Bears: Game One

September 12, 2017

Falcons 23 Bears 17

A loss is a loss is a loss. This could have been a win if not for a couple of glitches. But, the Bear defense should make them competitive in most games.

The front seven were as good as expected. They held the Falcons to 54 yards rushing.  Aikeem Hicks was outstanding in stopping the run and had two sacks. However, he also got penalized for roughing the passer, which extended a Falcons scoring drive that resulted in a field goal. The Falcons, who may be the best offense in the NFL, had three drives ending with field goals, one on a first and goal. The secondary had a good game for the most part. Julio Jones was held to 4 catches for 66 yards. The back breaker came on third down and three at the Falcons’ 8 yard line. An 88 yard touchdown pass to Austin Hooper with no defenders in sight. I had a flashback to last year’s Aaron Rodgers pass to a wide open Jordy Nelson that set up the winning field goal. Missed communication, confusion and a scrambled Jerrell Freeman have been the reasons for this to happen. There was only one other play that went for long yardage due to a flurry of missed tackles. Overall defense gets a B+.

On offense, a star was born. Tarik Cohen was electric.  Five rushes for 66 yards, 8 receptions for47 yards and 3 punt returns for 45 yards. This could really boost an anemic offense. After years of watching the turn over machine Jay Cutler, Mike Glennon goes turn over free. Aside from that he had a very pedestrian game. One of his criticisms is he can’t throw deep. That’s okay because the Bears don’t have a receiver who can get open deep. With protection he was good underneath. However, Glennon is slow slow, slow. If there is pressure, he just stands in the pocket and gets sacked. This put the Bears in deep holes. Other quarterbacks are at least able to get out of the pocket and throw it out of bounds which is not intentional grounding. This gets worse by the fact he’s slow going over his reads and his passes get out slow. What’s going to happen is he will feel pressure and not being able to get free will throw interceptions. The fact that he can’t move is probably the biggest reason they lost. With first and goal at the five yard line, you need a mobile quarterback to buy time until someone gets open. I don’t know how the game would have gone if they played their best quarterback. But, Trubisky gives you a much better chance of succeeding in that goal line situation.  Offense gets a B (add Glennon, C-).

It’s been pointed out me that I predicted the Bears to go 5-12 when they play 16 games so my revised pick is 5-11. Watching the first game, Tarik Cohen and the eventual starting of Trubisky makes me think that I am under estimating. That may be, but it will be close.

P.S. My apologies to Paul Sullivan. He was right as the Cubs have floundered to make their lead shrink to two games, there is a pennant race.