A Bears Loss to the Patriots? Not the End of the World
Today's loss to the Patriots isn't that bad, for a number of reasons:
- It's not good to lock up the division and home field advantage too early. They were on a pace to lock up everything with 3 or 4 weeks left in the season, rendering all those games meaningless. Ask last year's Colts what it's like to play three meaningless games and have a bye week before your first playoff action. It's tough to keep up the intensity.
- If this was indeed a Super Bowl preview, I'm going mention that it's very tough to beat a good NFL team twice in one season. Rather them lose now than in February.
- It's very hard to win three straight games on the road. It's very, very rare in the NFL, and the Bears lost by four, on the road, with a bad performance by their Quarterback, against one of the top five teams in the league.
In other words...no big deal that they lost today. Still, I'd rather win than lose. Here's what I saw:
- Grossman was pretty good in the first half (despite the two turnovers), and pretty bad in the second half (especially on the two turnovers). Do the math and that's four turnovers on the day. I think his banged up hand affected him. His decisions were good but his passes were just a little off. He had 150 yards in the first half and a meager 25 in the second. If not for the long pass interference penalties, the Bears might not have scored. Kudos to the Bears coaching staff for continuing to throw it deep and run into those penalties.
- The running game was solid once again. Started off slow, but then Benson came in, knocked off a few nice runs, and seemed to light a fire under Jones's ass. The team gained over 150 yards on the ground against one of the toughest rushing defenses in the league, and that's encouraging to say the least.
- The run defense was pretty solid, the pass defense not so much. Not surprising considering the Hall of Fame Quarterback they were facing. If not for a few Patriot drops, not to mention the five turnovers, the final score would have been much worse. However, if you look at the box score, the stats were as even as the score. The Bears certainly weren't embarassed today.
- Urlacher getting juked out of his jock by Brady was a sight almost as rare as Brady's showboating after the play. Two extremely rare occurrences, if you ask me, and it was kind of comical.
- Nice to see Robbie Gould have a kick blocked to end his perfect season. Seriously. Back in 1998, the Vikings Gary Anderson was something ridiculous like 42-for-42 in the regular season, then missed the potential game-winning kick in the NFC Championship Game and the Falcons went to the Super Bowl. There's too much pressure in being perfect. Now he can relax and simply think about the kick at hand rather than keeping some meaningless streak alive.
- Maynard had a crap day, and Hester didn't get a chance to return a punt. The Patriots scored or turned it over on every drive.
Checking in on the NFC, other than the Cowboys the rest of the conference is still pure crap. Nobody scares me coming in to Soldier Field this January. Perhaps I shouldn't be so confident, but I'm calling it like I see it. Despite today's loss, the Bears are still the team to beat in the National Football Conference.
Next week should be a little easier. The Vikings come to Soldier Field and frankly they aren't a good football team. Rex always plays his best after a loss, and I'm looking for him to rebound with a great performance. That is, provided his hand's not broken or anything.
Go BEARS!!!!!