By Jim Coffman
Great win and all, Bears, but I have a few things I have to get off my chest before I start celebrating. Rashied Davis, you’re fired. You were well into a crossing pattern when Kyle Orton threw you the ball in the third quarter and yet you had no idea it was coming until the last instant. Because it was a very well-thrown pass, you still had a chance to make a catch. Instead you tipped it up and into the waiting hands of a fortunate Saint safety. Infuriating.
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Kyle Orton, you made a bunch of big plays but you were also tremendously lucky. I think pass interference was probably the right call on the play that set up the field goal in overtime but it shouldn’t have hinged on a flag. Devin Hester was five yards behind the defense when you released what could only be described as a brutally underthrown pass. I think in time you will prove you can throw the deep ball accurately enough, but it hasn’t been happening of late.
Orton also struggled in the second half even before he threw the disastrous interception to Scott Fujita that put the Saints in position to take the lead. There was a telling sequence there where the Bears had third-and-eight and Orton went back to pass in a secure pocket. Instead of waiting a little longer for something to open up downfield, he dumped a no-chance swing pass to Greg Olsen, who was pounded down way short off the first-down marker, forcing a punt. Shortly thereafter, Drew Brees faced a third-and-eight. He found Billy Miller for a double-digit gain and the Saints rolled on. Orton even suffered a case of the Grossman happy feet on a couple second-half passing attempts.
Of course, who can blame the quarterback at this point if he doesn’t have any confidence in his wide receivers other than Hester. Brandon Lloyd’s terrible drop ended a drive in New Orleans territory late in the second quarter. The fact the Bear defense held (with some help from two false start penalties and a bad Brees pass), forcing a punt from the end zone and giving the offense great field position, mitigated the sting. But Davis’ drop was a crusher. It is hard to envision the Saints rallying to within a single score, let alone all the way back to the lead, if Davis doesn’t gift-wrap that pick. And it wasn’t just the wideouts. Desmond Clark bobbled away what should have been a relatively easy touchdown.
Speaking of bobbles, what about that “Here, I’ll just give you a touchdown” fumbled snap? Rex Grossman suffered from a rash of these sorts of plays when he lined up behind Olin Kreutz during the past couple years. He got all the blame but Kreutz deserved at least half. And he deserved it all in the second quarter, a fact you could tell he was shouting out on the bench.
Transitioning now . . .
* On the other hand, Clark made a huge play to set up the first touchdown; he fought his way through some contact at the line to catch a slant and absorb a hit before going down at the one-yard-line. Actually the hit wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Clark ducked and Fujita, who was hanging onto his back, absorbed the worst of the blow. On the next play, Forte cruised into the end zone. My first thought when I saw the replay of Forte’s first carry, the one that caused him to limp off the field and then into the locker room, was sprained foot, out for the year. But he came back none the worse for wear – very impressive.
* Chris Collinsworth is a modern day football prophet. He correctly predicted the Bears would be able to run against the Saints defense in overtime and a couple first downs on the ground got the home team rolling on its game-winning drive. He also called out Reggie Bush for scurrying out of bounds on a first-half run. And he nailed it when he talked about Hester’s ability to get deep, altering New Orleans’ primary defensive scheme and make a huge difference for the Bears.
But he was wrong on a few points. His explanation of why Adrian Peterson’s catch on the fake punt didn’t count as a catch was goofy. Also, he kept insisting that Robert Meacham was wide open in the end zone on Adewale Ogunleye’s other-wordly interception. He was not. Meacham got a bit of separation on Bears’ corner, but you could see the DB was still in position to close quickly enough to at knock away a pass.
* During the Bears-Jaguars game, Tom Thayer noted on the radio broadcast that Kyle Orton’s quarterback rating in the last two minutes of halves was over 100 this year. And surely that had to go up after he led the Bears to their third touchdown at the end of the first half and to the tying field goal at the end of the second.
* Anthony Adams is awfully good at defensive tackle. Hey Lovie, could you please step up and tell us why this guy was inactive for more than half the season? He made more plays against the Saints than Dusty Dvoracek made all season before he tore his bicep the week before last.
* It was a valiant effort by the defense – there are a few nits to pick but over all great stuff. They had some help from the elements – Drew Brees was not sharp in the first half in particular, overthrowing a couple passes and bouncing the incompletion in front of Lance Moore that forced the Saints to punt from their own end zone late in the second quarter, setting up the Bears’ third score.
The primary nit: Why do Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs play so close together so often? On Pierre Thomas’ long touchdown run, they were both sucked inside by Brees’ drop back action and after the delayed hand-off, all it took was a grazing block on one to knock them both completely out of the play.
* The fake punt may or may not have been a great call. But it was a ballsy call.
* Pierre Thomas is a better ball-carrier than Reggie Bush – knee injury or no knee injury. But Bush still has the commercials (the guy has done so very little in the pros to deserve all this attention Subway and Fat-head give him – it is such a classic example of the triumph of hype over substance) and we still get lots of close-ups of him, even when he’s sitting on the sideline again after yet another injury. Thomas and leading Saints receiver Lance Moore were both undrafted free agents. So many mistakes are made in the first round of drafts (and not just the Bears – the Meacham guy was a first-round pick of the Saints a couple years ago but is barely their fourth-best receiver at this point, rating behind Moore, Marques Colston and Devery Henderson). The more I see late-round draft picks and guys who weren’t even drafted thriving, the more I think Jerry Angelo should always trade down in drafts (sacrificing early round positioning for extra picks later on). Easier said than done, though – fewer and fewer teams are looking to move up.
* The defensive line needed to step up, and led by Adams, Ogunleye and Alex Brown, it did just that. Brown chipped in a huge sack (and should have had another one but for the dubious defensive holding call against Cory Graham) and a huge tackle for loss. Speaking of Graham, the young man tackles. Guys who venture into his territory end up on the ground.
* Say what you will about Jerry Angelo, at least he doesn’t do incredibly stupid things like trading a second- and fifth-round draft pick for Jeremy Shockey. Although Shockey has the best tattoo in all of sports on his upper right arm (an American flag billowing around a bald eagle), he is yet another guy who does not approach fulfilling the hype. That trade will haunt the Saints. And after Thursday’s win, maybe the Bears are haunting the Vikings a little bit.
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Jim Coffman brings you the city’s best weekend sports roundup every Monday because he loves you. Except when the Bears have a Thursday night game. Then he brings you a special edition of SportsMonday which we call BearFriday. You can write to him personally! Please include a real name if you would like your comments to be considered for publication.
Posted on December 12, 2008