Bear Down Baffa

The Chicago Bears 2007 season was put out of its misery tonight.  They are survived by a nation of broken hearted Super Fans who will mourn for months.  Please remember first and foremost that grieving is a process.  If you are feeling desperate or suicidal, seek help (suicidepreventionlifeline.org). 

Well, the Bears season is finally over.  Even John J. Rambo would agree, and he’s the guy who said, “Nothing is over, nothing!  You just don’t turn if off!  You asked me, I didn’t ask you, and I did what I had to win.  But someone wouldn’t let us win!”  And today, that somebody was our defense.  They simply didn’t play well when we needed them to, and so we deservedly bow out of the post season race, once again just missing out on a victory.

We were virtually in it the whole game.  The first half was 0 – 0 until an INT lead to Washington’s first TD with seconds remaining.  And they were never ahead by more than 14 points.  We seemed to get better offensively as the game went on.  But as has been the case all season, we come up short in crucial situations.  And the worse of the two teams usually is the one coming up short (at least we’re good at something).  But it all comes down to scoring when the game is on the line.  And even when you find ways to score, you still have to stop them from scoring.  And our defense failed against a mediocre offense with a back-up QB. 

Even though the Bears scored on their final four drives, Washington scored on four of their final five.  The Bears scored 3 FG’s and 1 TD; Washington scored 3 TD’s and 1 FG.  That about sums up the game.  What is most surprising is that we scored on our last four consecutive drives.  And what did they all have in common?  They all included No Huddle plays.  This has worked for us recently, and it worked again Thursday – when we used it.  Of the drives we didn’t score, the worst ones were without No Huddle plays.  The drives that were most successful included them.  It is an obvious advantage if even our terrible offense is lighting up the scoreboard with them.  But what really led to the late scoring? 

Our first score of the night wasn’t until almost ten minutes into the third quarter.  Starting the drive off with a nice Holding penalty on Seven Hester’s kick return, we went on to commit 6 penalties for 35 yards, including three False Starts and two Delays of Game.  So how did we even manage 3 points?  A late hit penalty, their second of two on that drive themselves, on an incomplete pass gave us a first down on their 13. 

Our second score was on a three-great-play drive: a 20-yard completion to Desmond Clark, an 11-yard run by Wolfe and a 17-yard TD pass to Bernard Berrian.  How did we manage that?  We started in Washington territory for only the second time in the game – the first time ended in a blocked FG attempt midway through the first quarter.   

The third score was a mammoth 13-play drive from our own 29.  It included four receptions by Hester, featured both Garrett Wolfe and Adrian Peterson and had Griese going 5 of his first 6.  But this drive was also aided by Washington.  An Illegal Contact penalty on a third and 14 gave us another first down, this time on their 36.  The Bears moved the ball a bit, getting two first downs – the last of which gave us a first and goal at the 1.  But then Peterson lost 3 yards, Griese threw two incompletions and we had to settle for a FG. 

And our fourth drive started with our third best starting field position; on our 40 because they kicked off out of bounds.  Another gift.  And it featured Wolfe getting 4 receptions for 37 yards.  But after a first and goal at the 9, and a third and goal at the 3, we had to settle for another FG.  And then the game was over. 

At least Wolfe looks like he could be developing into a nice offensive threat.  He had 7 touches for 50 yards, averaged 4.3 yards on his 3 carries, crossing the 4.0 threshold that Benson can’t.  And when mixed with Hester, who must have taken his smart pills at half-time (he was awful in the first and great in the second), the Bears do look to have some options offensively in the long run.  Considering Berrian made another great catch; that we did some positive things by working in Hester and Wolfe with our back-up QB who (after probably not taking a single snap in preparation for the game) filled in rather nicely (27 of 45 for 295 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT), and that we finished the game on four straight scores, we’ve got a lot to be optimistic about with our offense going forward.  If only our defense can get and stay healthy next year, I think we have a lot to be optimistic about overall with Hester leading special teams.

On a final note, traitor Tom Waddle, who’s pre-game festivities were about as bad as if the production team had given a group of pre-schoolers a video camera and told them to tell us what they know about the Bears, predicted the Bears would lose 24 – 17.  Of course they then went on to lose 24 – 16, making the Bears 5 – 8 and Waddle 6 – 7 on his picks this season – one game ahead of the Bears.  That selfish pri#%.

© 2007

This entry was posted on Fri, Dec 7, 2007 at 12:25 am and is filed under n) 2007 Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.