Bears Blitz

Published by Bryan Dietzler on November 5, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The 4-3 Chicago Bears, fresh off of a much needed bye week, will take on the winless Buffalo Bills this Sunday in a game that will be played in Toronto, Canada. 

The Bears last game was a 17-14 loss at home to the Washington Redskins, while the Bills lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 13-10 in overtime.

The Bears struggles on offense are well known, but in the second half of their game against the Redskins just two weeks ago, we saw that the Bears were starting to “come around” so to speak.  The offensive line was blocking better and the short passing game was working. 

What wasn’t working was the quarterback, as Jay Cutler threw four interceptions and had one fumble.  He should be able to play much better than that.

The Bears are a team that needs a win against the Bills in order to keep pace with the Green Bay Packers for the lead in the NFC North. 

They also need to play better in this game so that they can start preparing for future games (and getting tuned up to play better).  Are the Bills just what the doctor ordered, or will Buffalo put a big dent in the Bears playoff hopes?

The following is an in-depth preview of the Bears game against the Buffalo Bills this Sunday.  There is some insight into who will win, why they will win and who is hurt and who is out for the game.

 

When the Bears Have the Ball

The Bears spent some of the bye week trying to figure out exactly how to fix their offense. 

Hopefully they came up with the same conclusions and solutions that many other people have.  Run the ball, short passing game and protect the quarterback among other things are exactly what the Bears need to do to win this game. 

They started doing that in the Redskins game, but turnovers got in their way there and they were unable to be successful.

In order to have some sort of stability on offense, Chicago needs to run the football.  And they will play a team that doesn’t do well against the run. 

The Bills are allowing an average of 188 yards per game on the ground, so if the Bears choose not to run the ball then they could dig themselves a grave in this game.  They have two very capable runners in Matt Forte and Chester Taylor and need to run the ball often in this game.

Offensive coordinator Mike Martz stated after the Bears started their bye week that they would try to run the ball much more.  He should see that there is a golden opportunity to run the ball against the Bills and work on the passing game in the process. 

The Bears have to run the ball, that cannot be stressed enough.

Running the ball should make them much more balanced and make their offense much less predictable.  This will then open up the passing game for bigger and better things.

If the Bears can get their short passing game going then they can work on the deep stuff a little later on in the game.  They still have to gain some confidence in their passing game and the best way to do that is to start out small and then build from there.

Passes to the tight end over the deep middle of the defense would help, and we have seen this work before.  Screen passes to the running backs would also work very well and the Bears should try some of those as well.

The offensive line, a source of many problems for the Bears this season, will get back one of its starters in guard Roberto Garza.  Garza is going to come in at right guard which means there will be some additional shifting going on in the lineup.  Hopefully the shifting pays off in the long run.

In terms of its pass defense, Buffalo is allowing opponents to gain an average of 195 yards per game so they aren’t doing too bad defending against an opponents passing game. 

They have collected 11 total sacks so far, but have just one interception through seven games. 

Knowing how turnover prone the Bears have been as of late let’s hope that they don’t give Buffalo an opportunity to increase that total.

 

When the Bills have the Ball

Buffalo started out the season with some problems on offense, but, to be honest, things have gotten better for them over the past couple of games and they look like they could be a real threat to the Bears in this game. 

First, looking at their rushing attack, the Bills are averaging a respectable 114 yards per game on the ground so far this season and have two very capable running backs in C.J. Spiller and Fred Jackson.

If outside linebacker Lance Briggs is going to play in this game (and all indications are that he will) then the Bears should have a solid run defense that they can use to shut down Buffalo’s running game.  Making the Bills one dimensional would make things easy for the Bears.

Chicago has allowed teams to gain an average of 75 yards per game on the ground so far this season which is excellent by many standards.  This should be a game in which they can shut down the run and make the Bills try to beat them through the air.

Buffalo has finally settled on quarterback and are getting some good production out of their passing game.  Ryan Fitzpatrick has attempted a total of 176 passes with 105 completions for 1,200 yards with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions. 

He’s not playing that bad so the Bears will have to work hard to try to get pressure on him and force him to make mistakes which he doesn’t make that often.

The Bills are getting about 185 yards a game through the air, while the Bears are allowing teams an average of 216 yards per game through the air. 

This is the game where Chicago has to get its pass rush ramped up and going strong in order to avoid Buffalo taking control of this game through the air.  Through seven games, Buffalo has allowed opponents a total 18 sacks while the Bears defense has 11.

It’s time for guys like Julius Peppers and Israel Idonije to step up and turn up the heat on Sunday.  Peppers has been very effective against both the run and the pass and it’s hard to measure what he’s done for the Bears looking at his stats.  He means a lot to this defense.

Speaking of someone who means a lot to the defense, with Briggs coming back (as of this writing the coaching staff is saying that he will play in this game) and middle linebacker Brian Urlacher having a good year, the Bears linebacking corps is poised to have a good game against the Bills especially against the run.  Look for this to be one of the better performing units on defense this Sunday.

The secondary, much maligned and criticized before the season started, has actually turned in a good effort so far this season.  Guys like D.J. Moore and Charles Tillman are playing some pretty good football right now and aren’t giving up a lot of yards through the air. Hopefully they can continue this against the Bills.

 

Special Teams

Will the Bills decide to kick to punt return specialist Devin Hester or will they kick away from him giving the Bears good field position?  That will be important because it could give the Bears good field position if they decide to kick it away from Hester and if they don’t then he’s a threat to score.

Buffalo’s special teams have been pretty good especially on kickoffs where Spiller is a threat and has returned one kickoff for a touchdown so far this season.  The Bears have excelled on special teams coverage since the Dallas game so hopefully they don’t get burned in this one.

 

Injury Update

Both teams have the following players listed in their injury report for this week:

Chicago Bears

LB-Lance Briggs-Ankle-Will play on Sunday, G-Roberto Garza-Knee-Will play on Sunday; G-Edwin Williams-Back-Will play on Sunday; CB-Zackary Bowman-Foot-Out.

Buffalo Bills

G-Cord Howard-Shoulder-Will play on Sunday; G-Eric Wood-Knee-Will play Sunday; LB-Andra Davis-Shoulder-Doubtful for Sunday; T-Cornell Green-Knee-Doubtful for Sunday; WR-Donald Jones-Knee-Will play on Sunday; T-Demetrius Bell-Knee-Will play on Sunday; CB-Terrence McGee-Back-Will play on Sunday.

It looks like the Bears will only have one player out (Bowman) for this game.  The Bills won’t have any highly critical players out for this game as both teams come into this game pretty healthy.  

 

Analysis

This is a very important game for the Bears.  They are one game behind the Green Bay Packers in the NFC North and need the win in order to gain some momentum heading into a very tough part of their schedule. 

They are meeting the Bills at both a good and a bad time.  It’s a good time because they are coming off of a bye and are well rested, but it’s not a good time because the Bills are playing some pretty good football right now.

It will be interesting to see how well the offensive line protects Cutler in this game.  There was a lot done to get this unit on track during the bye week and indications from the coaching staff are that things are looking good. 

But we have heard that before, so now we wonder what we can expect come Sunday. 

Getting Roberto Garza back in the lineup will help, but will that destroy whatever continuity that the offensive line currently has?  Hopefully it doesn’t and the Bears can pass block in this game.

Not only does the offense have to give Cutler time to throw, but Cutler himself has to be able to refrain from making critical errors. 

We saw in the Washington game just how bad it can be when Cutler starts to break down and throw interceptions, but we also saw how bad it can be when the receivers run the wrong routes or stop suddenly inthe middle of a route.  Cutler and his receivers have to be on the same page.

The coaching staff has promised that the Bears will run the ball much more, so we will see if this actually happens or not.  They should be able to run with ease on the Bills and it would be a mistake if the Bears didn’t run the ball a lot.  They have to in this game.

If the offense performs well and helps keep the defense off the field for long periods of time then the Bears will win this game soundly.  If their offense struggles like it has so many times in the past and can’t get anything going then it could be a long game for the Bears.

The defense will get help from the return of Briggs and this should help Chicago keep the Bills running game contained.  Chicago has excelled against the run for the most part this season and can do so against Buffalo.

With a smart quarterback like Fitzpatrick at the helm for the Bills, the Bears have a lot to worry about. 

Not only is Fitzpatrick smart but he’s also an aggressive signal caller with a strong arm and knack for finding the open receiver and with the weapons that he has to throw the ball to you can see that he leads a pretty dangerous Buffalo passing attack.

Good and consistent pass pressure will help keep Buffalo’s passing game off balance and give the Bears defense some opportunities to make big plays.  This means that the Bears are going to need their key players, such as Peppers, Urlacher and Idonije to step up and get some pressure on the quarterback and be difference makers in this game.  They are definitely up for the challenge.

Is the secondary going to be able to stand up to this task?  They should be able to because the secondary has managed to play well in the first seven games of the season. 

Bowman, the sometimes starting cornerback, will be out for this game leaving his counterpart, Tim Jennings, to start.  Jennings hasn’t played that bad this season so the Bears should feel comfortable with him taking a bigger role on defense.

Special teams play could get very interesting in this game and it may come down to which team has the better special teams unit.  We all know what the Bears special teams can do and the Bills have a pretty good unit as well. 

Watch these units as things could get interesting with both of them.

 

Prediction

The Bears are well rested coming off of the bye week and have all but one of their players back and pretty healthy. 

As long as they can get their running game going and protect Cutler they should do well on offense. 

On defense, that unit has to play aggressive and not allow many mistakes or else the Bears will loose this game.

Chicago 28 Buffalo 17

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