Bears Blitz

Published by Jake Perper on October 19, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

The Bears wasted no time driving down the field for a touchdown on their first drive Sunday. A pass attempt by Jay Cutler to Devin Hester was called pass interference on Seattle, which set the Bears up in the red zone. Matt Forte quickly took advantage of the field position by running the ball into the end-zone.

The Bears expected to have success on defense with Julius Peppers matched up against a rookie left tackle. With Lance Briggs being out for this game and the disappointing play of the defensive line, the Bears defense allowed Seattle to drive down the field pretty easy at times.

Seattle actually drove down the field right after the opening score by the Bears for one of their own. Matt Hasselback found Deon Butler in the endzone right of the head of Charles Tillman.

The Bears constantly missed tackles in this game. Marshawn Lynch played in his first game as a Seahawk and it looked like the Bears had him wrapped up behind the line of scrimmage. Instead, he would break out of the tackles and get some solid yards. Same with Justin Forsett, who ran pretty tough.

The Bears couldn’t handle the blitzes Seattle brought. Seattle was bringing heat with defensive backs and that allowed the defensive backs to combine for three and a half sacks on the day. Jay Cutler has been sacked 23 times in five games. He was sacked only 36 times in 16 games last season.

We thought the offensive line was bad last year, but it is clearly worse this year. Chris Williams returned to play left guard and he played alright. The problem was Frank Omiyale and J’Marcus Webb—I’m pretty sure they gave up the six sacks between the two of them.

Webb was lost and didn’t even know who to block at times. Omiyale was just bad. Again why did we sign Brandon Manumaleuna? To block right? I haven’t seen him do much to help the offensive line block. He could be one of the worse signings of the off-season

The offensive line being bad mostly deals with their inability to run block, Mike Martz loves passing but you have to run more than 12 times in a football game if you want to have a chance at the W.

Chester Taylor has had some success running, Matt Forte doesn’t seem fast enough in the run game to break through the holes that the line give him.

Martz has to come up with a better game plan because making Cutler throw the ball 39 times is not a great idea. The pass happy play calling allowed Seattle to shut down the Bears offense on third downs. The Bears were 0-12 on third down tries on Sunday. They are 13-87 on third down tries for the season, that means they have converted only 15 percent of third down attempts.

That is pathetic and a major reason they can’t win games. You can’t have drives stall that constantly. Heading into the fourth quarter the bears were in the game, despite playing poor defense and not converting a single third down on offense. The game was 16-13 in favor of the Seahawks.

Marshawn Lynch scored early in the fourth quarter and the Bears had plenty of time to come back from the 10 point deficit. They couldn’t get anything going on their drives. Robbie Gould tried a 53 yard field goal late in the fourth quarter, but he missed it very badly. The Bears manage their timeouts poorly, burning two of them in the fourth quarter so they wouldn’t get delay of game penalties.

Those two timeouts were definitely needed after Devin Hester returned a punt 89 yards for a score with 1:54 remaining in the game. That was Hester’s 13th kick return score of his career and he is now tied for first all-time with Brian Mitchell. I still have no clue why the Seahawks kicked to Hester, but it gave the Bears a chance for a comeback.

With no timeouts the Bears had to try an onside kick, but Robbie Gould failed to get the Bears the ball back and the Seahawks kneeled the rest of the time off the clock.

The Bears take on the Washington Redskins next week and they have to improve their third down offense if they want to compete in that game. The Bears are still sitting on top of the NFC North at 4-2, but the Packers (3-3) and Vikings (2-3) aren’t going away. Step it up Lovie Smith and company, or you might all be gone sooner than you thought.

Jake Perper is the creator of www.BearsBacker.com and also covers the Bears for www.NFLTouchdown.com and NFLBlogblitz.com

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