The Game Poem

I entered this NFL season

Abounding with patience and reason

A week in the books

Da Bears dug in their hooks

I hope they weren’t only teasin’

A Not-So-Quick Thought

Sunday is a playoff game for the Chicago Bears – figuratively speaking.

The Bears, whether they want to admit moral victory or not, gave many of their fans hope for a 2015 campaign that began with the tiniest expectations in more than a decade. They had every opportunity to beat one of the best teams in the league. So why is a contest with the Cardinals in week two a “playoff” game?

• The NFC is not particularly deep and the Cardinals will be a team in the mix for one of the six spots in the tournament. If the Bears pulled off a win Sunday, who is going to argue they can’t be playing meaningful games in the month of December?
• Fans were pleasantly surprised Sunday but remain skeptical. If the Bears improve off Sunday’s performance you could see expectations rise around the city of Chicago very quickly. Fans want to believe. Will the Bears give them that opportunity?
• The Bears are not going to win in Seattle in Week Three. And they are not recovering from an 0-3 start.

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Looking Back

As nice as it was for the Bears to look like a professional football team and compete with a  team we all expect to be playing in January, the Bears still lost and nobody should be happy about that.

The Bears had their chances and didn’t execute. They followed the recipe almost perfectly. They kept Aaron Rodgers off the field, running for nearly 190 yards and dominating time of possession early on. But they didn’t make enough plays. That’s what decides the outcome of games.

Outside of Cutler and Forte, the Bears didn’t have a single player make a big play. While James Jones was jumping over Bears defensive backs and Eddie Lacy making one-handed grabs, the Bears got nothing. The biggest play was made by Clay Matthews, perfectly reading Cutler’s eyes for an interception. A good reminder that defensive players get paid too.

One thing that was clear is that the Bears have confidence in their coaching staff. They know they’re going to be put in a position to succeed and it’s up to them to come away with the win. In Week 1, they didn’t.

Looking Forward

It’s hard not to look at the Cardinals and wonder what if Phil Emery had hired Bruce Arians instead of Marc Trestman? Arians wanted the job, he practically begged for it, but Emery went in another direction and it cost him his job.

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There is reason for optimism in the Kingdom of Bears Fans today. With a brand new collection of coaches installing a brand new scheme the Bears went toe-to-toe with a better foe and for a majority of the game held their own. Give Rick Morrissey, a guy I generally don’t care for, a lot of credit for this passage:

The Bears looked like a professional football team Sunday, no small thing after last season’s debacle, though they still walked away 31-23 losers. There are no moral victories in the NFL, but there are losses that don’t stink to high heaven. This was one of them.

It will be a long year, but maybe it won’t be the kidney stone many of us thought it would be.

Here are my rapid fire thoughts.

• Jay Cutler threw the crucial interception. Aaron Rodgers did not. Rodgers never does.
• On the Cutler pick, this wasn’t a typical pick. He was duped into that interception. He didn’t try to force a pass into a tight window.
• Packers had to make every single play to win this game. James Jones was heroic. Eddie Lacy pulled in one-handers. Clay Matthews chased down sure thing touchdowns. Did the Bears have anyone on their offense do anything exceptional?
• Catch the ball, Forte.
• Paging Pernell McPhee. Come in, Pernell McPhee. (Side note: I earned this will become a thing if McPhee no shows a few games. Ravens have a history of letting the right guys walk out the door.)
• With the complete absence of a pass rush it’s hard to complain about the secondary’s overall performance. Fangio didn’t get overly aggressive with blitz packages. Approach seemed vanilla but that may require a second viewing.

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A NOT-SO-QUICK THOUGHT

When I was a kid in New Jersey, I couldn’t watch Bears football. Until I was about 12 years old, outside of the occasional national television appearance, my experience of Bears football was:

• ESPN’s Primetime highlights – still the most important sports program of my lifetime.
• Scoreboard ticker at the bottom of Giants and Jets games. I used to run in from other rooms when the little jingle would play announcing a scoreboard update and pray the Bears had done SOMETHING. (They rarely did.)
• Actual league scoreboard at Giants Stadium, where my family had Jets season tickets. I used to have the entirety of section 324 cheering the Bears updates often more loudly than the Jets game in front of them.

This didn’t change until I was 12 and a bar called Jersey Sports Cafe (now closed) opened in East Rutherford. They had a satellite (one of the big ones) bringing in the Chicago feed and now I could sit on a bar stool (illegally) and watch the Bears PLAY FOOTBALL. I didn’t go every week but I went enough.

This is why I cherish the sixteen games we’re guaranteed each season. Because I didn’t have them until I went to college. This is why the night before Bears football begins has always felt like Christmas Eve. I’m wandering down the carpeted staircase in my feety pajamas and there’s a big old box under the tree. What’s in there? What am I going to get to play with for the next few months?

It won’t be the same this season. At least not this Sunday. The 2015 Chicago Bears have to earn back the excitement of people like me. They have to display on the field they are worthy of the passion many have displayed in good times and bad over their lifetimes. They can do that this week, against the Packers, at Soldier Field? How?

Be in the game. With five minutes left, be in it. That’s all I ask. If the Bears achieve that, a week from now I’m in.

PRESSURE UP FRONT

The Packers will miss Jordy Nelson. They just may not miss him this week. If the Bears front seven, and yes all seven will need to be involved, don’t harass Aaron Rodgers he will rip their secondary apart and throw for upwards of 400 yards. Many have reported defensive coordinator Vic Fangio’s success against the Packers quarterback but that success came when Fangio was armed with one of the most talented defensive rosters in the league in San Francisco. He doesn’t have that here.

Here’s my stat. Anything less than four sacks and the Bears lose by two touchdowns.

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So ends the longest offseason in Chicago Bears history, running roughly from Thanksgiving until this morning. Everything has been hashed and rehashed. Every story angle has been dissected within an inch of its life. Every player and position group has been thoroughly evaluated by the blogging / beat multitudes. There is literally nothing left to say. So what’s left? Questions only the real games can answer.

QUESTION #1

Can the new front office and coaching staff produce an entertaining product on the field?

QUESTION #2

Where is Kyle Long’s future along the offensive line?
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Last year’s column caused a FIRESTORM when readers had the nerve to question the veracity of my claiming a more than 50% success rate on the 2013 version. What did I do? I answered with a stunning 51.38% success rate in 2014. This success was not lost on the American public but I did not know how far my column reached.

So without further adieu, fifty prognostications, pontifications and ponderings on the 2015 season with a nod to every single team in the league.

#1 Nobody’s opinion of Jay Cutler will be different on January 4th 2016 than it is right now.

__________

#2 Andrew Luck will win the MVP award if his offensive line figures out a way to block people.

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On the offensive side…

• It’s gonna be a little difficult to cut David Fales now. After a slow start, Fales looked pretty good. Of course, you have to consider who he was going against, but he threw the ball well and moved well out of the pocket. He probably isn’t going to be a starting quarterback, but it’s hard to find even adequate backups and Fales has that potential. What do they have to lose by keeping him around? Is there really that big of a difference between Fales and Jimmy Clausen?

• Not playing Zac Dysert until late in the game makes sense if the Bears know what they have and he has a roster spot locked up. If not, why sign him in the first place?

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Remember last year when David Fales hit Santonio Holmes and Holmes made a move before scoring a 32-yard touchdown? Holmes looked like an NFL wide receiver when, in reality, he was just a veteran playing with a bunch of young players. It didn’t translate, just as nothing from the fourth preseason game does. Veterans usually look good because they’re going against rookies and we can’t tell if one group of rookies stinks or if the other is good.

But here is some stuff to watch for:

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