reactions to take maximum advantage of their success. The Bears appeared to be very conscious of both.
- The Bears defense did itself no favors today as there was poor tacking all over the field. You can’t get away with that with an offense that is hitting on all cylinders.
- All of that poor tacking resulted in some atypical big plays. Those were what really hurt today as much as anything else.
- One thing you notice about the Saints is how well they block downfield. Its now those screen plays run.
- Akiem Hicks had another good game. He was drawing a lot of double teams and still had a big effect on the game. He’s certainly not slowing down after getting that big contract.
- Hicks and Leonard Floyd did a good job of getting some pressure on Brees. Nice to see Floyd blossoming.
Offense
- The Saints came out and did exactly like you’d expect. They stacked the line of scrimmage and made the Bears beat them with the pass.
- The Saints did a good job of pressing the Bears wide receivers off the line of scrimmage. They had a tough time getting open.
- I thought Kenny Vaccaro stuck out as having a particularly good game with the Saints. They were crashing the line of scrimmage and blitzing to stop Jordan Howard and Mitch Trubisky and that seems to be something he excels at.
- The Bears are having a tough time with that outside zone run play. Teams are crashing the line of scrimmage and getting penetration on it and stopping it cold. They had better luck running up the middle.
- The receivers did come alive a little more today (5 catches for 115 yards between Tre McBride and Kendall Wright). McBride had a big 40 yard reception to set up the Bears field goal in the first half. The Bears got them with the play action, something I think we’d all like to see happen more.
- I thought the Bears did a decent job of running up the middle. It wasthat outside zone stretch play mentioned above that wasn’t working well.
- I thought the Bears did a better job of passing starting late in the second quarter. The wide receivers had their best game all year.
Interestingly, Trubisky appears to be picking his targets before the
snap rather than reading the field afterwards. He’s getting away with
it for now. - Trubisky who took yet another sack near the end of the first half to make a Connor Barth field goal about 10 yards longer. Barth missed it. That’s two weeks in a row. He has to stop doing that.
- Trubisky is also still having trouble picking up the backside blitz. Not a great surprise I guess but he needs to learn quickly.
- Would have liked to have seen Trubisky be a little more accurate today. Admittedly he wa probably trying hard to put the ball only where the receiver could catch it. But he missed some big passes that we were told based upon what he did in college that he wouldn’t miss.
- On the positive side, Trubisky threw a tremendous pass to Zack Miller for the Bears touchdown in the third quarter. And it was a touchdown.
- Darned shame to see Miller get injured on that play. Story of his career.
Miscellaneous
- Justin Kutcher and Chris Spielman were your announcing team. give it up for Spielman who did a nice job. He brought a perspective to the game that was a bit different in a land of former quarterbacks as color men. Case in point: he taught us that when the offensive linemen aren’t square to the line of scrimmage it’s not an outside zone running play but a bootleg to the opposite side. He did a nice job peppering the game with such points.
- Connor Barth missed a field goal from 45 yards at the end of the second half. He wasn’t helped by Trubisky who took yet another sack to make that field goal about 10 or so more yards. He has to stop doing that.
Tarik Cohen took the ball on a punt and he hesitated rather than just running up field. The Saints player on the coverage was going full steam and buried him. He has to stop that jittering and just go.
- An offside on Kyle Fuller on a field goal attempt gave Saints a first down. That resulted in a touchdown. That was a bad one. But overall I don’t think the Bears committed too may penalties today.
- Drops weren’t a factor today but Jordan Howard had a terrible one near the goal line late in the fourth quarter.
- The Bears won the turnover battle by getting two fumbles in the fourth quarter that kept them in the game.
- They say that every game comes down to just a few plays. Boy, was that true today. Take the four points the Bears lost on Kyle Fuller’s offside call that allowed the Saints to get a touchdown instead of a field goal in the first quarter, the three points Trubisky arguably cost the Bears by taking a sack and moving the Bears back on a first half missed field goal and the four points the referees cost them by taking away Miller’s touchdown and you’d have the Bears right in the middle of this game.
The Bears actually didn’t playbadly. Their tackling was poor and that cost them a great deal but they weren’t committing penalties, they weren’t dropping the ball and they once again won the turnover battle.
Having said all of that, I still think the better team won today. But the Bears hung tough with a team that was really playing well. Every game I think we see a little more hope for the future. Just another good draft or two and maybe they’ll be competitive with anyone.