Bears: Monday Morning Quarterback - Week 1

Suprise, suprise. Third consective opening week loss and fifth out of the last six.

I knew we were going to struggle on offense but geezus. It is easy to point to the three consecutive penalties by some of our most veteran O-linemen and a couple key turnovers killed us but I think the problem for both sides of the ball lied in the running game.

Ex-Bear and local sports talk show host Doug Buffone always hammers home his three keys to winning in the NFL: Run the ball, stop the run, and play great special teams. This match up was a text book example illustrating this formula. Unfortunately it was the Redskins using it rather than the Bears.


Running the Ball
18 carries? Total? The Bears are the first team starting a rookie quarterback opening day since the 1960's. The game is on the road. The game is against a potential top five defense in the entire league. Any one of the previous statements should have been enough to merit a game plan that looked like the forward pass hadn't been invented yet. The fact that all three of these conditions were present for yesterdays game and the Bears only managed to muster 18 total carries for 41 yards is unfathomable.

Admittedly the O-line didn't look too stellar on the running plays that were called. The Redskins D-line got a lot of penetration on the run plays and I noticed Olin Kruetz getting blown back into the back field on more than a few occasions. This should not be the case with one of our supposed strengths on offense.

The top-ten rushers in the NFL on Sunday played on teams that won. That isn't a coincidence. If we are going to win games this year we need to see Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson amongst those leaders.


Stopping the Run
Clinton Portis owns the Bears. The fact that averages 152 yards/game against the Bears makes this a pretty obvious point. It should have been obvious that the Redskins were going to rely on him very heavily to make up for the complete lack of a passing attack. So 21 carriers and 121 yards later we are left wondering how we let them do this to us. It is only one game and I am not willing to count out the Bears D yet (3 sacks, 1 FF, 1 INT, 6 PD), but the fact that we were facing a one-dimensional Redskin team that we had an entire training camp to prepare for and we still weren't able to force them to beat us with the pass does not bode well for a team that is going to rely heavily on its' defense to keep competitive.

Seven out of the top ten rushing defenses last week were winners.


Special Teams
Three punts within the 20 and not much else. Nothing too exciting. Didn't lose the game for us but didn't particularly standout and definitely wasn't a difference maker.

Overall Orton played about as expected (mediocre), The Moose is definitely a stud receiver and we are going to have to find a way to limit our mistakes. I was throughly disappointed by our O-line play and rush defense. The Lions are coming off of an impressive win against the Pack. We'll need more than 166 total yards total offense and a better effort by our D to limit the opportunities the Lions have to distribute the ball to a pretty good set of skill players.

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