My Friends,
Two trips to the swamp and the Bears come away with a pair of victories over the league’s coaching curmudgeon and the kid wearing the bib. Mur, I’m sorry - I still don’t understand how the Bears could play the so-called New York Giants and Jets on successive weekends and never set foot in New York.
I’m not sure if the bib was due to his age or diet, but the Jets head coach sure burped nicely at the start of the second half, didn’t he? For the second straight week the Bears benefited from a coaching brain cramp on special teams. What was a battle for field position became a war of attrition when Eric Mangini tried to surprise the Bears with an onside kick to start the second half. After the Bears started no first half possession better than their own 33, Mangini or his special teams coach should have known that former Jets special teamer Darrell McClover was now doing the same for the Bears. McClover, who spent the entire preseason this year with the Jets, recognized the onside kick guys on the field when the Jets lined up to start the second half and gave Chris Harris a heads up, and the Bears were in business at the Jets 44 when Harris came down with the ball. Eight plays later Robbie Gould nailed his Bears record 26th straight field goal, and our guys had all the points they needed.
Although the Jets held the ball almost four minutes longer than the Bears, they had trouble running it all day. Their longest run came on a 28-yard reverse by wide receiver Tim Dwight, while the Bears dropped Jets ball carriers seven times for 19 yards in losses. A lot of that had to do with the play of Todd Johnson, who made several big stops and was hitting like John Lynch. As perverse as it might seem, losing Mike Brown as early as they did may end up helping the Bears in the long run, as it’ll give Johnson better than half a season to learn the ropes. At 6-1, 200, he’s better suited size-wise than Brown for strong safety, and we know he can lay the lumber. Ask Charles Tillman; although it’s hard to tell if Tillman got his bell rung by Johnson or if that was just his normal goofy look as he was helped to the sideline.
On the flip side, it finally looks like the Bears’ running game is coming around, and not a moment too soon. Rex Grossman once again had trouble handling multiple blitz packages (a dazed John “Happy” Gilmore got beat and we wondered if he was doing his pregame Puffy’s routine at the Weeb sign), but did enough to post an 81.4 rating and throw for the only touchdown of the day. The best part of Grossman’s game, though, is that the number of his throws that make you scream NOOO!!!! seems to be going down. He’s been more willing to eat the ball or throw it away the last two weeks, and that’ll be critical come January.
But until Grossman completely eliminates those throws, it’s nice to see Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson each average five yards a pop like they did today. Hopefully they’ll be able to do it again next Sunday against a New England defense that’s allowing less than 80 yards per game on the ground. Because if they can’t, we could be looking at Wrecks once again.
Happy Thanksgiving!
LBF
11/19/2006