Bears Blitz

Published by Bryan Dietzler on October 17, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The NFC North leading Chicago Bears hosted the 2-2 Seattle Seahawks at Soldier Field this Sunday in a game that many people felt would end up being a Bears victory.  That wouldn’t be the case, however, as the Bears lost 23-20 in a game that was close but perhaps not as close as this score may indicate.

It was quarterback Jay Cutler’s first game back since suffering a concussion, and it was thought that the Bears would air it out a bit against Seattle since the Seahawks had a pretty bad pass defense and Chicago did attempt to do that, but once again, the protection for Cutler wasn’t there, and he suffered through six sacks and several errant throws.  

The Bears defense struggled against the Seahawks passing and rushing attack, and they allowed two players in particular, running back Justin Forsett and wide receiver Mike Williams (yes the same one that washed out of Detroit and was out of the league for a little while) to have big days.  The only unit to perform almost flawlessly in this game was the special teams unit.

The following is an in depth look at the Bears 23-20 loss to the Seattle Seahawks with a scoring summary and some insight into why and how the Bears lost.

Scoring Summary

The Bears scored first in this game as after a huge pass interference penalty against the Seahawks, Matt Forte burst into the end zone from six yards out to put the Bears up early in the first quarter.  The Seahawks would answer that score with a touchdown of their own as wide receiver Deon Butler caught a 22-yard pass from quarterback Matt Hasselbeck to tie it up at seven a piece.

The Seahawks would go ahead of the Bears in the second quarter, after Forsett ran into the end zone from nine yards out to put Seattle up by seven.  Chicago would add two field goals by kicker Robbie Gould, one a 34-yarder and the other a 24-yarder to put the score at 14-13 heading into halftime.

Seattle would tack on a safety as Cutler was tackled in the end zone.  This gave the Seahawks a 16-13 advantage but still kept the score close for the Bears.  This wouldn’t last long though as Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch ran it in from 1-yard out to make it 23-16, still in the third quarter.

The Bears wouldn’t go down without a fight though and with that, punt return specialist Devin Hester ran a punt back for an 89-yard touchdown with just under two minutes left in the game to put the Bears within three.  The Bears didn’t have any timeouts, however, and the Seahawks ended up running out the clock to win 23-20.

Stud of the Game

While he didn’t have any touchdowns, wide receiver Johnny Knox made passes turn into long gains and ended up with five catches for 120 yards.  Knox played very well despite the fact that the offense was struggling and he is one of those players that proves that this offense can work when it’s working right.

Dud of the Game

The entire offensive line struggled once again in this game allowing six sacks and not allowing a lot of rushing yards.  Yes, the offensive line was going through another transition with the addition of former left tackle Chris Williams in at the left guard position, but there is no excuse for the offensive line to play the way they have been.  They are going to end up getting Cutler hurt again and sink the Bears season to the bottom of the ocean if things don’t get better.

Analysis

The special teams units get a pass in this game.  They performed well in holding both kick return specialist Leon Washington and punt return specialist Golden Tate from causing them problems, and they allowed Hester to return a punt for a touchdown and would have had a kickoff return for a touchdown (by Danieal Manning) had they not held on the play.  So the special teams did very well.

The defense broke down in this game allowing 242 yards through the air and 111 yards on the ground.  Did they miss linebacker Lance Briggs too much in this game?  Perhaps especially on running plays and hopes are high that he will be back by next Sunday.  

The defensive line got virtually no pressure on the quarterback in this game, and Julius Peppers, who was having a strong season up to this point, was almost non-existent.  They didn’t have any sacks or too many quarterback pressures in this game after doing so well against the Panthers the week before.  Without that pass rush, the Bears defense was definitely less effective.

The secondary saw some switching going on as usual as cornerbacks Zachary Bowman and Tim Jennings ended up trading time (Bowman did leave with a foot injury and didn’t return), and they struggled with the lack of a pass rush.  Safety Chris Harris made some good tackles in this game and has steadily become much better over the course of the season.  It will be interesting to see how things go if and when rookie safety Major Wright gets back into the lineup.

Now for the offense.  There were several things going on in this game that contributed to the ineffective play on offense in this game.  We already know about the offensive line and how they have problems figuring out their assignments, but it can’t all be left on the offensive line.  The tight ends and running backs have blocking responsibilities, and they are missing those responsibilities leaving Cutler open to get sacked.

There was a lot of pressure generated on the outside of the defensive line in this game which means that a tight end, a tackle or a running back missed their blocking assignment.  Perhaps there is some confusion but there should be no excuse for this to happen repeatedly.

Another problem that we saw came with the inaccuracy with some of Cutler’s passes.  It wasn’t that the wide receivers were running the wrong routes but that Cutler was just throwing “garbage” passes.  Some were inaccurate while others seemed to go nowhere.  His performance in this game left a lot of questions—many more than there were answers.

Unlike last week, the Bears could not get their running game going and like they have in several games before, they gave up on their running game early and didn’t use it to help take some of the pressure off of Cutler.  They need to stick with their running game more often to help them keep the defense honest and not allow Cutler to be killed.

The wide receivers did a pretty good job on this day, especially Knox and for the most part, they ran the right routes and gave Cutler outlets to throw the ball to.  He just couldn’t get the ball there.

Next Up

The Bears will host the Washington Redskins next Sunday at Soldier Field.  Stay tuned for a full preview of this game coming later on in the week.

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