Bear Down Baffa

It’s the best weekend in football, the conference semi-finals.  Four teams coming off playoff wins at four teams coming off bye weeks.  And this season, all four games were rematches in the same stadiums as their regular season match-ups.  The two AFC games were division rivalries with 49 wins between them.  And the two NFC games bring us another division rivalry in the conference championship, what will be the most anticipated non-Super Bowl game in the history of the NFL – Chicago and Green Bay for the NFC crown.  I think it moved.

Think about it.  A division matchup for the conference title is huge in and of itself, since division teams can never play in a Supa Bow.  Then you consider the Bears and Packers have a 90-year rivalry, the longest in the NFL.  And for the trifecta, they’ve only played in the post season one time – 70 years ago.  This game will be water-coolered out the wazoo from Australia to Wasilla.  And you know that no matter who wins, Sarah Palin will blame the loss on the media.  But let’s get back to Sunday’s domination of Seattle.

The Bears Host Their First Playoff Game in 4 Years

With this trouncing of the Seahawks, the Bears advance to .500 in the post season (17-17).  This marks only the second season we’ve won a playoff game in the last 16 years, and we advance to NFC title game for only the second time in 22 years.  The Seahawks became only the fourth team we’ve beaten more than once in the playoffs (Giants 5, Skins 3, Saints and Seattle 2).  But it was sweet revenge for our 23-20 loss in week 6, when Cutler was sacked 6 times.

The Seahawks were coming off a bye back then.  But this time the Bears had the extra week to prepare, and it certainly showed.  In the first game, we were 0 for 12 on 3rd down and lost Time of Possession by 10 minutes.  This time, we were 10 of 18, and won TOP by 14 minutes.  And we came out firing on all cylinders.  We had 200 yards on our first 4 drives while holding Seattle to just 45, averaging twice as many yards per play in the first half (6.6 to 3.3).  We had our biggest half time lead in the post season (21-0) since we led GB by 23 in 1941 (we led the Pats by only 20 in SB XX).  So don’t let the final score (35-24) fool you.

Revitalized Bear Offense – Averaging 29 Points Over Last 4 Games

It was the Butler’s first playoff game since his last high school game, when he caught the winning TD in OT for the state championship.  And he was f-i-n-e fine.  His first pass went 58 yards for a TD, and his last completion was a 39-yard TD that gave us a 25-point lead with 4:40 remaining.  He finished 15-28 for 274 yards (9.8/attempt), 2 TD’s, 0 INT’s and a 111.3 QBR.  He also ran for 2 scores, the first Bear QB rushing TD in the playoffs since McMahon in SB XX.  And he had the most rushing yards for a Bear QB in the post season (43) since Sid Luckman had that many in 1964.

The Luckman/McMahon-esque Cutler Gets 1st NFL Playoff Win

Urlacher and the D were phenomenal, holding Seattle to 96 yards in the first half, and forcing them to punt on their first 8 drives.  The Seahawks had only 34 yards rushing, and didn’t score a TD until the 48-minute mark, when our offense tried to get fancy with Forte throwing a pass that was intercepted and returned to our 33.  Tommie Harris (who?!) had 2 sacks, more than doubling his season total (1.5), and giving him 3 in our last 2 games.

Game Ball
The Offensive Line was stellar.  We ran for 176 yards and passed for 261 – a net of 437 total yards.  We’ve come along way since giving up 9 sacks in the first half to the Giants in week 4.

Is That 4 Bears Blocking 4 Defenders, and 2 Free to Block Others?!

So Sorry, Uncle Jerry
Defending the Bear’s success this season, my brother said, “You can’t just ‘fall’ into the #2 seed.”  My response: “Yes you can.”  Here’s how.

This Looks Like a Catch to Me

If this last-minute TD by the Lions in week 1 had counted, and the rest of the season went exactly as it did, not only do the Bears not get the #2 seed, but they don’t even make the playoffs.  GB would have won the division (via conference record tie-breaker), and the Giants would have taken the last wild card (via head-to-head tie-breaker).  I have to say, if my Uncle Jerry learns of this, he may go postal.

Summary
The Bears are now 12-5 (.706), and have won 8 of 10 while out-scoring our opponents by 24% (243-196).  But we’re going to need our A++ game to hang with the Pack.  We beat them in Chicago, and they beat us in GB.  So this is the rubber match, where the rubber meets the fudge.  Defensively, we’re evenly matched.  But offensively, they’re better in every aspect except the “Perverted Former QB’s” category.  Seven Hester will have to have a huge game in order for us to have a chance.

Flint Michigan Mega Bowl – Chicago – Sun, Jan 23

The good news is GB is 3-5 on the road, and prior to the playoffs, they hadn’t won on the road since Roctober.  The bad news is they just beat the third and fourth best NFC teams (Philly and ATL) on the road by a combined score of 69-37.  But they beat us two weeks ago, and it’s tough to beat a team twice in three weeks.  Given all that, and considering I’ve been wrong in just about every prediction I’ve made in the second half of the season, I’m predicting GB wins by 24.

Super Bowl, Super Bears!

© 2011

This entry was posted on Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 4:43 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.