Be the kid down the park tonight, Mitch.

Effortlessly tossing the ball to his friends.

Allay the fears of those off the pitch.

Thrill all the guards and the backs and tight ends.

This is your moment, this is your team.

Harness the rising tide and

Execute the goddamn scheme.

Seethe at the criticism and rise above it.

Kid, this is the gig that you covet.

It’s drifting away, but

Not now, not today.

Start playing ball like you love it.

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

And I think they will build off the miracle. (See yesterday’s column.)

Trite, Boring Thoughts on the Washington Football Team

• Redskins are simply not very good on defense.
  • They are giving up 168 yards per game on the ground through two weeks, better only than the Dolphins – who are not a professional football team. If there were ever a week for the Bears to get their run game going, it has to be Monday night.
  • When one watches Washington tape it’s remarkable how many open receivers they allow. Opponents are completing nearly 79% of their passes against them. 79%!! And they have been brutalized by the deep ball. The Bears can’t take a conservative approach with their passing attack. They have to force the Washington secondary to chase the football because they’ve shown no ability to do so effectively yet.
  • Only the Denver Broncos (0) have fewer sacks than the Redskins (2) so this is not a game Trubisky should spend under duress. This is a week the Bears offensive line needs to put on their backs.
• Two things positive for the Redskins:
  • While the outcomes have been bad, they have actually been competitive early in both of their games, especially the opener against Philly.
  • Case Keenum looks comfortable running Jay Gruden’s offense and is statistically off to a flying start. I didn’t know much about Terry McLaurin and Trey Quinn but they look like solid, professional pass catchers on the tape.

Great D.C. Movie Scenes, Volume I

Tweet of the Week

I spent way too much time putting together this video of Alex Trebek saying the word “genre,” so now you have to RT it. Sorry, I don’t make the rules pic.twitter.com/VacI730SJv

— Alex Jacob (@whoisalexjacob) September 13, 2019

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“Put in their hands thy bruising irons of wrath,
That they may crush down with heavy fall
The usurping helmets of our adversaries.”

-Shakespeare, Richard III

It was a miracle.

You know it.

I know it.

A miracle.

The Bears were beaten in Denver and their fans were emotionally bruised in barrooms across the country. There was a funereal silence at Bar 43 in Sunnyside, Queens. You could almost hear a buffalo wing as it crashed to the floor, sauce gently spraying onto the lower legs of white jeans.

Then it happened.

A weird call.

A brilliant play.

A kicker makes a kick.

Club Dub.

Now…keep it going, Bears.

Build on the miracle.

Was Sunday in Denver a great performance? Of course not.

The offense was putrid again and until those final moments it didn’t even seem to be trying to move the ball down the field.

If the Broncos had three more possessions in the game they would have scored three more touchdowns. That’s how gassed the defense was.

But they won.

They tallied the totals after an hour and the Bears had more.

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After two wonky games to officially open the NFL season, we’re soon to find out who the 2019 Bears are. That will only happen, however, if the coach starts trusting the QB.

A 1-1 start to the season always seemed likely since – as was well documented throughout last week – nobody wins in Denver in Week 2. (Of course nobody predicted what actually took place down the stretch.) The demise of the team’s defense was greatly exaggerated. Reports of an offensive regression, however, don’t appear to have been aggressively predicted enough.

One of the biggest things to emerge from the win over Denver was Matt Nagy flat out not trusting his quarterback. The Bears had third downs and between two and three yards SIX times in the game and chose to run the ball on four of them. Do coaches who trust their quarterbacks take the ball out of their hands this often? I don’t think so.

It’s not uncommon for teams to run in those situations, but it is odd for them to insist on running it like the Bears did. After the game, Nagy said he intentionally had a conservative game plan in order to keep his defense rested, in the heat and high altitude. Perhaps that helped prevent the collapse until late in the fourth quarter but scoring points would’ve made any incoming collapse less significant.

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The Chicago Bears defense is already top five in the relevant categories and well on their way to being one of the league’s preeminent units in 2019.

The Chicago Bears offense isn’t.

And the quarterback is a big reason why.

Here are three points on the young quarterback’s struggles in the early going of this campaign.

He’s Not Using His Legs

Nobody wants to see Trubisky running the ball ten times a game and sustaining that punishment.

But he certainly has had plenty of opportunities to extend plays AND drives with his legs. Expanding his pocket buys time and allows the speed on the outside to find spaces in the defense. And on third and four, sometimes it’s fine to call your own number and move the chains.

Also, Trubisky always seemed to use his legs to get into the flow of a game. It pumped him up. It pumped his teammates up. It was street ball. I recommend he go back to that style and start having fun out there. It’s a game.

A Scout’s Take

Had a text conversation with a scout friend.

Me: What did you see with Trubisky?

Him: The game is not slowing down for him the way it should be. Bears better hope it does.

Me: Is it correctable quickly?

Him: If Nagy can’t correct it, no one can.

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What matters.

1-1.

What doesn’t.

Everything else.

— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) September 16, 2019

One of the most bizarre and emotionally confusing finishes to a football game in recent memory. The defense was gassed. The offense was useless. Yet here the Chicago Bears stand, 1-1, with their season right in front of them. Rapid fire…

• Rookie referee Adrian Hill needs to be flown to New York City today. He needs a car waiting for him at LaGuardia. He needs to be driven to Park Avenue. And then Alberto Riveron – the head of NFL officiating – needs to explain to him that hitting the quarterback is not illegal. He needs to also explain that nobody watches a football game to see the referee. Every single potential holding penalty does not warrant the throwing of a flag. Hill and his crew had far too much influence on the outcome of Sunday’s game. That can’t happen.
• Nobody was more critical of the kicking situation than myself so I’ll gladly offer the mea culpa. Eddy Pineiro had a brilliant day and for now the Bears have a reliable kicker.
• Mitch Trubisky has a lot of flaws and they’ll be regurgitated endlessly over the next week. But something happens to this kid when the game is on the line. He lights up. He’s at his best. Matt Nagy has to learn to let this kid close things out with a lead.
• Don’t underestimate this victory. It is the first time Denver has lost their home opener in 8 years. It is very tough to win there early in the season.

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