Bears can beat Redskins. Big Deal

September 24, 2019

The Chicago Bears beat the woeful Washington Redskins Monday night, 31-16. This game is more of a reflection on how bad the Redskins are, not how good the Bears are. The Bears committed too many penalties. I stopped counting the many off-side penalties. Once the yardage accepted surpassed 70 yards, I stopped keeping track of this as well. I will get to other troubling things. Suffice to say if they play like this, it could be a long season.

Once again, the defense won this game for the Bears. Three interceptions, two fumbles, and four sacks. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix first interception resulted in a touchdown for an early 7-0 lead. The other turnovers provided the offense with short scoring drives. The Bears led 28-3 heading into the third quarter. Due to an anemic offense, the Bears defense was on the field much of the second half.

 To combat the Bears pass rush you have to get your passes out quickly. Redskins quarterback Case Keenum used this formula with a couple of longer completions that led to two touchdowns. The Redskins were threatening to cut the lead to six at the Bears 20 yard line. Danny Trevathan came to the rescue forcing the second fumble, recovered by Eddie Jackson. If the games are closer, the Bears need to learn how to shut off the quick release passing game. My recommendation would be to have tighter coverage and bump the receivers until they get five yards out. By disrupting routes, it throws off the quarterback’s timing and gives your pass rush more time to get to the quarterback.

Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky’s passing statistics looked good. He was 25 for 31, for 231 yards. He also had 3 touchdown passes and one costly interception. The offense set up two of these scores. Trubisky used short passes and let the receivers makes plays after the catch. The first drive was 67 yards capped by a three yard touchdown pass to Taylor Gabriel.  Gabriel was the recipient of a one yard touchdown on the second play of a drive that started at the eleven yard line. Gabriel made a sensational catch of a 36 yard pass that was ruled incomplete. The replay reversed the call. Trubisky had his longest reception of the game and Gabriel his third touchdown of the quarter. This was a 63 yard drive. Trubisky had other opportunities but can’t hit wide open receivers over 10 yards out. This not a good omen. My confidence fell even further when he messed up the Bears only scoring opportunity in the second half. Inside the Redskins 10 yard line, a fade pass was grossly underthrown for an interception. Nagy thought he could take some time off the clock and out of Trubisky’s hands by running the ball. David Montgomery had a nice 25 yard run at the end of the game but only averaged three yards on his other 12 carries. Trubisky couldn’t convert third down and four yards for a first down. Free agent signee, Mike Davis had one rush for two yards. Neither back is as good of a runner as the traded Jordan Howard.

The Minnesota Vikings are not the Redskins. We’ll have better grasp of the season after this game. Of concern is the severity of Akiem Hicks’ injury.