Green Bay Packers at Chicago Bears Game Thread
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When I was a kid in New Jersey, I couldn’t watch Bears football. Until I was about 12 years old, outside of the occasional national television appearance, my experience of Bears football was:
This didn’t change until I was 12 and a bar called Jersey Sports Cafe (now closed) opened in East Rutherford. They had a satellite (one of the big ones) bringing in the Chicago feed and now I could sit on a bar stool (illegally) and watch the Bears PLAY FOOTBALL. I didn’t go every week but I went enough.
This is why I cherish the sixteen games we’re guaranteed each season. Because I didn’t have them until I went to college. This is why the night before Bears football begins has always felt like Christmas Eve. I’m wandering down the carpeted staircase in my feety pajamas and there’s a big old box under the tree. What’s in there? What am I going to get to play with for the next few months?
It won’t be the same this season. At least not this Sunday. The 2015 Chicago Bears have to earn back the excitement of people like me. They have to display on the field they are worthy of the passion many have displayed in good times and bad over their lifetimes. They can do that this week, against the Packers, at Soldier Field? How?
Be in the game. With five minutes left, be in it. That’s all I ask. If the Bears achieve that, a week from now I’m in.
The Packers will miss Jordy Nelson. They just may not miss him this week. If the Bears front seven, and yes all seven will need to be involved, don’t harass Aaron Rodgers he will rip their secondary apart and throw for upwards of 400 yards. Many have reported defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s success against the Packers quarterback but that success came when Fangio was armed with one of the most talented defensive rosters in the league in San Francisco. He doesn’t have that here.
Here’s my stat. Anything less than four sacks and the Bears lose by two touchdowns.
Last year’s column caused a FIRESTORM when readers had the nerve to question the veracity of my claiming a more than 50% success rate on the 2013 version. What did I do? I answered with a stunning 51.38% success rate in 2014. This success was not lost on the American public but I did not know how far my column reached.
So without further adieu, fifty prognostications, pontifications and ponderings on the 2015 season with a nod to every single team in the league.
#1 Nobody’s opinion of Jay Cutler will be different on January 4th 2016 than it is right now.
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#2 Andrew Luck will win the MVP award if his offensive line figures out a way to block people.
We hate them. Everyone outside of Wisconsin hates them. They’re good and both their players and their fans make damn sure we know it. The Packers should be the favorites to win the NFC North again this year, but a little bad luck could give the other three teams hope. Jordy Nelson’s torn ACL alone won’t be enough for the other teams to catch up as the Packers still have a roster that stacks up with the best in the league.
Even without Nelson, the Packers can beat opponents in so many different ways. If they want to throw it, they still have Rodgers with Randall Cobb, Davante Adams and their third-round pick Ty Montgomery or second-year receiver Jeff Janis. Losing Nelson is a blow, but don’t be surprised if Adams explodes this year and Nelson never gets his starting job back.
While Jeff is getting drunk and golfing in Ireland, I have been put in charge of doing NFC North Previews for DBB. To help get knowledge on some of the other teams, I called up a pair of colleagues and they had the same thought about the NFC North standings this year: The Packers will finish first and the Bears will finish last.
While my attempts to record podcasts with both failed, I spoke with Bob McGinn of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and Jeff Risdon of RealGM and ESPN 961 and they both were in agreement on how the division would shake out.
The expectations for the Bears are at Wannstedt-level lows, but there are several reasons to think that they’re going to be better than almost everyone is predicting.
The common predictions for the Bears are ranging everywhere from 4-12 to 8-8. Not crazy when you consider they went 5-11 last year, but to describe them merely as a team that had that record last year is missing so much of the picture. As awful as they were just a short time ago, the Bears have some stuff going for them and that stuff might just be enough to get them into the playoffs in 2015. Here are five reasons why the Bears are going to be better than you think.
There has been a general assumption that the NFC North is a great division, but both Detroit and Minnesota have major weaknesses that could be their downfall.
It was a long time ago that Lovie Smith was introduced as the Bears head coach and stated his first goal was to beat the Packers. Over a decade later, John Fox and Ryan Pace are walking into a similar situation and, if they’re going to catch the Packers, they have to do exactly what Smith did by building their defense.
The common reaction from Bears fans when the NFL schedule was released was that the team was going to start 0-1 and ruin Thanksgiving by losing to the Packers. Such early negativity is a little ridiculous but there’s reason for it. If the Bears are going to change the course of their franchise and undo much of what Phil Emery and Marc Trestman did, it starts with the defense.
Note: This column is being written at the tail end of a Thanksgiving evening that featured plenty of beer and too plenty pumpkin pie.
Someone wrote this, when discussing the road map for Marc Trestman to keep his position as head coach of the Chicago Bears:
Step #2. Trestman’s Bears deliver a spirited effort on Thanksgiving. This will be the next time the Bears receive any national attention. It would be imperative from a public relations perspective for the Bears to (a) not embarrass themselves and (b) show the fight and passion missing from their efforts against New England and Green Bay. In many ways beating the Lions on Thanksgiving and moving to .500 would not only be a saving face performance but it might also create optimism around the coach’s potential to lead this organization into the future.
None of that happened. Road map lost. Marc Trestman’s career, as head coach of the Chicago Bears, should be over.
That’s right. I’ve never called for the firing of the head coach in my time running this site. I’ve never said a man should be removed from his job, his family displaced, his life altered in a startlingly negative way. But that is now over. The Bears have the wrong man leading their organization and they must replace him before a single decision is made in the 2015 off-season.
Three final thoughts heading into tonight’s game:
Bear down.
