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Wild Card Weekend Mega Game Thread

| January 5th, 2011

You can follow my running commentary on the four Wild Card games right here on DaBearsBlog by watching the Twitter widget below. There won’t be any need for a major column since we won’t know the Bears opponent until after the Eagles/Packers game tomorrow night.

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DaBearsBlog Saturday Show & Fantasy Playoffs

| January 5th, 2011

Saturday Show features two new songs, the debut of Viva’s picks (and 2 year-old daughter), commentary on Sunday’s Packers game, Lovie’s future and the the new overtime rules and – of course – the Reverend’s Rant.

______________________________________________________________________
You have until kickoff tomorrow of the 3:30 PM CST game between the New Orleans Saints and the Seattle Seahawks to submit your selections for round one of the Fantasy Playoffs.  To read the rules, regulations and scoring summary, click here.  YOU MUST SUBMIT PICKS THIS WEEK TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN THE MONTHLY OFF-SEASON COLUMN.
Submit your choices in the comments in the following format:
QB Drew Brees
RB Ray Rice
WR/TE Santonio Holmes
(Remember if you select Brees, Rice and Holmes – they each become ineligible to you for the remainder of the postseason.)

Editor’s Note: I have to keep track of a lot of information to administrate this contest, so please don’t bury your picks inside some other conversation.  I will post the standings, including a list of those who has been eliminated (which will depend on total entries), Monday.
 

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The Three Potential Opponents: Volume Three

| January 5th, 2011

It is something of a dream scenario.  The Seahawks upset the Saints Saturday and the Packers take out the Eagles.  That would bring, to Soldier Field, on a crisp Sunday afternoon…

#4 Seed
SEATTLE SEAHAWKS
Why?
  1. They stink.  Though not as much as it stinks to be Robert Steele, who lost his eye at a two year-old girl birthday’s party in Huntley over a Sox/Cubs debate.  (Apparently a Cubs fan stomped him in the eye with a steel-toed boot after he used baseball facts to support his case.)  
  2. The Seahawks sport the 27th ranked pass defense and the 21st rush defense and the Bears have improved immensely at both since their first meeting in Week Six.  (Listen, they don’t rank good at anything.  They finished 7-9.)  The Bears would control the line of scrimmage on offense and move the ball easily.
  3. Other than their horribly played and boring as a WNBA game victory over the Rams, the ‘Hawks lost their three previous contests 41-20 (San Francisco), 34-18 (Atlanta, at home) and 38-15 (Tampa).  That’s 113-53.  That’s not good.
  4. The Seahawks only beat two teams on the road, the Arizona Cardinals and the Chicago Bears.  But their victory over the Bears was before the Bears had solved their basic protection issues, moved to the short passing game and developed a consistent run attack.  The Seahawks may use it as to booster confidence (along with their first-round victory over the Saints) but the Bears will use it as motivation.
  5. Matt Hasselbeck is not healthy and without a healthy Hasselbeck, the ‘Hawks have no shot at Soldier Field.
Why Not?
  1. Matt Hasselbeck, when he is healthy, knows how to dissect this defense.  And it doesn’t seem to matter who is playing wide receiver as he guided Mike Williams to a career performance in Week Six.
  2. Leon Washington is the second best kick returner in the sport and can blow games open.
  3. They will have shocked the sports world and beaten the champions the week previous.  They may start to believe in themselves as a team of destiny.
  4. I can’t come up with a fourth thing.  To be honest, that third one is a bit of a reach.  If we play the Seahawks and lose, I quit.

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The Three Potential Opponents: Volume Two

| January 4th, 2011

Fantasy Playoffs start this week with a chance to win a guest column this offseason.  For Rules & Regulations, check here.  You’ll be able to select your players starting Friday morning

If the weekend goes as I think it’ll go, the Green Bay Packers will beat the Eagles in Philadelphia.  That would bring our old buddies to town.
#5 Seed
NEW ORLEANS SAINTS
Why?
  1. January 21, 2007.  In an NFC Championship game the entire world expected the Saints to win (most people used the word “easily”), the Saints were thoroughly dominated at Soldier Field.  They relied on a fluke Reggie Bush wheel route to make the game seem more competitive than it was.
  2. December 30, 2007.  A year later with the Saints still believing they had a chance for the postseason at Soldier Field, Devin Hester returned a third-quarter punt to put the Saints season into a deep freeze.
  3. December 11, 2008.  On a Thursday night with myself in attendance, Danieal Manning returned the opening kick for a touchdown and the Bears held off the Saints in overtime for their third consecutive win against the Saints at Soldier Field.  In all three of these games, the Saints lacked their in-dome (or warm weather) explosiveness and struggled to contain our return games.  The Saints still have some of the weakest special teams in the conference.  
  4. I think the trick to beating the Bears, at Soldier Field, in January, is running the ball efficiently.  You don’t need to run it for 200 yards.  You just need to run the ball from first-to-fourth quarter and be able to keep our linebackers from sliding back confidently into their zone coverages or committing to full-out blitzes.  Right now the Saints are one of the five worst running teams in the league.  
  5. Drew Brees.  I don’t think enough people know the kind of season Drew Brees is in the midst of, having seen his passer rating drop ten points as his interception totals has risen to 22 on the year.  Brees has been making some odd mistakes, sometimes channeling the late Brett Favre, and has not displayed the reliability or consistency that ushered the Saints to their first championship a year ago.
Why Not?
  1. Drew Brees.  He is 4-2 in his playoff career.  But his numbers in the postseason are downright astounding.  150-225 (66.67% completion), 1,648 yards, 13 touchdowns and 2 interceptions.  I’m not big on projections but if you project Brees’ playoff stats over a season he’d have 4,394 yards, 34 touchdowns and 5 interceptions.
  2. Marques Colston, Robert Meachem and Lance Moore are physical receivers who can beat the Bears secondary the way receivers need to: settle into the space under the safety and catch the football.  The three receivers combined for 2,424 yards.  Impressive.  
  3. Alex Brown and Sedrick Ellis.  I have not respected many modern Chicago Bears as much as I respect AB and I can see him making a big play after plowing Frank Omiyale three inches into the turf.  Ellis is one of the best young nose tackles in the game and if they slide him into the gap between Kreutz and Chris Williams, Jay better throw the ball quickly.
  4. They play the Seattle Seahawks this weekend.  While I foresee the Eagles and Packers unloading on each other for four quarters, there is reason to believe the Saints will be able to mail-in their second half in Seattle and not take the kind of physical beaten you want your Divisional opponent to suffer in the Wild Card round.
  5. They’re the Super Bowl champs.

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The Three Potential Opponents: Volume One

| January 3rd, 2011

Fantasy Playoffs start this week with a chance to win a guest column this offseason.  For Rules & Regulations, check here.  You’ll be able to select your players starting Friday morning.

Now we begin breaking down the reasons why the Chicago Bears would and would not want to face their three potential opponents in the Divisional Round of the postseason.  We’ll start with the City of Brotherly Love But No Love For Your Brother’s Basset Hound.

#3 Seed
PHILADELPHIA EAGLES
Why?
  1. We enter the game with the confidence of having beaten them soundly for 90% of our earlier-season contest and if not for a borderline miracle touchdown pass by Terrier Vick into triple coverage, the score would have reflected the one-sidedness better.
  2. I doubt Beagle Vick’s ability to come to Chicago in the middle of January and be productive in frigid temperatures.  I haven’t trusted him in conditions since those images on the sideline in 2005 on the fated night of Rex Grossman’s reemergence which featured him draped in blankets and looking like he was preparing to eat his teammates to survive.  Add to the mix that Dachshund Vick has been taking a beaten, a big beaten, over his past two starts and you have the make-up of a meltdown.
  3. The Bears defensive structure/turf is devised to contain the Eagles primary strength: downfield speed.  It already worked once.
  4. Matt Forte delivered his finest performance of the year against the Eagles, 14-for-117, and the Bears are a dynamic offense when he’s running at 8.4 yards a clip.
  5. Andy Reid.  I know he’s got a lot of fans out there but I continue to contend that Reid is one of the worst in-game coaches in the sport and the bigger the stage the more Reid looks like an obscenely-large deer in the headlights.  There are reasons they’ve never won a championship during this era.  One is current the third-string QB in Washington.  The other is still the head coach.
Why Not?
  1. Asante Samuel is a game-changing corner and the Bears avoided him on the first go-round.  Samuel is the kind of player who can find ways to trick our chance-taking quarterback into untimely mistakes and the Eagles may follow the Packers model of using him on edge blitzes.
  2. Our coverage units simply are not as good as they used to be (still waiting for anyone to provide reasons) and DeSean Jackson is capable of scoring every time he touches the ball.
  3. Big playoff games in poor conditions are moments for big kickers and the only kicker trusted by his team more than Robbie Gould is probably David Akers.  Akers can confidently line up, in any conditions, and knock em through from fifty plus.
  4. With all due respect to Michael Turner, LeSean McCoy is the conference back I most fear in the postseason.  He’s physical, he’s quick and he catches the ball brilliantly out of the backfield.  The Bears have shown a penchant for arm-tackling backs of late and that won’t fly here.
  5. Brent Celek.  He had only 3-for-50 and a TD (on a miracle toss) but Celek is the type of tight end that has killed the Lovie Deuce scheme for years.  If Celek gets free in the seam, it could make for a long day.
Tomorrow we preview the #5 seed New Orleans Saints.

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Thoughts on a Meaningless, Injury-less Game

| January 3rd, 2011

I spent the majority of yesterday afternoon laughingly rooting for Rex Grossman on the second television, half-afraid of looking at the Bears v. Packers game and seeing Peppers or Urlacher or Cutler being carted off the field with the sadness towel draped over their head as they headed into the tunnel.  As the game progressed and the fans around got into the game I never did.  I just wanted the clock to run out.  Here are my thoughts.

  • Matt Forte has regained his form and did it yesterday against one of the league’s better defenses.  
  • The game played yesterday at Lambeau Field featured the two best defenses in the NFC playoffs.
  • Does Devin Hester have strict instructions not to catch any ball he doesn’t plan on returning?
  • I think I understood the philosophy yesterday.  We don’t want to get anyone hurt but if someone is going to get hurt, it’s going to be Rashied Davis.  Wonderful performance by him actually.
  • If this game mattered, we’d be dissecting the Lovie Smith timeout that eradicated the third-and-long conversion late for the entirety of the offseason.
  • I don’t have game tape but it seemed to me that the offensive scheme was vanilla.  It looked like the Bears were going to play their asses off but not put anything worth noting on tape.
  • Poor performance by Jay Cutler overall as the offense reverted back to the deep-drop-launch-it-downfield crap that sabotaged the middle part of the year.  Every sack Jay took was absolutely unnecessary and in the current, concussion-obsessed culture they were also infuriating.
  • Outside of one play, the Bears defense might have delivered their finest performance of the season.  Maybe that will be the positive of yesterday?
  • How about that Peanut interception?
  • Nice punting by Brad Maynard.
  • If I were tight ends coach Mike DeBord, I would take Greg Olsen into a small room and smack him in the face and say, “Catch the goddamn ball!”
  • I’ll be honest, I’ll mailing this in.  I couldn’t have cared less about this game.  It is worth noting that the Bears have been scheduled for Sunday January 16th at 1:00pm.  
I will be announcing the framework for DaBearsBlog Fantasy Playoffs tonight – with the winner receiving a monthly column throughout the offseason (and longer if you do good work).  I will leak that I’ve decided to make all of you eligible for the competition as the turnout for DaPicks Contest was too good to ignore.  

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Bears at Packers Preview & Picks Contest

| December 31st, 2010

On the final day of the regular season, the Bears have wrapped up a first round bye.  It feels very, very nice but……

I simply can’t see the Chicago Bears beating the Green Bay Packers this weekend.  Here’s why:

  • Urgency.  I don’t think the Bears will have any and I think the Packers will be an overflowing teapot of it.  It didn’t take long for reports to circulate about the Bears ramping up reps for the second-teamers, including Kalil Bell and Kellen Davis.  
  • The Bears have been slow starters on both sides of the ball lately.  Think about what might have happened last weekend if the starters weren’t given the third quarter to excel.  The Bears might have lost by four touchdowns.
  • The Packers are good.  They would be favored against our starters. 
  • I do expect big efforts from the back of our bench.  I’ll be watching Caleb Hanie and the second tier of linebackers (Roach, Iwuh…etc.) closely. 
  • But I’ll give you my dream scenario.  Our starters come out of the game at halftime and we still knock out the Green Bay Packers.  That would be injury and overwhelming insult.  As a matter of fact, I like it.  I like it a lot.

Chicago Bears Backups 30, Green Bay Packers Starters 29

On to the picks contest…

Congrats to Viva on a season’s victory.  Send me an email (jeff@dabearsblog.com) and I’ll let you know how to claim your prize of a $100 gift card from Fanshop.ChicagoShopping.com.  After last week’s perfect records from jokey, tobijohn, enderwiggin and Ben in Norcal – many folks are still alive for the Fantasy Playoffs.  I’ll be deciding who makes it on Monday.

Chris’ Picks (29-17-2): Chargers, Giants, Rams
Jon’s Picks (27-19-2): Chargers, Giants, Bucs
The Only Picks That Matter (29-18-1): Redskins, Panthers, Steelers

                                                The official spreads for the DaBlog Picks Contest.  
                                                                    Home team in CAPS.  
                  Remember, you can not use the combinations used by either of my brothers or myself.

San Diego 3.5  DENVER
NY Giants 3.5 WASHINGTON 
Jacksonville 2.5 HOUSTON
NEW ENGLAND 3.5 Miami
GREEN BAY 10 Chicago
KC 4 Oakland
PHILADELPHIA 5 Dallas
NY JETS 1 Buffalo
Pittsburgh 6 CLEVELAND
ATLANTA 14.5 Carolina
NEW ORLEANS 8 Tampa Bay
BALTIMORE 9.5 Cincinnati
St. Louis 2.5 SEATTLE
SAN FRAN 6 Arizona
DETROIT 3 Minnesota
INDIANAPOLIS 10 Tennessee

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History Not on Side of the Giants

| December 30th, 2010

Despite my proclivity to rest the essentials for at least the second half of Sunday’s showdown with the Packers at Lambeau, how can a Bears fan not like the words coming out of the current leadership’s mouths?  Jay Cutler: “We want to win the ball game. We don’t want to take a step back as a team or as an offense.”  Pisa Tinoisamoa: “Green Bay has always been a rival and our goal is to sweep the division, so this one would be a huge one to be able to get that.”  And Devin Hester made it very clear in several interviews that he wants to knock the cheese from the tournament.

Vegas ain’t buying it and (as predicted here) have jumped the spread on Sunday’s game to ten points.  The reason why is simple.  In 2006, with his team knowing a first-round bye was coming the following weekend, Lovie spent a week telling reporters the Bears would be giving a complete effort against the Packers in primetime.  (You may remember this as Brett Favre’s last NFL game.)  What happened?  Brian Griese started the third quarter and it only takes a quick glance at the fourth quarter play-by-play to realize that all significant contributors on the defensive side of the ball had been lifted by then.  That 2006 team found themselves playing in the Super Bowl and both Vegas and I believe that the head coach won’t fix what wasn’t broken.

How can the Bears be expected to match a good, desperate home team’s intensity when they’re playing for cosmetic reasons such as maintaining rhythm (foolish when an off-week is around the bend), sweeping the division (does anybody care about this?) and knocking the Packers out of the playoffs (and letting the dominant Giants front four in?).  And does anybody believe that an excellent two quarters from the offense would mean less to their confidence as an excellent four quarters?  I get the whole “play to win the game” thing but do we really want our club taking advice from Herm Edwards?  Has that guy ever won anything?

My theory is Lovie will pull Cutler at halftime and give Caleb Hanie a quarters to play with this receiving corps.  If the defense plays a solid first half, most of them will be off the field too.  If they struggle out of the gate – which has become a recent trend – I think you’ll see Urlacher & company start the third quarter.  I think the game will very much mirror the contest with the Pack in 2006.

And for those of you who think playing the Packers three times in one year is a terrible thing, you couldn’t be further off.  Playing the Pack three times means we’re hosting the NFC Championship Game.  And I’ll sign for that right now. 

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