New Orleans Saints vs. Chicago Bears: Complete Week 15 Preview for Chicago
Published by Matt Eurich on December 12, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears continued their downward spiral in Week 14, losing to the Dallas Cowboys. The Bears dropped to 5-8 on the season following their 41-28 loss on Thursday Night Football. After the Detroit Lions defeated the Minnesota Vikings this past Sunday, Chicago was officially eliminated from the playoffs, via Jeff Dickerson of ESPNChicago.com:
#Lions win 34-17. #Bears officially eliminated from playoff contention. Have now failed to reach postseason 7 times in 8 years.
— Jeff Dickerson (@ESPNChiBears) December 7, 2014
The Bears are set to take on the New Orleans Saints in Week 15 on Monday Night Football. Chicago holds a 15-13 lead in the all-time series, but the Saints defeated the Bears 26-18 in Week 5 of the 2013 season.
Chicago racked up 376 yards of total offense and tied its season high in points with 28, but the defense had no answers for Dallas’ Tony Romo and DeMarco Murray last Thursday night. Romo threw for 205 yards with three touchdowns, while Murray had 228 yards from scrimmage on 41 touches with one touchdown.
“If you look at the game, we only hurt ourselves during the game,” head coach Marc Trestman said following the loss, via Kevin Fishbain of ChicagoFootball.com. “It was a 14-7 game anyway you look at it. We had a fumble. They responded with a touchdown. We had a blocked kick. They responded with a touchdown.”
Chicago’s loss assured that Trestman’s record after two seasons on the job will be no better than .500 after his team finished 8-8 last season.
Despite having a 5-8 record, the New Orleans Saints are still squarely in the playoff hunt in the NFC South. They had a chance to put themselves in the driver’s seat in the division last week but were blown out 41-10 at home against the Carolina Panthers.
“We’ve got to look closely at everything—preparation, who we’re asking to do it,” Saints head coach Sean Payton said, via ESPN.com. “We’re not that good. That’s painfully obvious.”
With nothing but pride to play for on Monday night, it will be interesting to see what sort of effort the Bears give when they take on a New Orleans team that is fighting for its playoff life.
Here is our New Orleans Saints vs. Chicago Bears preview for Week 15.
