I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to blow a team out 13-3, but tell the truth, it felt like it yesterday, didn’t it? From the moment Chris Harris dove to break up the Panthers only shot at a touchdown with more than eight minutes to go, yesterday’s game was over. Even after the field goal cut the lead to 10, the Panthers still needed to score twice, and they’d done nothing all day to make you fear that could happen.
If you’re a Bears fan who is 27 years old or older, you’ve seen the best defenses the league has ever known. From 1984-1986 the Bears won games by unleashing a defense that didn’t just maul opposing teams, they did it from the opening kickoff to the final gun.
The 2005 Bears’ defense isn’t there.
Yet.
Yesterday’s game was supposed to be a measuring stick for the Bears. Everybody expected that Carolina would show up with it’s great defense and it’s potent offense and smack the Bears and their fans back to reality. In a deeply flawed NFC, the Panthers, until about 12:30 yesterday were widely considered the true Super Bowl contender.
If that were true, what does it make the Bears?
There are no “complete” teams in the NFC. Everybody has at least one unit with a flaw. But does anybody have one part of their game (offense, defense or special teams) as good as the Bears’ defense?
Early in the game, the Bears blitzed Jake Delhomme, and he responded with a couple of horrifically thrown passes to Nate Vasher to set up Bears’ scores.
Then, a funny thing happened. The Bears stopped blitzing. Why?
Because they didn’t need to do it. Their front four didn’t just dominate the Panthers’ offensive line, they humiliated it. With Carolina unable to stop Alex Brown and Walleye Ogunleye or anybody else, the rest of the Bears defense was able to put seven people into pass coverage while the Panthers didn’t dare to send out more than three receivers at any one time.
Steve Smith still had a good game, because he’s a great player. But he didn’t sniff the end zone.
In a day full of impressive plays, the one that stood out for me happened on the Panthers’ one scoring drive in the fourth quarter. Peanut Tillman bit on a fake and Smith caught a short pass and headed up the sidelines. You thought Smith was going to be gone, or at least roll off 40 or 50 yards. Even Fox announcer Sam Rosen got exited as he yelled, “Look at Smith’s speed!”
But there was one problem for Smith. Brian Urlacher. Urlacher turned to chase Smith and Smith had a step on him. Less than ten yards later, Urlacher’s left arm was pulling Smith to the turf. Look at the speed, indeed.
Alex Brown turned Travell Wharton into a turnstile at left tackle. The other benefit to not needing any blitzes, especially zone blitzes, to get pressure on the quarterback is that Brown doesn’t have to worry about occasionally dropping to cover passes in the flat. From the Panthers’ third possession until the end of the game, Brown had his ears pinned back and continually attended planned defensive line staff meetings about seven steps into the Panthers’ backfield.
Offensively, the Bears aren’t going to be the Dan Fouts Chargers. On a day when Muhsin Muhammad was dropping as many passes as he caught, two important things happened. First, Kyle Orton ran the show. The Bears were able to control the game with quick passes and Orton saw every Carolina blitz. The only way the Panthers were going to get back into the game after it was 13-3 was if the offense (or Bobby Wade on a punt) made a huge mistake. Orton didn’t. The only turnover the Bears had was inside Carolina’s 20. The other important thing that happened to the Bears’ offense was the emergence of Justin Gage. When Desmond Clark decided to join the Moose in the dropped passes club, somebody had to be there to catch some balls. Gage answered the call. His twisting catch in the fourth quarter for a big first down was impressive, but he caught six others, too.
That threat paved the way for Thomas Jones and Adrian Peterson to rush for 124 yards.
You’d like to see the Bears score more, obviously. Only one team has scored as many as 24 points on the Bears (Cincinnati), and if the offense could get you 24 points on a weekly basis, you might not lose.
The schedule stays tough. The Bears are in Tampa next Sunday, though you figure they’ll have their fun with Chris Simms. Then there are two tilts with Green Bay (including a Christmas trip to Lambeau which seems like a nice chance to take a big dump in Brett Farvuhruh’s stocking), a trip to Pissburgh, a chilly Sunday night home matchup with Ron Mexico’s Falcons the week before Christmas and the regular season ending trip to Minnesota.
Nobody’s saying this is a Super Bowl team. Six weeks to go in the regular season and four of them on the road can break a lot of ways. But this run has a different feel than the 13-3 magic of 2001 (or 2000 as Jay Mariotti seems to think it was). These Bears don’t do it with smoke and mirrors. They do it with a defense that refuses to let you into their end zone.
So regardless of where the 2005 run takes us, one thing is for sure. The Bears are back, and we underestimated how much we missed them.
Speaking of big news stories, somebody ask Lovie if I’m dead yet.
You had to love the little hula dance Vasher did after his second pick.
However, I still feel this team could finish with a 2-4 stretch. That would still be good enough to win the North, but it would break the momentum.
Of course, Bill Maas thinks that a whistle is no longer enough to stop a play. Dumbass.
I am quite manly, no?
Maybe Kreutz should bust up John Tait’s jaw, seeing how well I did against Julius Peppers in spite of the fact that I eat my meals through a straw.
Don’t forget, Fred, you lost me in a single week.
Does Steve Smith suddenly prefer to be called “Steven” or was this the invention of William Maas & Samuel Rosen?
Having heard Maas and Rosen call that game yesterday, I get the feeling the pair was nowhere near me at the time. Good bet they were down at Butch McGuire’s watching the thing on TV.
They continually mis-identified players and speculated incorrectly about penalties. What exactly do these two numbskulls do for a living?
Anybody have me in the dead pool? You might be about to cash in.
On the Illini:
Apparently Texas-Pan Am played zone and the first 15 or so minutes looked like that UGLY Providence game from two seasons ago at Madison Square Garden.
Luckily, Texas-Pan Am isn’t as good as that Providence team was and the Illini were at home.
My favorite part about doing commentary on the Bears game is when I click on a player during a replay to make the little icon with the player’s face and an arrow appear on them. I’ve pointed out how great of a DT Tommie Harris is in the wins over SF and Carolina by highlighting him as Chris Harris.
What will it take from our team for us to get broadcasters who don’t suck ass?
Probably one of me #10.
#10, quick, name some NFL announcers (currently working) who DON’T suck ass.
And let’s leave Bonnie Bernstein out of this “sucking ass” category.
On behalf of the 2001 Bears: Ouch.
Sure, they got some terrific bounces to go their way and they got beat unmerciful in the playoffs, but they deserve a better place in the annals than dismissed as a smoke and mirrors operation. They won 13 games because they gave up the fewest points in the league that year, which is a pretty good job refusing the opposition the end zone.
Fair enough, but the illusion that they lucked their way to 13-3 was formed mainly on unbelievable wins against the Niners and Browns, when if any one bounce had gone the other way they go 11-5 finish behind the Packers and go home in round one instead of getting a bye.
Dick Jauron did a great job with that team, and if he’d been a little more ruthless (i.e. replaced John Shoop with a competent offensive coordinator) he might very well still be around.
Speaking of “competent offensive coordinators” how nice is it that we finally have one? Not that Ron Turner’s anything exceptional–he’s not–but after the debacles of Shea, Shoop, Crowton and Cavanaugh…well let’s just say that Turner’s the last competent coordinator we’ve had since, well, Ron Turner.
Why am I still on? Why do I exist in the first place? I am a terrible show.
What a win yesterday. It was the most satisfying Bears win since I could ask one of my best friends who is a Cleveland fan how many hail marys he said after the game against the Browns in ’01.
I think I’m going to punch the next person who tells me that Urlacher is ‘overrated’ and then force them to watch him chasing Smith down over and over again. That play, as much as anything, tells me how awesome our defense is. When a MLB can catch a WR running free down the sideline… damn you’re fast.
A win next week, and we’ll go from being ‘for real’ all of the sudden to maybe getting a bye in the first round. Amidst that talk, will anyone notice that Rex is even holding a clipboard on the sidelines?
And if we can figure out how to score 20 points a game… we might be able to do some great things.
Bear Down!
Not just any WR, I am one speedy little dude.
Sid Luckman was the quarterback when I became a Bear fan. You should have seen it, Lake Michigan was really a special lake in those days.
My first Bears game I saw Butkus and Sayers. Sold for life at that point.
Sweetness is still #1 with me though. Butkus 2nd and Ditka 3rd.
The Bears won yesterday? Hard to give a fuck when it’s 85, sunny, and there’s lots of bikini’s around.
Only downside here is that the Maui Classic is about 90 miles east on the other side of a wide swatch of ocean.
Well, that and Murton’s kids are with me.
I’ve been ripped off and used in a post on NSBB’s transaction forum. Look under the Josh Beckett trade thread.
Chuck, you log on to Desipio on HOLIDAY IN HAWAII, thus wasting valuable beer/bikini time? I think you need to have a long, hard think about your priorities, man.
Tonker,
Last time I was in Hawaii, I frequently checked in on Desipio. Granted, there was the little matter of the National League Championship Series between the Marlins and the Cubs, but I don’t know if it makes it any better.
Seen and heard on Sunday as actual NFL television announcers:
Rich Gannon: CBS, Oakland at Washington
Thom Brennaman: FOX, Arizona at St. Louis
Neil O’Donnell: FOX, Arizona at St. Louis
Stephen Baldinger: CBS, Jacksonville at Tennessee (I think that was the game he did, anyway)
Yes, the current crop of NFL announcers is really horrific. It doesn’t get much better as you head to the top. Dick Enberg, as #2 at CBS, is probably the best play-by-play man left, but he’s dropped off badly in the last few years. Jim Nantz is the #1 at CBS, and he’s all right, but his golf announcing habits are almost the opposite of what you need for football.
Joe Buck, the #1 at FOX, is terribly overrated as both a baseball and a football announcer, although I will give him credit (What?!?!?) because he has improved his football announcing from what it once was. Although his post-Randy Moss celebration outburst still gets him the “Acting Horrified To Score Cheap Points Among Your Media Friends” lifetime achievement award.
With the color analysts: FOX seems to hire any former 90’s Cowboy with a pulse, and Darryl Johnston is an indication of what that’s a bad thing. Aikman is decent and improving, although his tendency to support any quarterback is a little annoying and self-serving. CBS has Phil Simms, who usually does a solid job, although his job during Colts/Bengals was below average at best, and that’s about it. You know what you’re going to get from Dan Dierdorf (Who Rich Gannon is replacing at CBS because Dierdorf has a health problem at the moment), which isn’t all bad but isn’t great either.
So, where does this lead us? Sarcasm survey says…
Bonnie Bernstein is the only great NFL announcing crew member right now on our television screens. Who can top “Two Dicks, Wow!!!”?
Psst, #14/15 [To take the revised version of Bears history to its logical conclusion]: If you take our respective individual crunch-time gakks in tight, low-scoring losses to the Bears, combine them with the erasure of the miraculous wins over SF and Cleveland, and include the whole schmear in the Bears’ annals (vol. 2001), then you’re looking at a likely 9-7 finish and getting nosed out of the final playoff spot by the Bucs (who would’ve finished 10-6 had they accepted the gift the idiot Jauron spent the entire second half trying to hand them in that game away at Tampa that should’ve been over midway thru the third quarter) –great defense refusing the opposition the end zone all year notwithstanding.
There’s a timely lesson in there somewhere…something about how, if you have any expectation of winning in this league, your offense has to score points sooner or later –and without the benefit of training wheels provided courtesy of takeaways, three-and-outs forced, good returns on special teams, et cetera.
Jason and Martin, which of you has been carrying the purse that holds all these what-ifs for 4 years?
“If”, “erasure of wins”, “could’ve”, “would’ve”, and “notwithstanding” is a full house of excuses for one sentence that’s supposed to be a logical conclusion. I’ll pass on sentence 2, The Lesson on Winning In This League.
What’s wrong with me?
Okay, so I scream a lot. For no reason. On almost every play.
OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Anybody remember me? Nobody made a two-yard Walter Payton plunge sound as exciting as I did.
Brad Palmer was my partner.
Also, I weigh, like, 400 lbs.
Tonks:
Murton’s kids were napping. Had to do somehting.
Happy turkey.