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Week 8: Bears at Cowboys Game Thread
You can visit the band above’s Spotify page by CLICKING HERE.
Three Things I Think Will Happen Sunday:
Dallas Cowboys 20, Chicago Bears 10
They are coming off a truly surprising victory on Monday, so it seems silly to ask…
Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?
I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
There is, quite literally, no reason to overwrite the game preview this week. The game is going to be decided by the answer to single question: can the Bears block the Cowboys? And to this point in the season, no one has.
Dallas has 91 pressures, 12 more than the next team.
They have a pressure percentage of 32.6%, tops in the sport.
They have 29 sacks, averaging more than four per game: again, best in the league.
This is a matchup that should be expected to wreck the game. The Bears have a banged up offensive line, and their healthy offensive line weren’t particularly good pass blockers anyway.
This is also the most significant challenge Luke Getsy and Justin Fields have faced all season. And I list them as a duo intentionally, because the Bears won’t move the football or contend Sunday if the two men are not operating with a singular, cohesive plan.
Getsy needs to structure the offense around protection. Keep Cole Kmet on the edge, employ an extra lineman, etc. But he also needs to exploit what will certainly be a salivating pass rush. This is the week to use the screen game as a weapon and, if possible, get Velus Jones into the scheme, because his speed could keep Dallas somewhat off-balance.
Fields needs to understand that (a) he will be under consistent duress and (b) he can’t let that duress cause game-ending mistakes. He needs to take the easy throw, even when the easy throw is into the fourth row. When the pocket is collapsing, he needs to quickly use his legs and get what he can on the ground. Waiting for wide receivers to get open Sunday will lead to a replication of the Cleveland game a year ago. These receivers need ages to get open and Fields won’t have ages in the pocket.
If the Bears find a way to block the Cowboys, even half-decently, they can win Sunday. But that will be their most difficult task undertaken this season.
If the Chicago Bears regime of Ryan Poles and Matt Eberflus can’t figure out a way to build around Justin Fields, they probably aren’t cut out for the job. This assumes that Fields continues to make improvements, but the second-year quarterback showed on Monday Night Football he has a rare skill, the ability to make defenses wrong, even when they are 100% right.
The Patriots knew what the Bears were going to do offensively, but it didn’t matter because Fields made it not matter. When they had him bottled up, he muscled his way over the goal line. When they were all over a bubble screen, he managed a pump fake before changing his arm and body angle to deliver a throw through a tight window, while being smacked on what was the game’s defining play.
Defining Fields by his passing statistics is a foolish endeavor. How does one account for the third-and-14 play when he finds a tiny hole in the defense and runs for a first down? Sometimes merely being freakishly quick at 230 pounds matters and is not perceptible in the box score.
Fields has a lot to clean up. As freakish as his physical skills are, his small hands are a real problem. He doesn’t always read the defense quickly and he holds onto the football too long. But every quarterback has flaws; a good coach has to find the way to work around them. Luke Getsy was masterful on Monday.
The Bears need to help him out because what Fields has shown us is that he is capable of willing a team to victory on any given week — just not every single week. And while he may not fit the offense the Bears want to run and may not be the quarterback the GM dreamed of; he is a player that need to make work.
From the Game Preview:
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!
: #CHIvsNE on ESPN pic.twitter.com/w3HXtNSnzd
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) October 25, 2022
It ain’t easy but…
Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?
I.
Always.
Like.
THE.
Chicago.
Bears.
You have to do serious digging to find an advantage for the Bears tonight.
(4) Crow’s Nest, Gloucester MA
Ever see The Perfect Storm? Well, this is the bar. It’s real and it’s there. And if you’re an adventurous sort, you can sleep upstairs.
____________________
(3) The Black Duck Cafe, Westport CT
Hey, how many bars are actually slowly falling into the water? This one is!
It’s hard to pinpoint the most troubling aspect of the 2022 offseason: is it that Ryan Poles didn’t acquire enough good players or that he didn’t even try to upgrade the roster?
Regardless of where the Bears are in their team building process, the goal of the offseason is to acquire good players. That’s it. Simple. While Poles was certainly active, how many players did he bring in that we know are going to start in 2023? Jaquan Brisker is the only lock. Kyler Gordon is trending in the right direction, but the bad has still far outweighed the good to this point.
Poles has referenced the lack of resources when pressed on such questions, but that’s a farce. He could’ve used 2023 salary cap space in 2022 to bring in players. Instead, the team’s second-leading wide receiver is a player who didn’t even make the Green Bay Packers roster last year and their third was the sixth wide receiver on the New York Giants. It isn’t like either of those teams had an embarrassment of riches.
Then there’s Velus Jones, a high third round pick who specializes in gimmick plays and returns – except he isn’t a good return man. Jones is currently averaging 21 yards per kick return and 6.8 per punt return with two – yes, two – fumbles. Oh, and he fumbled a kick in the preseason. Poles complained about a lack of resources, then used one of his best resources on a 25-year-old gimmick player. The very next pick was Abraham Lucas, who looks like a long-term starter at tackle for Seattle.
The biggest investments Poles made in the offense were Byron Pringle at wide receiver and Alex Leatherwood on the offensive line. Pringle caught two passes in three games before landing on IR; Leatherwood has yet to play a snap.
Poles is said to be known for his ability to scout offensive linemen, but it appears as if he had no plan to fix that group last offseason. The Bears are relying on a fifth-round rookie at left tackle, fifth-round second-year player at right tackle, a converted tackle at right guard and backup-level players at center and left guard.
