By Jim Coffman
And then, withdrawal kicks in, as it always does when the bye week arrives for a team on a roll. What are Bears fans supposed to do for the next week-and-a-half? I suppose a little scouting is in order and Monday night was a prime opportunity to break down the foes that matter most. Host Minnesota beat Green Bay 30-23 in a game that wasn’t that close to improve to 4-0. The Packers fell to 2-2.
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The Vikings: So much for the idea that Brett Favre would simply manage games this year, avoiding mistakes and handing the ball off to star running back Adrian Peterson. That plan, which Minnesota employed successfully in its first two games this fall, went out the window when the Vikings needed a touchdown in the final minute to beat the 49ers at home last Sunday. Favre delivered a spectacular 30-plus yard strike to Greg Lewis in the back of the end zone with :02 on the clock to break the collective heart of the Singletary-coached team that has otherwise been a huge hit so far this season. More on Favre later.
One of the best parts of Monday’s broadcast was when analyst Jon Gruden revealed that during Favre’s early years under Mike Holmgren’s tutelage in Green Bay (1992-94), Holmgren had Favre making several “thousand throws a day.” Clearly this has something to do with Favre’s continuing, amazing durability.
Come to think of it, in general you never hear about football teams limiting quarterbacks’ throws on a given day or week (during training camp or at any other time). So it isn’t a surprise when you realize you almost never hear about a quarterback suffering a repetitive stress injury during the first 10 years, at least, of his career (the Dolphins’ Chad Pennington, apparently on his way to surgery No. 3 on his throwing shoulder, is a notable exception, but still . . . ).
The wisdom of football’s policy of working its throwers hard (usually not as hard as Favre but given the fact that he has started more than 250 games in a row, perhaps more coaches should require young quarterbacks to fire away endlessly) resonates most in a different sport. Why again do baseball organizations baby promising arms with ridiculously random pitch limits (there is no data – nor will there ever be any data – supporting the efficacy of limits of 75, 90 or 100 pitches)?
Of course teams need to build up the innings in an intelligent way from year to year in the first five years of a pitcher’s professional career. And of course throwing a football 35 times or so once a week is different than throwing a baseball 100 times every five days. But the rate of injuries to pitchers simply has not slowed since draconian pitch counts became all the rage during the last decade-plus. It would be great if a brave baseball organization would follow the Packers’ lead and put young throwers to work during spring training and “off” days.
The Vikings have some pass-catchers with impressive size, particularly wide receiver Sidney Rice and tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, and those guys in particular were able to get away from the physical Packer secondary (speaking of which, extra-large Lion rookie tight end Brandon Pettigrew is going to be a problem in the division going forward – did you see the hands on that guy when he faced the Bears Sunday? Or does he have flippers under his giant gloves?).
But it was good, old Bernard Berrian whose speed led to the biggest catch Monday. He got behind the Packer defense for the 31-yard score that made it 28-14.
The Packers: How the heck did the Bears not score more on this team? And how did they allow the boys from Green Bay to so relentlessly pressure Jay Cutler?
The Packers were toothless on defense for most of the night against Favre despite the Vikings never really establishing a running game. Then again, when Green Bay showed it would do whatever it took to stop Peterson, Minnesota quickly had Favre start firing away. Hopefully the Bears learned something from that. Then again, the Bears don’t have any size in their receiver corps and until they get some, their wideouts will struggle to get away from a pair of Packer cornerbacks, Al Harris and Charles Woodson, who absolutely excel at disrupting passing plays at the line.
Gruden made Packers’ coach Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Dom Capers look bad with his critique of the team’s pass-rushing strategy in its new 3-4 basic set. He pointed out that the biggest problem with going from a 4-3 to a 3-4 is that the Packers’ best pass rusher, Aaron Kampman, now lines up at outside linebacker in a two-point stance. It was clear, repeatedly, that the Packers needed Kampman, who had 37 sacks the last three years, employing all of his best moves out of a three-point stance in a classic defensive end spot to generate at least a little pressure on Favre. Instead, the veteran who turns 40 later this month was rarely pressured and picked the Packers apart.
The biggest problem for a team that was already shaky up front on offense is that it continues to lose linemen as fast as the Bears have been losing linebackers. It doesn’t help that quarterback Aaron Rodgers can’t seem to break the habit of hanging onto the ball too long and it therefore followed that Minnesota piled up the sacks. It appears that the Bear defensive end trio of Alex Brown, Adewale Ogunleye and Mark Anderson are fixin’ to have a big year (they already had a great first quarter) and if the Packers don’t improve, they will feast when the teams meet again late in the campaign.
Let’s go ahead and complete a tour around the NFC North with a few observations about the Bears versus the Lions.
First and foremost and forevermore it must be noted that Bears special teams guru Dave Toub can coach a return. Can he ever!
It is hard to imagine a team putting together a better game’s worth of kick-receiving than did the Bears Sunday. It was the difference, plain and simple, in a game that otherwise would have been very close, no matter how much the defense (led by a great performance by Brown, Ogunleye and Anderson) bounced back in the second half and no matter how many points the offense scored.
Other teams in previous years have scored more than one return touchdown in a game but how many times have teams recorded a half dozen big-time run-backs in one sixty-minute stretch? Even before Johnny Knox took the second half kick-off all the way (102 yards), he was taking a first quarter kick-off out past the 40. Later in the first half, first Devin Hester and then Earl Bennett (twice) took turns returning punts more than 20 yards. Later in the second half, Danieal Manning got in on the act, bringing a kick-off back beyond midfield.
It is clear now that while the Bears may have had a whole series of great athletes with great skills and speed receiving kicks the last four years (since Hester arrived on the scene), they also employ great schemes and Toub is great at helping his players implement them. They aren’t complicated. The big returns almost always involve either going hard to one side immediately and trying to give blockers a chance to set up a “picket fence” that seals defenders away from a returner’s path up a sideline, or faking that move (and occasionally faking a sweep back the other way as well) and then finding a seam, making a defender or two miss and zipping through the middle.
The talent involved must also receive its due. Bennett’s two big punt returns were especially impressive (featuring slick little moves and some tough broken tackles) even if he didn’t take them all the way. For his part, Manning’s willingness and ability to reach top speed (and his top speed is right there with the fastest guys in the NFL) in a hurry enabled him to lead the league in that kickoff return average last year. He could do it again this year except the Bears want him focusing more on defense, and Knox’s returns have been so good. And before he was hurt Sunday, Hester reminded us again why his is one of the top return men in NFL history on his one and only punt reception. These guys are all still developing as pass catchers and defenders but their capabilities.
In conclusion, it was good to see talented reserve defensive back Corey Graham making the block that sprung Knox on the team’s longest return journey in a while (and oh by the way Mr. Knox, thanks ever so much for not showboating in the final 20 yards or so of that run but next time, hold onto the ball a little longer after you cross the goal line would you? Thanks again).
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Jim Coffman rounds up the sports weekend in this space every Monday, except when he does it on Tuesday. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on October 6, 2009