Bears vs. Steelers: Notes and Numbers (Not Pretty)

Friday, December 16, 2005 | Dave

(Here are the random notes and numbers that I found interesting about last week’s game while pouring over any and all press coverage.)

These numbers are almost as ugly as the Bears’ tackling last week. That said, and despite my despondency on Sunday, I think this game was an anomaly and that the Bears D is still very good. I don’t know how we will do this week, but I think the D will rebound and that it matches up much better to the Falcon’s running game than the Steelers. It will be a tough game so we will need KO to build on some of last week’s garbage time success.

Defense:

The Steelers out gained the Bears 363-268 including 190 Steeler rushing yards.
Those 363 yards are a season high. The Bears’ total yards allowed for the season is 3,517, keeping them in first place but only 4 yards ahead of the Bucs.

The Bears allowed more TDs than in their previous four games combined.

During the 8 game win streak the D allowed an average of 8.5 points.

The Bears’ D forced one lousy 3 and out In part because they allowed the Steelers to convert 7 of 14 3rd downs. That included the 16-yard play after the Bears forced a 4th and 1 and Lovie decided to take the penalty giving the Steelers a shot on a 3rd and 13. The Bears entered the game allowing only 28.4% a NFL high.

It was the first time in 18 games that the Bears have given up a TD on their opponents’ first possession. That possession included a 45-yard screen pass that saw Urlacher blocked out and Briggs stumbling over him and a 14-yard pass that saw Hines Ward shake off numerous tackles before dragging Todd Johnson into the end zone.

We gave Bettis his longest run since ’02 (39 yards) and 2 of his 5 TDs this year.

For the second time this year the Bears were without a sack. They barely had a hit on the QB. They currently have 37 on the year.

The Steelers ran 46 times including 18 touches for the Bus. Understandable why undersized D-linemen wore down late in the game. It’s the plethora of missed tackles (19, yes that’s correct 19 is officially the numerical equivalent of “plethora�) in the first half that are inexplicable.

Alex Brown: 3 solo tackles. Mentioned only because no other lineman had more than 1.

Mike Green: 1 unrecovered FF and lots of missed tackles. I am officially out of the Mike Green supporters club. Better late than never.

Brian Urlacher: 10 tackles but sure seemed like nearly as many missed and then of course there was the great shot of him getting run over by the Bus for his second TD.

McGowan: tied with Briggs for game high 11 tackles. No disrespect to the boy from Jersey but its worrisome that he is in the game, its time to panic if he is our most reliable tackler.

Offense:

Orton: 17 for 35 for 207 yards, 3 sacks, 3 rushes for 8 yards and 0 turnovers. I thought he looked pretty good all things considered. He put together a 63-yard drive in the first quarter, only marred by the fact that he missed a wide open TJ in the end zone and had to settle for a FG and he threw two long passes in heavy snow in the fourth leading to a TJ TD. His second pass in the drive was to Berrian who sure looked like he slid into the end zone so it should’ve been marked a 43-yard TD. We drank the Orton 20+ yard TD pass celebratory car-bomb anyway.) Those completions were due in large part to the athletic dive by Clark and the way Berrian wrestled the ball away from the cornerback on his way down, so needless to say those passes weren’t perfectly thrown. But in that kind of weather with all that snow coming down those weren’t bad throws for KO.

Moose: 8 catches for 91 yards. Season highs.

The Bears ran a mere 18 times.

The Bears converted 23% of third downs going 3 for 13. They came into the game ranked 31st in the NFL in 3rd down conversions. Their third down conversion in their 63-yard drive was the first successful conversion in 14 tries. They only have three in the last 23 third down situations. Atlanta, the Bears’ opponent this week, leads the NFL in 3rd down defense, allowing only 28.5%

Special Teams:

Bobby Wade: 4 returns for 26 yards and a muffed 56-yard punt, recovering it at the 1-yard line.
Bobby Wade’s Chicago career: 15 starts, 64 catches, 698 yards. He did have the 76-yard return for TD against the Lions, and his yards per catch is still in the 9-yard range but he cant hold on to anything. Of the Bears’ 10 mishandled punts this season, Wade was responsible for 8. He can’t even hold onto an agent. The players’ union has suspended his current one, Jerome Stanley. As poor as his play became, he sounded like a pretty nice guy so I wish him limited success on the Titans.

Robbie Gould: 29 yard field goal. Missed the extra point. Unacceptable Robbie Gould. First pissed PAT since 12/26/99. He did not get within the 10 on 3 of his kickoffs. And for a kicker who is 1-5 on kicks longer than 40 yards who did the Bears think they were fooling with that fake on what would’ve been a 50+ yard attempt in heavy snow.

Bears Mentioning:

The Steelers controlled the clock with 22:24 time of possession in the second half and over just over 37 minutes total.

Tommie Harris jumping offsides was the only penalty committed by the Bears in this game (Mike Green got called for holding but the Steelers declined). That cost the Bears 5 yards and that’s the least penalty yards the Bears have had since their game with the Eagles on 12/24/94 when they didn’t commit a single penalty. That brings the Bears to 23 penalties in their last 5 games behind only the Chargers and Panthers in that period.

Looking Forward: IF the Bears win they will be 7-1 in Soldier Field. This would be the 5th time in franchise history that they have achieved that record since 1978 when the season was lengthened to 16 games. They went 7-1 in ’86, ’88, ’90 and ’01. They went 8-0 at home in ’85.

Mike Brown worked out individually on the sidelines with Chris Harris and Cedric Benson but it is quite possible that Brown is out for the rest of the regular season.

While the offense has suffered mightily from injuries including Grossman, Bradley and Benson, until last week the defense hadn’t had a starter miss a game. But Harris and Brown missed last week and now they are joined by Todd Johnson our third safety. Ian Scott, Hunter Hillenmeyer are also questionable for this weeks game. What happened this to the Bears all the sudden?