Month: October 2019

Quick Game Comments: Chargers at Bears 10/27/19

Defense

  1. I’d say the Bears defense generally played with some extra energy today on defense. They definitely came out with an edge.
  2. Interestingly after playing much more 3-4 base defense for the first 6 games of the season, the Bears played mostly in the nickel formation today. That probably means that they didn’t have much respect for the Chargers running game. With reason.
  3. The Bears also played a lot more zone defense. The guess here is that it was meant to generate more big plays with the defenders facing the quarterback
  4. To my eye, the Bears got better play from the defensive line this week. That made a huge difference in the run defense and the pass rush.
  5. Having said that, the Bears had a tough time getting pressure on Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers. If you are going to play a lot of zone defense you have to get pressure with a four man rush. Neither Khalil Mack nor Leonard Floyd got much pressure. The Bears eventually had to resort to the blitz.
  6. I also thought Roquan Smith played better today as well as he showed up more often around the ball.
  7. The Chargers came out of half time with adjustments and had some big gains on some zone beaters.
  8. Having a hard time understanding what was wrong with Keenan Allen but the guy looked like he was running on ice. He couldn’t keep his feet.

Offense

  1. The Bears came out running and definitely committed to it this week. The result of that patience with the run game was some good runs. They gained 162 yards on 38 rushing attempts.
  2. Having said that calling a running play as the clock wound down at the end of the first half with no timeouts was a bit boneheaded. I’m not big on criticizing play calling but having to spike the ball on 3rd down with one second left isn’t great clock management. A pass into the end zone would have given them one more shot at the end zone.
  3. Trubisky was inconsistent as usual but had some decent to good throws today. Notably, those throws came when he had good protection and didn’t see much pressure. The better protection can, I think, be partly attributed to the commitment to the run. Chargers pass rushers had to slow down for fear of it and the Chargers linebackers had to play it.
  4. The troubles in the red zone were notably for the Bears today. Four trips into the red zone in the first half yielded 9 points. That can’t happen.
  5. The commitment to the running game gave the Bears a definitive advantage in time of possession in the first half. They almost doubled the Chargers in that stat in the first half. The final stat was 37:56 to 22:00.
  6. Bobby Massie had a tough time with Joey Bosa all day. Bosa got a critical sack with 2:30 to play taking the Bears out of field goal range. You had to wonder why the Bears gave him no help on such a critical play knowing what a sack would mean.

Miscellaneous

  1. Thom Brennaman and Chris Spielman were your announcers. Brennaman is a pro. Spielman isn’t my cup of tea. He spends a lot of time critiquing individual players but I don’t find his insight to be compelling and to my mind he added little to the game.
  2. Eddie Pineiro missed a field goal early as did Chargers kicker Chase McLaughlin. Of course, Pineiro missed the game winner.
  3. Drops weren’t a big issue for the Bears but the Chargers had one or two that were drive killers. Mike Williams and Keenan Allen both dropped a touchdown.
  4. Penalties were horrendous for the Chargers. The stat line won’t show it as bad as it was because the Bears refused some but the ones that counted were damaging. The Chargers had the Bears off the field in the red zone twice and twice let them off the hook with penalties – one horse collar tackle and one pass interference in the end zone. The Bears still only scored a field goal but it was still really poor play. Rashad Coward had a bad game with multiple penalties.
  5. Kyle Fuller had an interception deep in Los Angeles territory. The Bears converted only a field goal. Trubisky threw an interception early in the fourth quarter that set the Chargers up on the Bears 20 yard line. He also gave up a fumble midway through the quarter, also in deep in Bears territory at the 25 yard line.
  6. Well, the Chargers did everything they could to hand the Bears this game and the Bears just wouldn’t take it. The Bears playoff hopes are gradually fading.

Quick Comments: Saints at Bears 10/20/19

Offense

  1. The Bears came out with the short passing game and the run as they have done in recent games. They had no success on the goround and limited success through the air, largely because the short passes were all they could complete. Without stretching the field it was evident that they were going nowhere.
  2. Trubisky’s accuracy was off, just as it was before the bye. The offense will always be limited as long as this is the case. He seemed to be mighty low with a lot of those short throws. Whether they are caught or not there’s little chance of yards after the catch with throws like that. Ball placement seems to be an issue.
  3. Allen Robinson is doing a great job but he can’t be the whole offense. Trubisky needs to start finding someone else. It looked like they were starting to find Trey Burton and Anthony Miller in the second half of the Oakland game. They needed to pick up where they left off with that.
  4. Matt Nagy forgot about the run in the first half. Again.

Defense

  1. I haven’t seen the statistics but one of the things I’m noticing about the defense under Chuck Pagano is that they are playing a lot more base 3-4 defense. It got a lot to recommend it in terms of versatility as long as Eddie Goldman can get some pass rush.
  2. The Bears had a tough time getting to Teddy Bridgewater on the pass rush as the Saints offensive line did a good job on the Bears front.
  3. On the other hand, I thought the Bears were solid against the run coming off of a terrible performance in London against the Raiders. Presumably they weren’t jet lagged playing at home.
  4. HaHa Clinton-Dix came to Chicago with a reputation for making big mistakes and we saw an example of it today as he was cheating up on the run and let Ted Ginn Jr. get behind him for a huge catch to set up a touchdown coming out of halftime.
  5. The Bears offense is wearing the defense down to a nub. They are being hung out to dry and are worn down in the second half. These are grim days. But very familiar to anyone who has watch this happen over and over over the last 20 years.

Miscellaneous

  1. Thom Brennaman and Troy Aikman did a nice job as usual. I kind of like Brennaman better than Joe Buck, who usually has some strong opinions that I don’t always agree with and who was presumably doing the baseball playoffs.
  2. Good play by the Saints to block the punt on the first Bears posession. The Saints schemed up a huge gap up the middle with to linement going in opposite directions to allow J.T. Gray to go right up the middle. The ball was alertly batted through the end zone by punter Pat O’Donnel to take the safety rather tha let the Saints recover for a touchdown. The Bears gave up another blocked punt in the second quarter.
  3. Heck of a kick return by Cordarrelle Patterson in the first quarter. He’s a big guy and he’s not particularly easy to bring down.
  4. Trey Burton had a bad drop before half time that should have been a first down. There were a few big catches that I thought the Saints receivers should have had for Bridgewater.
  5. The Saints went 52 yards in 12 plays aided by a terrible spot and worse review that failed to reverse the call in the second quarter.
  6. Anthony Miller is frustrated but when he finally get a chance to do something, he fumbles the ball deep in Bears territory. Maybe if he pulled his head out and played good fundamental football, good things would happen. Tight end Josh Hill cashed the turnover in for a touchdown. David Montgomery fumbled the ball deep in Bears territory early in the third quarter.
  7. Kudos to the crowd at Soldier Field It was pretty loud out there. Including the boos.
  8. The Bears opened as 6 point favorites over the Chargers and I’m wondering. How in the hell are they going to score 6 points?
  9. It seems evident that the Bears are set up to waste yet another championship caliber defense with putrid offensive play. The offense looks about as bad as it has since the early 2000s under Dick Jauron and John Shoop. As happened then, teams stacked the line of scrimmage to play the run and defended the short pass knowing that the Bears had little chance of stretching the field with big plays.

    Despite the Bears efforts to spread the blame around, its hard not to lay most of this at Mitch Trubisky’s feet. His inability to get on the same page with his receivers and throw an accurate pass more than 10 yards is a large part of the problem here. Matt Nagy abandoning the run early didn’t do him or the offensive line any favors as the Saints simply pinned their ears back and rush the passer.

Quick Comments: Raiders at Bears

Defense

  1. The Raiders came out with two tight ends and smashed the Bears right in the mouth. It was a old fashioned game plan where they spent their time running over the Bears defense and they did a fine job of it.
  2. The Raiders offensive line blew the Bears defense off the line of scrimmage. They physically dominated the Bears in a way that makes you wonder just how bad the Viking offensive line that couldn’t block the Bears last week is.
  3. Richie Incognito cost the Raiders with some penalties but the bet here is that his being in the line up brought a physical presence to the offense that may have been lacking in previous games.
  4. The loss of Akiem Hicks was a big deal for the Bears defense. I’m not sure how much difference it would have made but generally speaking, Khalil Mack ordinarily makes the defense dominant but Eddie Goldman and Hicks make it run but occupying blockers and keeping the linebackers clean.
  5. Ordinarily this would be where I would bring up the fact that the run set up the play action passing game for the Raiders. They did some of it and it was damaging when they did but the truth is that they didn’t really even need it. Just running the ball was sufficient.
  6. Some really bad Bears tackling did not help their cause today. It may have gotten a bit better in the second half.
  7. The Bears also started to blitz more in the second half and that was reasonably effective.
  8. The defense was gassed again at the end of the game. The Raiders dominated the time of possession and they spent the whole game blowing the bears off the line of scrimmage with the run game. That will certainly do it.

Offense

  1. As was the case with the defense, the Bear offense got physically dominated at the line of scrimmage in the first half.
  2. The Bears didn’t run the ball enough in the first half and they couldn’t run it when the plays were called (again). We’re used to that. But today they were giving up sacks and that is not characteristic. The Raiders were blitzing and playing games at the line of scrimmage and everything seemed to work today. When the Bears came out of half time they tried to correct this problem by forcing the run a little more. This had the effect of slowing the Raiders pass rush some.
  3. Typical of the first half was Charles Leno on the very first series of downs. A holding penatly backed the Bears up and that was followed by a sack by his guy, thus killing the Only decent drive of the half.
  4. Something is wrong with Tarik Cohen. The blocking wasn’t good enough and that was certainly the biggest part of the problem. But he seems to lack vision this year and some of the quickness that he had last year wasn’t showing up.
  5. It seems evident that the Bears tried to make adjustments at half time that did help their cause a bit. Besides running the ball more, it looked like Daniel was making a conscious effort to get other receivers involved, especially Anthony Miller and the tight ends.
  6. Chase Daniel looked to me like he was leaving the pocket a lot earlier in the second half as well. He probably avoided a lot of sacks that way and got a better look at the field while on the move.
  7. Some really nice, big catches by Miller and Allen Robinson today as the Raiders had them well covered.

Miscellaneous

  1. Dick Stockton and Mark Schlereth were on the call. This was Schlereth’s kind of game. An ex-offensive lineman, he knows dominance at the line of scrimmage when he sees it. As it turned out, he was the right guy for this game. Stockton was not at his best. He was frequently confused by the action on the field.
  2. A huge kick return by Tarik Cohen set the Bears up in good field position in the third quarter. A big fake punt in the fourth quarter deep in their own territory gave the Raiders a big first down with 5:40 left in the game.
  3. There were an irritating drops on both sides but I can’t say they were a huge factor.
  4. Richie Incognito return came with some damaging penalties for the Raiders. A frustrated Miller’s taunting penalty after Robinson’s touchdown in the third quarter was particularly damaging as it, along with a good punt return, gave the Raiders the ball in excellent field position near the end of the third quarter. Charles Leno had a rough day with some damaging holding calls. The Raiders had a very damaging roughing the passer by Maurice Hurst that eliminated a Raiders interception.
  5. As usual, turnovers determined how this game went more than any other dingle factor. Besides the game clinching interception with less than 2 minutes left in the game, Chase Daniel threw a big interception in the first half that resulted in a Raiders score. Both passes you had to wonder where he was throwing the ball. The one to practically end the game, in particular, looked like a miscommunication. A bad exchange gave the Bears the ball deep in Raiders territory in the third quarter. They scored a touchdown. A huge fumble by the Raiders Trevor Davis at the goal line basically took a touchdown away from the Raiders. Sherrick McManis made a good play to knock the ball out.
  6. Stockton mentioned that it was a Bears crowd in London and it certainly sounded like it in the second half. I pity the poor European who innocently adopted the Bears not knowing the misery they have let themselves in for.
  7. It’s very evident that the Bears weren’t ready to play today. Oakland came in last Sunday after their game while the Bears chose to come in Thursday in an effort to not disrupt their routine. It looks like Oakland did it right. Jon Gruden emphasized the opportunity to bond with this team on this trip and they certainly did look better for it.

    Meanwhile the Bears are left to gather themselves during the break and see if they can come out better after the bye than they did last year when an inferior Dolphin team took it to them.