Bear Down Baffa

The Bears were saved by an overturned Lion TD pass with less than a minute to play.  I don’t understand this new rule, but apparently in order for a pass to be considered complete, a receiver who goes into the air for a ball must maintain possession after he lands, stuff it in his pants, pull it out his sock and carry it onto the team bus.  

Though most people are saying it was the correct call, I don’t buy it.  If the tables were turned and the Bears lost the TD in that situation, someone would have died at Soldierz Field.  I don’t know who or how many, but ambulances and a riot squad would have been necessary.  I guess we’ll take it, but I’m not counting this as a win because we don’t deserve it.

Our defense was solid against a much-improved Detroit squad.  With 2 sacks, 2 fumble recoveries and an INT, we held them to 168 total yards, and 1.0 per carry.  On 11 of their 14 drives, the Lions went less than 12 yards – including 6 drives with 0 or negative yardage.

Our offense, at times, looked fairly competent, amassing 463 total yards.  Cutler somehow managed a 108.3 QBR despite being sacked 4 times, losing a fumble and throwing a pick.  But we turned the ball over 4 times.  That might not come as a surprise to some, but 3 of them were fumbles.  And that dog won’t hunt against the rest of the NFL.

So Long Lovie
We can officially start the countdown to Lovie’s last day as the Bear’s Head Coach.  Trailing by 1 with 9 minutes left, Briggs forced a fumble and recovered it at the Lion’s 1.  But we couldn’t put it in the end zone.  Dude, seriously?  After 3 failed attempts, rather than settling for the FG to take the lead, Lovie decided to go for it on 4th down – and we failed.  This was a critical call, and I believe it shows a lack of judgment on his part.  As Hawk would say, “He gone!”  It’s only a matter of time.

Game Ball
Despite fumbling, Matt “Scoring is My” Forte had over 200 combined yards and reached the end zone twice – half of his total TD’s last year.  He also set a team record for the longest TD for a RB (89 yards), and had the second most receiving yards ever for a Bear RB (151 yards) – the most since 1947.

Summary
We’re 1-0 and tied for first place with GB, so the day ended positively.  We’ve now won 3 in a row, though it doesn’t feel like it.  And not only do I doubt we’ll win 3 in a row this season, we may not win 3 total.  But if we can hold onto the ball and not have to rely on Lovie to make critical decisions with the game on the line, we could finish .500.

Let’s go BEARS!

© 2010

This entry was posted on Mon, Sep 13, 2010 at 2:17 am and is filed under k) 2010 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.