Bears Blitz

Published by Bear Heiser on November 6, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears’ 2014 season is all but on the line Sunday in Green Bay against the rival Packers. At 3-5 with eight games remaining, the margin of error is slimmer than slim in an effort to reach 10 wins.

Win or lose, the Marc Trestman-led Bears need to put in a good showing to quiet the rumblings of a possible regime change in Chicago, as CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reported. Jay Cutler needs to have a good game so the critics of his $100-plus million contract slow their roll, if only for a week. Defensive coordinator Mel Tucker needs his defense to play the game of all games against Aaron Rodgers and the vaunted Packers offense in hopes that an emotional win will buy him some time on the job.

So while the Bears are battling for their season, everything is pretty grand in Green Bay. The Packers currently sit at 5-3 and are led by a head coach Mike McCarthy, who received a contract extension last week.

No time is ever a good time to play the Packers, but for the Bears, who need an emotional bump more than a winless Kobe Bryant, beating the Packers in Green Bay could serve as a slingshot for the the next two games, against the Minnesota Vikings and Tampa Bay Buccaneers—two very winnable matchups.

But it all starts Sunday in Green Bay.

To win Sunday, the Bears must run Matt Forte down the Packers’ throats

If Matt Forte and Ka’Deem Carey do not rush the ball at least 30 times, the Bears will not win the game. In each of the Packers’ three losses, the opponent has run the ball at least 31 times.  

No NFL team allows more rushing yards per game than the Packers, who give up an average of 153.5 yards. The Bears rank 18th in the league in rushing, averaging 102.5 yards per game. Despite being in the middle of the pack in terms of yards, the Bears are the NFL’s No. 1 run-blocking team, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required).

That should tell you something about Trestman’s inconsistent commitment to the run game.

When the Packers dominated the Bears 38-17 in Week 4, Forte carried the ball 23 times for 125 yards; Carey went for 72 yards, his best game as a pro; Cutler added 25 yards; and Jeffery gave them 12 yards on the well-loved Alshon Jeffery end-around. The Bears, in total, carried it 41 times for 235 yards and attempted 35 passes for 261 yards. There’s your game plan right there. Balance. Had Cutler not thrown two interceptions when the Bears only trailed in the third quarter by 14 and 17 points, respectively, the outcome might have been different.

What the Dallas Cowboys have been doing on offense is what the Bears need to be doing every week. Through nine games, the Cowboys have attempted 281 passes and 285 rushes. How balanced is the Bears offense? The Cutler-led offense has thrown the ball 299 times and run the ball only 188 times through halfway point. The Cowboys are 6-3 this season, with back-to-back losses mostly due to an injured quarterback.

Offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer spoke earlier in the season about the need for balance on offense, via ChicagoBears.com:

You have to continue to keep a balance of sorts, understanding that you may not gain a lot of yards per carry. But if you just drop back and pass it the whole game, they will get active and hit your quarterback.

Speaking of the quarterback

The Bears quarterback will need the help of his running game this week. Trestman spoke Monday on the subject of moving Cutler around more in the pocket, to give plays more time to develop and his receivers more time to work through their routes and find gaps in the secondary.

“We’ve talked about all of that over the bye week, and how we can do some different things for him to help him,” Trestman said, via Michael C. Wright of ESPNChicago.com. “We’ll continue to work on that, and see how that goes in the second half.”

Even though Cutler has eight interceptions on the season, he’s been surprisingly good when throwing under pressure. According to PFF, only one quarterback this season has been better in that area than Cutler: Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

The entire Bears offense will benefit from a mobile quarterback. In a season when Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery have had trouble creating separation against opposing secondaries, Trestman somehow needs to jump-start this lackluster bunch of talented starts. Using bootlegs and play-action rollouts to move the QB around can create more coverage gaps than when keeping him in the pocket.

Forte and tight end Martellus Bennett will be able to find more space, too. Bennett had a huge game when the Bears faced the Packers in Week 4, with nine catches for 134 yards on 11 targets.

Moving the pocket also benefits an offensive line that could very well have familiar faces, Jordan Mills and Michael Ola, in new positions. 

Mobile or not, and the shuffling of the offensive line notwithstanding, Cutler still has to make good decisions with the football, and that’s something the Bears quarterback has struggled to do this season, committing 12 turnovers in eight games.

Cutler’s turnover problems go way beyond this season. John Sahly of ChicagoFootball.com compiled a great breakdown of Cutler’s career record against the Packers. It’s worth a look, but it’s not pretty. 

On the other side of the ball is the polar opposite of Cutler

Rodgers has committed only four turnovers all season: three interceptions and one fumble lost. All three of Rodgers’ picks came in games Green Bay lost.

The Packers quarterback has been on fire in the four games he’s played since throwing for 302 yards and four touchdowns against the Bears in Week 4. Rodgers has 10 touchdowns to only two interceptions in those four games, three of which resulted in Green Bay wins.

The only key to a victorious defensive performance is to stop Rodgers—somehow, some way. Eddie Lacy and the Packers running game has struggled this season, averaging 97.5 yards per game (24th in NFL). The Bears defense has allowed 110.1 rushing yards per game. So why not make a struggling Lacy and Co. try to beat you? Makes sense, right?

A good plan for the Bears involves playing man coverage in the secondary and creating a pass rush from the outside.

Kyle Fuller and Tim Jennings have the ability to play man-to-man coverage. The only question is whether Fuller will be healthy enough to hold up against the lethal receiver combination of Jordy Nelson and Randall Cobb.

Fuller has been battling a broken hand and a hip pointer, but he’s listed as a full participant on Wednesday’s injury report. He’ll go Sunday, it’s just a matter of how effective he can be at less than 100 percent and playing with a cast on his hand.

The Bears defense has played a lot of zone coverage this season, which has exposed the struggling linebacker group, allowing opposing teams to feast on the middle areas of the field.

The linebacker position is another area in which the Bears are dealing with injuries. Lance Briggs hasn’t played since Week 5 due to a rib problem. But he’s listed as a full participant on the injury report, meaning he’s all but back. How good of shape he’ll be in is another story entirely. Jon Bostic also should be back after missing the last three games due to a back injury. He adds a lot of versatility to a defense that lacks linebackers who can cover. Tucker talked Wednesday about what Bostic brings to the table, via ChicagoFootball.com:

He’s a really good athlete. He’s got good speed. Really good change of direction. He’s got a good feel for what we want to do in coverage. He’s a good player. It gives you flexibility when you have a guy like that. He’s stout in the run game but he’s got really good speed and change of direction, so he’s a good cover linebacker too.

Tucker is going to need all of his best players healthy and playing with a sense of urgency if this Bears defense is to slow Rodgers. He already is without defensive end Lamarr Houston, who is out for the season with a torn ACL. Now there is even more pressure on ends Willie Young and Jared Allen to get in Rodgers’ face.

Back in Week 4, the Bears sacked Rodgers only one time, and the sack was negligible, given that rookie defensive tackle Ego Ferguson pretty much escorted Rodgers out of bounds for a loss of what looked to be one inch.

The Bears are going to need Ferguson and fellow rookie tackle Will Sutton to step up in Houston’s place. When the Bears go to nickel, someone will need to fill Houston’s role at the 3-technique. It likely will be Sutton. 

If guys like Young and Allen can get pressure from the outside, keeping Rodgers in the pocket, the men in the middle of the defensive line—Jeremiah Ratliff, Stephen Paea, Sutton, Ferguson—should find themselves with opportunities to sack the quarterback. Ratliff and Paea have combined for 7.5 sacks this season.

Allen talked Wednesday about how he prepares for squaring off against Rodgers, via Jeff Arnold of ChicagoFootball.com:

You’ve got to know Aaron – you’ve got to study him and know what he’s going to do. He will give you shots to get to him because he has the ability to go down the field at any given time and he’ll take those shots on you. So you’ve got to keep rushing and you can’t get tired of, three-step, three-step, ball out, ball out, ball out, ball out, ball out. It’s just a game you’ve got to play.

Stopping Rodgers won’t be easy, and it might not even be likely. Slowing him down is an option, though. As long as the Bears defense can do a better job than it did in the Week 4 drubbing, when Tucker’s squad forced the Packers to punt exactly zero times, the Bears have a chance to win.

The defense just needs to set the table for the offense to do its thing. By the time these two foes kickoff Sunday, Trestman will have had two weeks to prepare. If the Bears offense shows anything less than its A-game, the whispers of discontent, as La Canfora reported, will grow louder in short order.

Prediction: Packers 35, Bears 27

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