Scheduling Notes

Two things have leaked regarding the 2019 Chicago Bears schedule: (1) Packers are rumored to open the season on Thursday night at Soldier Field. (2) Bears will be in Detroit on Thanksgiving Day…again. What do these two reports mean, if anything?

• That’s 1/8 of the schedule not being played on Sunday. And with the Chiefs, Rams, Saints, Eagles, Giants and Cowboys on the schedule, don’t get used to that Sunday routine. This team is going to be in primetime a lot. And anybody who knows me knows I really, really, really hate it.
• The league should stop putting games as important as Packers at Bears in Week One. They won’t but they should. What’s becoming obvious is teams are no longer considering the preseason a viable method of preparation and it seems most don’t start playing decent football until midway through October. (The Pats waited until January last season.) I’d like to see the NFL use the first four weeks of the season to play exclusively the non-conference schedule.
• I know the league’s instincts will be Chiefs at Patriots as the Sunday night opener. But if the league were smart, they’d put the Browns in that spot. Elevate that franchise. Excite a fan base that hasn’t seen a relevant primetime game in years. (And a game as potentially important as Chiefs at Pats should be played on Thanksgiving night.)

Coaching Staff Complete

From Pat Finley in the Sun-Times:

Bears coach Matt Nagy finished up his round of hires Friday, promoting two coaches to finish up the team’s defensive staff.

Sean Desai, a Bears defensive quality control coach for the past six seasons, will serve as the team’s safeties coach. Deshea Townsend, who was hired to coach the Bears’ defensive backs last month, had his title changed to secondary coach. Bill Shuey, who spent last season as a defensive quality control coach, has been named defensive pass analyst/assistant linebackers coach.

I have absolutely nothing to add to these two paragraphs.

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Not the most compelling game ever played but the kind of result good teams get. The Bears played three division games in twelve days and went 3-0, outscoring the Lions (twice) and Vikings 82-58.

This three-game stretch solidified them as one of the better teams in the NFC and it would now be a terrible disappointment if there was not a football game at Soldier Field in January. 

Rapid fire…

• Chase Daniel did everything a team can ask from their backup quarterback. He moved the offense. He avoided crippling errors. Was he good? Not really. Even the touchdowns/big plays were not well-thrown balls. But he got the job done. In the modern NFL, teams need a backup QB that can hold down the fort and win some games for 2-3 weeks every season. With Daniel, the Bears have that.
• 3rd and 1. Early second quarter. Stafford rolled to his left and had about six minutes to find an open receiver to move the chains. Why? Khalil Mack was floating in coverage. (And “floating” is the accurate word.) This is what Fangio’s defense is. Understood. But without a healthy Aaron Lynch, and with Leonard Floyd struggling to get to the quarterback, not allowing the game’s best edge rusher to rush from the edge feels negligent.
• As Andrew pointed out on Twitter, the Bears were awful on 2nd and long all game, giving up chunk plays in the air and on the ground. This will be a focal point before they head to the Meadowlands.
• Eddie Jackson has to be in the conversation now for DPOY now. Right now the award is Aaron Donald’s to lose, mostly because of Mack’s earlier injuries, but no defender has made more big plays in 2018 than Jackson.
• Every week Roquan Smith makes another play. And every week it becomes more apparent Smith is going to be in the middle of the Bears defense for a long, long time.
• The running game, or lack thereof, will be a major talking point over the next ten days. But look no further than Matt Nagy’s two-point conversion call to understand why that element is struggling. With an inaccurate backup QB, Nagy called a pass. And not just a pass. A quick, bubble screen that required timing and pinpoint ball placement. Despite what the head coach tells reporters, the answer is simple. The Bears don’t run the ball because the Bears don’t want to run the ball.
• Taquan Mizzell is more valuable to Nagy than Jordan Howard.

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This painting is “Death and the Miser”, Jan Provoost, Flemish primitive. It is on display at Groeninge Museum, Bruges. It is brilliant.

Back in the states today and excited to get back to full-throated coverage of this remarkable playoff push!

Game Prediction

• First ten minutes of this game are essential. Lions will have energy; they always do in this Thanksgiving spot. But the Bears can’t afford to come out slow. If they do they could find themselves down 10-0 quickly. Not insurmountable but also not ideal.
• Lions will be without rookie RB Kerryon Johnson, leaving LeGarrette Blount and Zach Zenner to carry the load. Is this a big deal? Not necessarily in terms of production but possibly in terms of approach. Without Johnson the Lions will become one dimensional in this game quickly. And there are very few QBs in the league capable of beating this defense by throwing it on every down. (WR Marvin Jones also looks like he’ll be missing the game.)
• Short week. Tired legs. Quarterback nursing an injury. This is the week! This is the one! Jordan Howard will be the workhorse. And he’ll be eating some kind of Thanksgiving food on television after the game is over. (I’m just gonna keep writing this. Every week. I don’t care.)
• This game stays close. And Khalil Mack sacks & strips Matthew Stafford late, re-cementing his status as front runner for DPOY.

Chicago Bears 27

Detroit Lions 20

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears…

…and I give thanks for Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy, Mitch Trubisky, Vic Fangio & the whole lot of em.

No Analysis Needed

This is not a particularly difficult football game to analyze. These two teams played less than a fortnight ago and one of the teams, your 2018 Chicago Bears, was clearly better.

But this schedule is brutal for the Bears. Sunday night, against the Vikings, was their biggest game in many-a-moon. It was also their most emotional. Resetting in just three days is nearly impossible. Especially on the road.

This is a tough spot.

The Game Distich

Detroit will be the stage, this stuffing day

Now begins another act of the play!

Tomorrow: Game Prediction!

• The Bears should have been running into a buzz saw. The Packers seemed to right whatever was wrong with them four days earlier, the weather conditions suited them perfectly and it was a night in which they honored one of the greatest players in their franchise’s history. Shit, Ron Wolf even referred to the field they were playing on as the house that Favre built. At no point did I think the Bears were going to win until about five seconds after — waiting for a flag — Aaron Rodgers’ fourth down pass hit the ground. How sweet it is.

• This wasn’t just a win for the Bears and it wasn’t just a loss for the Packers. The times are a changin’ in the NFC North and both teams know it.

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Before this season began, in the shadows of low expectations, no one could have foreseen an evening like Thanksgiving night at Lambeau Field.

No one could have imagined a thirteen point outing from the home team just a year removed from seemingly scoring thirteen points a minute.

A second half shutout? Pipe dream.

No one could have envisioned the visiting quarterback thoroughly outplaying the man often mentioned in the same breath as a four-time Super Bowl champion.

No one could have guessed a secondary comprised of journeymen and kids would deliver heroic moment after heroic moment, refusing to break under the pressure of knowing a touchdown beats them. They shed multiple blockers. They batted down sure thing completions. They redirected routes and blanketed receivers on crucial downs. They did…everything.

(For video of the final four plays, you can VIEW THEM HERE ON YOUTUBE. The NFL, in its infinite wisdom, has disable embedding of their YouTube clips. Because why would you want to make it easy for those who love your product to consume it. My hatred of everything happening on Park Avenue grows daily.)

And perhaps most shocking, most unpredictable of all, no one would have believed that as the football season leaves Thanksgiving behind it is the fans of the Chicago Bears and not the Green Bay Packers who see their franchise’s arrow pointed decidedly up.

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Nothing about this recent string of victories – and yes, two wins is considered a string – has been convincing. Nothing that has transpired in either game leads me to believe the 2014 Chicago Bears can line up against a good opponent and win. So…

Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

What Don’t I Like…

I don’t like the match-up for the Bears offensive line, which has played poorly of late. Detroit simply has too many good players along their defensive front for the Bears to block with any consistency. The only way to counter this mismatch would seem to be the Bears committing to the run game* against the best rush defense in the sport. (As you can tell I am not expecting many points from the Bears this week.)

*Not how I’d do it. See the next words.

How Would I approach the Lions?

Spread them out and chuck it.

Committing to the run early will put the Bears off-sequence in the passing game. Tom Brady and the Patriots ran the ball a total of six times in the first half against Detroit and went into the locker room with a 24-6 lead. And when they threw the ball, they threw it quickly. The Lions defense is still suspect in the secondary and if ever there was a game for Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery to assert their size and strength, this is it.

Seven Other Thoughts…

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