Close Only Counts In Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

November 20, 2017

Just missed by that much! Sorry about that Bears, you need to be a little bit better to win these close games. Lapses in all phases of the game were costly. With each loss, Coach Fox gets closer to the launching pad.

Defense was back to normal when it comes to opponents' running game. However, that’s not good enough to beat the Lions. After the sack fumble of Matt Stafford he proceeded to pick apart the Bears with precision passes. He also had a lot of help from the Bears secondary. Marcus Cooper, he of the famed fumble at the one yard line after an interception was awful. On a third and fifteen from their own nine yard line he gave his man a huge cushion resulting in a 17 yard completion and a first down. Soon after he got beaten up top for a 26 yard touchdown. Albeit, Stafford does this to most teams.  There has been a recent trend where the Bears have had multiple chances at interceptions  without catching the ball. I thought this was only limited to the receivers.The defense did do a better job in holding them to 2 field goals in the second half.

The Bears offense looked the best it has all year in scoring 24 points which should be enough to win. With Jordan Howard leading the way they rushed for over 200 yards. However, the dumbness that defines the Bears crept in. The first dumb came after a first down run by Trubisky which was followed by Kyle Long’s unnecessary roughness penalty after the play. Instead of having the ball on the forty-two yard line it was at the twenty-seven. As a rookie quarterback, Trubisky is going to make mistakes. He mishandled the snap and Detroit ran it for a touchdown. Who knows if things might have been different without the penalty? Although the Bears responded with a nice touchdown drive, Detroit seemed to have woken up and scored 2 touchdowns before the half.

 In the second half, after a Detroit field goal, Trubisky led the team down field with the forgotten man, Tarik Cohen leaping for the tying touchdown. With less than 2 minutes the Bears defense stopped Detroit from scoring with no time left on the clock and forced them to settle for a field goal. Prater, one of the best kickers in the game connected on a 52 yard field goal. This set up dumb number two with the aforementioned Cohen. Taking the kickoff out five yards deep in the end zone to the 15. This cost the Bears ten yards and took time off the clock. The Bears could have used both. 

Even so, after his first and only sack, Trubisky has a 19 yard run on 4^th and 13.  He then completes a pass to Ingram setting up a 46 yard field goal attempt. Alas, Connor Barf missed badly. You’ll be happy to know that earlier today they cut him and signed a new kicker.

I read a column today by David Haugh of the Chicago Tribune, complaining about the troubles of Trubisky. Paraphrasing, he wrote if he had been better in the first 58 minutes they wouldn’t have needed Connor Barf heroics. On the other hand, he gave Barf a chance to tie the game. Regardless, Trubisky has improved and keeps getting better. If you’re looking at why the Bears win or mostly lose then you are watching for the wrong reason. The Bears are going nowhere, the only thing that matters is the growth of your franchise quarterback.