Bear Down Baffa

The year was 2003.  The Bears had two first found picks.  They went with Michael Haynes (5 1/2 sacks in 43 games), and Rex Grossman (33 TD’s and 35 INT’s in 36 games).  But in the second round they picked Peanut “Butter and Jelly” Tillman, and in the third round they selected “Sir” Lance “A lot” Briggs.  Briggs became a perennial All-Pro, while Peanut took 9 years to make his first Pro Bowl (though he should’ve been acknowledge way sooner than that).  And on Sunday, the two came full circle.

It was a beautiful day – for a thunderous shellacking

Peanut and Briggs became the first teammates in NFL history to return picks for TD’s in consecutive weeks, and both were 36-yard returns.  If I were JAX’s OC, I wouldn’t throw the ball from their 36-yard line anymore.  Mike Brown had pick-6’s two weeks in a row in 2001, both in OT.  But 2 guys, 2 weeks in a row?!  And against a QB who only threw 1 pick in his first 131 passes this season?!

Peanut broke his own team record (7th Pick-6), and set another (8th defensive TD)

But once again, the Bears came out flat. Cutler threw a pick on his first pass, and his second pass was dropped.  He finished the half 10-20 for 110 yards, 5.5 yards/attempt, 0 TD’s, 1 INT, and a 45.8 QBR, and he was out-passed by second year QB Blaine Gabbert (10-18, 120 yards, 6.7/att, 0 TD’s, 0 INT’s, 76.2) as we headed to half time tied at 3.

The Butler’s mood was typical early on

But then the guy who was supposed to bring the super-deluxe, extra-large can of whoop-ass showed up at half time.  And the Bears popped that shit open like it was a peanut brittle can of snakes.  Players credited Lovie’s halftime speech.  And everybody came out jacked in the second half.  That is, except Gabe “Kaplan” Carimi.  He got beaten for a sack, and had two false starts in a row on the goal line – all on our first drive – forcing us to settle for our second FG.  But then Gabbert pulled a Cutler and threw a pick-6 on his first pass of the half, and the only scoring Gould did from that point on was extra points.  Five of them.

Our offense celebrating after Carimi ran a play without false starting

Offense – Slowly but Surely
We had 7 drives of at least 7 plays (7, 8, 8, 8, 9, 12, 17), only two 3-and-outs, and 5 drives of at least 67 yards (67, 73, 76, 77, 92).  Our first drive of the second half took 9:18.  It’s not surprising that our well-rested defense started scoring shortly thereafter.  Cutler was 13-19 for 182 yards (9.6/att, 2 TD’s) in the second half, finishing 23-39, 292 yards, 7.5/att, 2 TD’s, 1 INT and an 88.8 QBR.

Once again, Cutler was a different beast in the second half

We amassed a total of 501 net yards, averaging 6.9 yards per play, with 310 of that in the second half.  We had 25 first downs – 11 more than we had against STL, and 1 fewer than against Indy (when we also scored 41).  And we were 10 for 17 on third down, including 8 for 10 in the second half.

Bush is head and shoulders above any other backup RB in the NFL

We also had 214 yards rushing with four guys going over 20 yards.  Matt “Scoring Fewer TD’s Than Our Defensive Players Is My New” Forte had 107 on 22 carries, Armando “He Just A Littoo Guy” Allen had 59 on 5 with a TD, Michael “I Don’t Always Drink Beer, But When I Do, I Prefer” Bush had 26 on 4, and the Butler had 22 on 2.

Even Armando got in on the gangbang with a 46-yard TD scamper

Brandon Marshall “Fields” was all over the place with 12 catches for 144 yards and a TD.  He’s the first Bear with 100 yards two weeks in a row since 1999.  Hester had 2 for 49, and we had six receivers with at least 20 yards.  Kellen “And Hobbes” Davis and Bush each had 2 for 26, Forte had 2 for 20, and Alshon “Chaka Kahn” Jeffery had 2 for 20 with a TD.

Marshall “kisses the baby” as he scores

Defense – Surely and Surly
Pick-6ing aside, we were once again dominant on D.  We held JAX to 189 net yards, and only 45 in the second half.  If you consider that Briggs’s fourth quarter INT return was for 36 yards, our defense almost out-gained them in the second half.  We also had 3 sacks and a fumble recovery.  We held Maurice Jones-Drew to a season-low 59 total yards – his lowest in over two years.  And that guy’s no joke – he just became the third player in JAX history to gain 12,000 all-purpose yards.

He’s no Mike Brown, but Briggs (who also had a sack) is our best LB right now

JAX’s second half started like this:  penalty, pick-6, penalty on kickoff return, penalty, incompletion, pass for 5 yards, sack, punt.  That was it for the entire third quarter, 4 offensive plays for -14 yds, and they had the ball less than two minutes.  The fourth quarter wasn’t much better.  They were 6 for 12 passing for 16 yards, ran 4 times for 35 yards, got sacked once, threw another pick-6 and punted twice while possessing the ball for just over six minutes.  That means they only had the ball about 25% of the second half.  And they certainly didn’t do much with it.

If you kiss a teammate 3 feet in the air, it’s not gay

Special Teams
There were as many punts (6) as points scored in the first half.  But the Bears scored every time they touched the ball in the second, so Special Teams wasn’t much of a factor.  We won the total time of possession battle 36 – 24, meaning we had the ball 50% longer than JAX.  “Ricky” Robbie Gould had another 11 points, giving him double digits in 4 of our 5 games.

Gould is on pace for a career high in points (9.4/game)

Seven Hester was unremarkable in 5 returns (for 36 yards) except for one.  He caught a punt on the Bears 12, ran to the 20, whirled around several times, and then wound up going out of bounds back at our 12.  He also got a facemask penalty on the play – yes, while carrying the ball.

Trainer to Hester, “Dude, would you fucking run forward instead of backwards and sideways already?”

But Hester made up for that awful, awful play.  He caught a diving 40-yard pass two plays later, fully laying out, and catching it on his finger tips.  This gave us a first down at mid-field and led to a TD five plays later.

Seven didn’t reach the end zone, but this catch was nothing short of spectacular

Outlook
The only way to stop the freight train that is the Chicago Bears is to have them not play (or do like the opposing coach in “The Waterboy” and have your offense kneel down on every play to take our defense out of the game).  Unfortunately we have our bye week coming up.  But then we host 1-3 DET on Monday night, and then host Carolina for what will be only our fourth Sunday game in 8 weeks.

Jeffrey hurt his hand, which is not good – but at least it’s not Marshall who’s hurt!

Minnesota won (damn!) but Green Bay lost to Indy (Ah-Ha-Ha!).  I don’t know if it will come down to “record versus similar schedule” to break a tie with GB, but we’ve got that in our back pocket.  They’ve also lost to SEA and SF, both of whom we play.

I’d say things are definitely looking up

Quotes to Note
Lovie on our defense:  ”I know they know how important it is to take the ball away.  There is an emphasis on it…It’s discouraging to the offense.  We normally win when we score one time, and it’s probably safe to say we haven’t lost when we score a couple times on the defensive side.”

Yeah, that’s right bitches.  That’s my team out there.  I DID build that!

Urlacher on our propensity for pick-6’s:  “It’s unreal, I’ve never seen anything like it.  Two straight weeks, the same two guys, pick-6’s, it’s awesome.”

Urlacher on our defensive line: “I’ve said it all year long, there’s 8 guys rotating in there and they’re all playing well.  Pick a guy each week and they show up.”

Even at less than 100%, that’s one bad mambajamba

Peanut Tillman on Lovie’s halftime speech:  ”He basically cursed us out without cursing.  He raised his voice and gave us that mean, surly, stern look and we responded to that.  He put a little spark in our rear end…We were a little flat in the first half and came out with a sense of urgency (in the second).”

Dave Chappelle would call this guy “Negrodamus”

BEAR DOWN!

© 2012

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