My Friends,

The time draws near.

 

Playoff invoices have arrived, and as we wind down the season, the phrase “Playoff scenarios” has made its first appearance on the home page of NFL.com. And it only refers to one team. 

 

Must be that pesky weak schedule again.

 

Once more our guys approach a contest against the team that is going to expose them for the frauds they are, if you believe what the national media are spewing. That the Bears have had four or five of these games already is immaterial; victory in every case has been belittled due to injury, inadequate competition, feeble-minded coaching, you name it. But this weekend is different. This weekend, the Bears will face the best quarterback on their 16 game schedule, coached by the guy who’s won the ultimate prize three of the last five years. And it’ll be the Bears who are playing short-handed, as convicted felon Ricky Manning, Jr. will serve a one-game suspension handed down by the league. Why he wouldn’t appeal, wait for the Bears to sew up the top seed in the conference, and then drop the appeal and sit out his game is anybody’s guess, but Tom Brady will now get to face and Bill Belichick will get to dissect a Bears defense minus its top interceptor and the quarterback of the secondary. So what do you know? It’s the Bears with the built-in excuse.

 

But excuses might not be necessary, because there are ways to beat these guys. There are spies among us all across the nation, as Tommy Boy checks in from the shadow of Gillette Stadium to tell us how it’ll be done:

 

I am coming under attack on all fronts this week here in Boston.  [My wife] Anne and I are spending the holiday at her parent's, where she and her brother will spend their free time abusing me for my football loyalties. 

My take on the game is cautious optimism.  If we line up the 3 phases of the game you almost get a wash as we must all admit that the Bears D and the Pats D are similar in ranking and it is hard to run on either.  Special teams tilt big to the Bears.  Offense is driven by Brady.  But here is the rub: Brady gets flustered just like Rex does when the pressure is in his face OR when his receivers have a hard time getting open and/or holding onto the ball.  So for the Bears to win, they must knock the living crap out of the Pats receivers.  In fact, I would suggest at least one flagrant unnecessary roughness penalty on the opening Pats drive on either a wide-out or tight end.  I fear the Bears will be defending against a 2 tight end attack all day and the best way to win is to have Urlacher line up and drill someone early even if he is flagged.  The Pats can run the offense in any manner so game planning must be flexible.  In the past when faced with a dominant run defense they have simply abandoned the run in favor of a fast paced West Coast dink and dunk passing attack spiced up with the long ball.  The Bears D should be ready to play vertical on the opening drive and perhaps pressure less and disrupt the passing lanes more in order to get Brady mad at his receivers.  He has emotional control problems due to the unreal success he has had--any breakdown from his teammates and he POUTS.  Offensively, the Bears MUST stick with the run and the short ball control passing attack.  Turn the game into a field position battle and the Bears win. 

While driving home from the airport [earlier this week] Anne and I listened to the local sports radio chatter. They did a great job of reminding everyone of the soft schedule the Bears have this year. The big stat was that the opposing offenses, if grouped together, come to 21 in the league.  Of course they all made the point that the Pats are much better than 21st in the league so the Pats win big.  However, the Pats opponents have a combined ranking of 20 or 22 so perhaps the Pats D is less of a threat.  I figure that the Bears can elevate their game on D while the Pats cannot.  So I still call for a Bears win, 24-21 on a missed Patriots field goal to tie the game and force overtime.

 

If not the Bears win in a Super Bowl rematch.

 

 

So there you go. Bears win, and if they don’t, they get even in February.

 

Sounds like a plan.

 

LBF

11/24/2006