Doesn’t seem like any news will be breaking on the GM/head coach front over the next 48 hours but if it does I will be on top of it. In the meantime, as always, follow DBB on Twitter by CLICKING HERE.
Wildcard Weekend Open Thread
Doesn’t seem like any news will be breaking on the GM/head coach front over the next 48 hours but if it does I will be on top of it. In the meantime, as always, follow DBB on Twitter by CLICKING HERE.
I know many of you think the Packers, with Rodgers, are a greater threat to the Bears postseason hopes. But that should not matter. With the Lions owning the tiebreaker, the Bears need a one game lead on them and that might be too difficult for this defense to pull off. Root for Green Bay today.
And as always, I give thanks for those of you who’ve spent time on this site over the years. I love this site because of you.
Feel like gambling on Thanksgiving Day? Drink six beers, select a member of your family and tell them exactly how you feel about them. Or bet on sports. I make my three picks for the day after the jump.
It would have been easy.
After being steamrolled by the Baltimore Ravens for the better part of an hour, it would have been easy for the Chicago Bears to walk back into the locker room with their heads hanging lower than 40 time. Facing a lengthy weather delay it would have been easy for players and coaches alike to say, “We’re done. Too many injuries. Backup quarterback. This is as far as we can go.”
It may not have been right. But it would have been easy.
What followed the delay was something even the most fresh-eyed of Bears optimists could not have predicted. David Bass made the kind of play that has defined the career of Julius Peppers and knotted the ballgame up at 10. Peppers used the two-hour delay to fly to St. Augustine, dip his face in Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth and return with a triumphant double-digit tackle, multi-sack performance when the Bears needed him most. Mel Tucker and Marc Trestman realized their error in sliding Corey Wootton back outside and returned him to the three-technique where he has begun to flourish in recent weeks. (Put some more bulk on this kid and he can delivery Melton-like numbers.) This defensive line, marred by injury and ineffectiveness, delivered the type of performance most of us thought them incapable of delivering.
The Pizza Hut delivery man showed up with three sausage pies from Lou Malnati’s. The Schlitz keg was pouring Guinness. Dublin Guinness. Mulligan’s Guinness. It flowed sweetest with the game on the line.
Because the game was over. I challenge any Bears fans, any self-respecting Bears fan, to show me evidence they believed the Bears could hold Flacco and the Ravens on first-and-goal as the clock on the Bears postseason hopes was slowly trickling down to a bunch of zeroes. Three opportunities to find the end zone? Against this defense? With the game on the line and Human Penalty Machine Zack Bowman on the field? How could they not score?
The game was over. Then it wasn’t. Three snaps. Three excellent pushes from the defensive front. The unit that had put the Bears back in the football game was giving them one more chance to save their season; now in overtime. McCown, Bennett and Gould took it from there.
The challenges coming should not be understated. St. Louis, Minnesota, Philadelphia – one back better than the next – will give this defense and its inability to stop the run nightmares. But for one week Bears fans should salute their maligned defensive front and their overly-maligned coordinator. For one Sunday is was not the big weapons on offense that won the Bears a football game. For one Sunday it was Peppers, Cheta, Cohen, Woot, Bass and company.
For one today the Bears reminded us of yesterday.
So the Bears won. After hours of delay due to a possible tornado, the Bears won. What did I think of the game? I thought it was one of the gutsiest wins in recent memory. Here are my other thoughts:
Struggled with a stomach virus this week so the content was a bit lighter than usual. Three final thoughts on today’s game:
It seems, win or lose, the 2013 Bears get sucker punched every week. This week they got Peanut Punched as Charles Tillman was lost for the remainder of the season to a triceps injury. The Bears will now face the Baltimore Ravens without their starting quarterback, their starting defensive tackles, two/thirds of their starting linebackers and the best member of their secondary. So…
Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?
I always like the Chicago Bears.
Matt Vensel of Baltimore Sun reached out to me this week with some Bears questions in anticipation of the Bears v. Ravens contest at Soldier Field Sunday. Here are his questions and my answers.
MV: The Bears are nine games into the Marc Trestman era and are a game out of first place in the NFC North despite key injuries. How have the Bears changed under Trestman and how does the hire look today?
It was a transformative hire for the organization and Trestman has modernized the Bears offense in his first year. But the building of new offensive talent and hiring of Trestman was step one in a multiyear process in Chicago. Now GM Phil Emery is tasked with doing the same on the defensive side of the ball while these players become more comfortable in the offense. Look at the great offenses in the league and you’ll notice, with the exception of Peyton Manning, the QBs have come of age in the system they are currently running. Bears need to give Cutler that opportunity and I expect they will.
Three things that need to happen for….
