This one was ugly...not Bears v Bengals '09 ugly, or Bears v Ravens '09 ugly, but far from Pretty nonetheless. The Bears defense didn't show up until midway through the second half while missing more tackles than a peewee defense, and making Drew Stanton look like Michael Vick minus the dog slaughtering. After getting the benefit of a goofy, and from my vantage point incorrect, roughing the quarterback call from Ed "Muscles" Hochuli, the Bears took care of business, and can now lean on the generic football cliche of "Great teams win when they don't play well, the very good teams lose when they don't play well". Whatever...here's what I watched:
Offense : It's nice to not have to start bitching about the Bears offense for a change. It's really hard to come down on this group lately, despite the offensive line still being porous to average throughout the day. Incidentally, this was the third consecutive game I saw Olin Kruetz pushed back on his ass during pass blocking. Olin should really think about hanging it up next season Be that as it may, the Bears offense looked pretty fluid. Matt Forte and Chester Taylor ran the ball well for 97 total yards and two touchdowns between them.
The new and improved Jay Cutler shined once again with a high completion percentage, nearly 250 passing yards, 1 touchdown and ZERO Picks. Cutler also continued to make plays with his legs when he had to, despite being sacked 4 times one of which resulting in a fumble. Cutler was helped immensely by the vastly improved play of Earl Bennett. Earl made some tremendous catches in big situations, contributing to the 5 of 9 third down conversions the Bears had on the day.
Defense : This was the group that deserves to be under the microscope for todays performance. After playing largely inspired football last week, as well as the last few games, this unit laid an egg in the first half - especially at the end of the first half. 2 plays, 91 yards for a touchdown with less than a minute to go is just flat out DUMB. So dumb in fact that the normally pulse-less Lovie Smith actually got "angry" at halftime at his lackadaisical defensive effort.
After Lovie's alleged meltdown, and some blitz calls later, the defense picked it up particularly early in the third quarter when Cutler fumbled near the Bears 10 yard line, and forced a 3 and out limiting Detroit to a Field Goal. Brian Urlacher was an animal once again. Julius Peppers (once again still not taking plays off) came through with a sack.
Bottom line, the defense got the job done when the chips were down.
Special Teams : Definitely a highlight of todays effort. Maynard dropped two punts inside the 10 yard line. Robbie Gould kicked a career high 54 yard field goal in the second half, while Devin Hester was one Craig Steltz block of the punter away from running back another touchdown. Why teams continue to kick to Hester is still one of the biggest examples of just how meatball NFL head coaches can be.
Where We Go From Here : It's easy to say the Bears overlooked the Lions because of what's happening next week. To some degree that's true, but I don't believe that the Bears were mailing it in effort wise. I think Detroit actually had a game plan for them, and executed it pretty well in the first half. The Bears not tackling made Detroit's approach that much better, but eventually both the Bears and the Lions remembered who each other were, and the Bears ended up with the victory.
That's now two of the predicted 3 wins the Bears would get courtesy of The Beard. I personally believe New England will be too much for them next week, but I've been wrong before.
Either way, most of the country will be watching. It should also be mentioned that regardless of how we've fels as fans, it goes without question that the 2010 Bears team is WAY more enjoyable than the one a year ago aren't they?!
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