DBB is currently on a short 40th birthday vacation in Atlantic City, NJ. If news breaks on the GM/coach front, we will break that sabbatical and have commentary right here.

All lines are from DraftKings Sportsbook. 

Saturday

• Money Line Parlay: Bengals over Raiders, Bills over Patriots (+112).
  • I’m a believer in Bisaccia magic, and I think the Raiders pass rush will give Joe Burrow trouble, but the Bengals just have too much firepower to lose at home in the first round. I wouldn’t feel confident laying the six points, so I’m hanging onto the money line.
  • The most overrated victory of the season was New England’s Monday night victory in Buffalo. It wasn’t a real game. It was a football chess match played in a typhoon and Belichick might be the sport’s only master. The Bills are the better team, with the better quarterback. That’s where my money goes in the postseason.

Sunday

• Money Line Parlay: Bucs over Eagles, Cowboys over Niners (+113).
  • Philly is 0-7 against playoff teams this season and the way you exploit this Bucs defense is with an accurate quarterback. (The Eagles don’t have that.) Tom Brady isn’t losing to Jalen Hurts.
  • Cowboys vs. Niners profiles as the game of the week but I don’t think San Francisco’s secondary can hang with these Dallas weapons. How the hell are the Niners covering a receiving corps that goes 4-5 deep with talent? (They’re not.)
• Same Game Parlay: Chiefs -12.5 over Steelers / Under 46.5 points (+264).
  • I think the Steelers score ten points in this game, which means the Chiefs need to score only 23 to cover the number. It also means they need to score 37 to hit the over, and in frigid conditions that seems unlikely. 30-10 hits both bets safely and that’s my final score prediction.

Monday

For me, Cardinals at Rams is a gambling stay away. I don’t particularly trust either team. But the guide needs to have some action.

• Spread: Rams -4 over Cardinals.
  • Since beating the Bears on December 5th, the Cardinals are 1-4, only eking out a victory over the Cowboys. This is a team, and a head coach, that peak on Halloween every season. And last week, in a game they needed, they let Rashaad Penny run for 8.3 yards per carry. You need to be tough to win on the road in the playoffs. That’s not this team.
  • Why is it a stay away, then? Because Matthew Stafford has been sneaky terrible for over a month. Would anyone be surprised if he threw three picks and threw the Rams season away?

The Raiders are 3-1. But they’ve beaten two teams in overtime – including a bad Dolphins side – and the struggling Steelers. When they faced a good Chargers team, they were thoroughly outmatched. And with their next four opponents being the Bears, Broncos, Eagles and Giants, they could easily be 6-2 while not particularly good.

This is not a game the Bears should win. But it is certainly a game they can win.

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VDM. (Victory Difficulty Meter)

71.92%

Half of Chicago is currently in that weird Blackhawks bar at O’Hare, waiting for flights to Vegas. This will feel like a Bears home game and moves the meter a bit lower.

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What Must the Bears Do on Offense:

Stop the rush. That’s it. That’s the story.

The Raiders don’t have a premiere pass rusher, although one could argue Yannick Ngakoue can return to that form at any moment. But Maxx Crosby has had a brilliant first month and he’s well-complemented by Carl Nassib, Darius Philon and even the much-maligned Solomon Thomas. The Raiders have the bodies to exploit this weak Bears offensive line, especially on the edges.

But if that rush is neutralized, the secondary is beatable, mostly due to injury. (Their numbers are actually quite good, while their passing opponents have not been.) And with Justin Fields now the starting quarterback moving forward, expect the Bears to continue stretching the field. There will be mistakes; certainly an unnecessary sack or two; probably an avoidable interception; but the days of the dink and the dunk are behind us.

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What Must the Bears Do on Defense:

Rush. That’s it. That’s the story.

They have to hit Derek Carr and hit him often or he’s going to torch this secondary for 400+ yards. How do we know?

• Per PFF (who provide terrific advanced stats and completely useless grades), these were Carr’s numbers prior to Monday night on passes 20+ yards downfield: 12 completions for 371 yards. Both of those numbers were best in the league. Carr was the AFC Offensive Player of September for a reason. He had a brilliant month.
• What did Joey Bosa say about Carr after Monday night? “We knew once we hit him a few times, he really gets shook. And you saw on (Covington’s) sack, he was pretty much curling into a ball before we even got back there. Great dude, great player…but we know once you get pressure on him, he kind of shuts down.”

If the Bears are going to win this game, Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn have to shut him down. Because they can’t stop Ruggs, Renfrow and Waller on the backend.

2003 is one of those Bears seasons I barely remember. I watched every game at Josie Woods but most of them were through the haze of a hangover, with this being my first fall in NYC at 21 years old. The team wasn’t even particularly bad. They finished 7-9. But they just created very few memorable moments.

This game, with highlights provided by the great NFL Primetime, provides more of those fun elements that seemed to define the era.

• Big plays from R.W. McQuarters! (A note on Twitter from Reverend Dave about this is what directed me to this game.)
• Edinger making ANOTHER big kick.
• Kordell Stewart showing just enough to make people think he could be the answer at quarterback.
• Marty Booker. Oh, how I miss Marty Booker. (Booker’s game against the Bucs in 2001 is still the best game I’ve seen from a Bears wide receiver.)
• Another Bear who had vacated my memory banks: Stanley Pritchett.

It’s very hard to analyze a game from inside the building. You really have no idea what’s going on. But here are a few points:

• The building was 80% Bears fans. And the lack of run defense took them entirely out of the game. Bears had zero push up front.
• Charles Leno is officially a problem.
• David Montgomery has to absorb contact almost immediately upon every touch. He’s in an impossible spot back there.
• Chase Daniel processes the field in slow motion. The Bears has open receivers all over the field but Daniel (a)took too long to identify them and (b) almost never put the ball in the right spot. If the backup is playing, the Bears aren’t winning.
• Allen Robinson is a great player.
• Anthony Miller is not. Yet.
• Khalil Mack spends a lot of time on the sideline.
• This was the first time in two years I’ve seen so many wide open receivers running through the Bears defense. Just an off day or did Jon Gruden figure something out?

3-2. One game back of Green Bay. In position to have a season but with A LOT of improvement needed. The bye week comes at a perfect time.

The George Inn. My favorite pub in London.

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

And they are not losing in London, with Reverend Dave and I in the building, all hopped up on bitter ale.

Trite, Boring Thoughts on the Raiders (Stolen From Data’s Twitter)

Data had a stream of Tweets early in the week but I fear they were lost in the Monday excitement. He is one of the best follows on Bears Twitter and I recommend you give him a follow. Here are his thoughts:

• Derek Carr has been sacked only 8x in 4 games this year. 4th fastest time to throw of any NFL QB, 4th shortest average throw. This feels like a game where the Bears need Roquan Smith, not Nick Kwiatkoski. Gonna be a lot of underneath stuff in coverage.
• In the running game, Oakland runs inside a little more than outside, so in that regard Kwit would fit right in plugging the interior run. When they do run outside, the Raiders heavily favor the right by a 2:1 ratio.
• 2 of Oakland’s 3 most targeted players have among the 15 shortest average target distances among all NFL WRs and TEs. Waller is 4th shortest TE at 4.9 yards/target, and Renfrow 3rd shortest WR at 6.4 yards/target. Together they account for about 45% of all Carr targets in 2019.
• Looking now to Oakland’s defense, this is a game the Bears should find success through the air. Raiders giving up 8.1 yards/attempt (23rd), with 9 TD and only 1 INT for a passer rating of 106.8 (25th).
• Some of that is because Mahomes lit them up, but Flacco and Cousins both posted a passer rating >100 against them, and Brissett threw for 3 TDs. Their pass D is bad, in no small part because they can’t rush the passer (only 5 sacks through 4 games).
• Oakland’s run D is actually pretty solid, coming in at 16th in rush yards/game and 11th in yards/carry.
  • Editor’s Note: Dalvin Cook rushed for 110 on only 16 carries against them.

Tweet of the Week (kinda)

I found this story incredibly moving.

Thirteen children of firefighters who died at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and six whose fathers died of 9/11-related illnesses, graduated from the city’s fire department during an emotional ceremony. https://t.co/cG5uJtbt4d

— CNN (@CNN) September 25, 2019

Read More …

“London Snow”

She broke my heart,

in London,

in the lobby of the Bridewell Theatre.

It was snowing outside and

Brits do silly things in the snow.

Grown men in Savile Row slacks become

children on a Swindon schoolyard,

tossing snow balls and giggling,

and saying things like “jolly”.

She regretted that decision,

she would tell me later.

Maybe she was afraid.

Or maybe

it was just the snow.