NFL Week One: Chicago Faces a Tough First Game With Detroit
Published by Hunter Prichard on September 6, 2010
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Being a Bears fan, it has been an absolute pleasure to look at the schedule at the beginning of each season and immediately circle the two Detroit Lions games as automatic wins.
Even during Detroit’s “good years,” they have been an opponent that Chicago looks forward to playing.
So, despite the team’s preseason struggles, Chicago should be overjoyed in playing the Lions in week one, right? It’s an automatic win, right?
Well, probably not.
Usually I try to ignore preseason play. I try not to get too emotionally involved. I try to ignore the happiness of the wins and the disappointment of the losses.
However, this season, watching the Bears play their preseason opponents, I couldn’t ignore it. Chicago looks, as an immediate reaction, absolutely worthless on the football field.
The offense hasn’t been clicking whatsoever. It’s a slipshod machine that is missing several bolts . . . for example, a goddamn offensive line.
Jay Cutler has literally zero protection when he steps back to pass, which is dangerous considering the new offensive scheme. The quarterbacks need an ample amount of time to get the plays off.
Mike Martz’s system is based on timing, and the timing will get screwed up if Cutler is consistently running around trying to avoid pressure. Jared Allen is going to have a field day during those Minnesota games.
It would’ve been a difficult offense to master even if Cutler was throwing to Reggie Wayne and Randy Moss; Johnny Knox as the No. 1 receiver agitates me. How about Devin Aromashodu? We already know that Devin Hester isn’t a very good choice at wideout. But can Aromashodu and Knox play? Can they play on a pro bowl level? Nobody knows.
The defense will be fine as long as Urlacher and Briggs stay on the field. Julius Peppers provides such a boost, and the defense will be able to shut down most offenses, but this is going to be a unit that will have to get turnovers if the Bears are going to stay competitive late into games.
Last year looked like the ebb of a once great defense; this year, they will get back to where they were during those playoff seasons.
I look at Detroit in week one, and my knees already start to shake. The Lions are a much improved team that will give a lot of teams fits this season.
Not to say that they will win a lot of games, but they will be very feisty and it will be hard to shut them down.
Matthew Stafford is a player that I was very impressed with last season, and he was playing without Calvin Johnson for most of the season. His offensive line wasn’t very good, and he didn’t have a running game. Still, he hung in there and made some good plays.
He’s a tough kid, who now has a good amount of weapons at his disposal. Calvin Johnson is, of course, an absolute beast when he’s on the field. CJ, along with rookie Jahvid Best and second year TE Brandon Pettigrew, will make this offensive unit very difficult to stop.
Looking at the match-ups between Chicago and Detroit, I don’t know for certain whether or not Chicago can stack up.
Cutler lining up behind center and staring into the hungry eyes of DT Ndamukong Suh, looks like trouble. Suh looks great so far in the preseason, and no player on the Bears’ offensive line can stack up to him.
On defense, Julius Peppers is going to have to have a monster game if they want to stop the Stafford-to-Johnson combo. Even Darrelle Revis would have his hands full with Johnson, so I doubt that Charles Tillman or Zachary Bowman will be much trouble for him.
They will have to knock Stafford around quite a bit.
Do they have an answer for Jahvid Best? Best looks sensational so far and the Briggs/Urlacher/Nick Roach LB unit is going to have to be on their toes in trying to stop them.
I’m not ready to throw in the towel on the Bears season before the first game. That would be too dramatic. By all early accounts, Chicago doesn’t look to have the stuff to stand up to half the teams in this league.
Prediction: Detroit wins a close game: 24 – 17
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