Defense
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Some really bad Bears tackling did not help their cause today. It may have gotten a bit better in the second half.
- The Bears also started to blitz more in the second half and that was reasonably effective.
- 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
- As was the case with the defense, the Bear offense got physically dominated at the line of scrimmage in the first half.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Some really nice, big catches by Miller and Allen Robinson today as the Raiders had them well covered.
Miscellaneous
- 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.
- 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.
- There were an irritating drops on both sides but I can’t say they were a huge factor.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.