Bears Have a Merry Christmas after beating Lions
Yesterday's game, a 26-21 victory over the Lions, wasn't exactly pretty but I wouldn't call it boring either. Surprisingly entertaining in fact. Here's why:
- Robbie Gould was perfect on four field goal attempts, including the game winner. Nice to see him rebound after a rough few weeks.
- Rex Grossman played it safe and played fairly well. The offense was a little stagnant in the 3rd quarter, but overall Rex and Company got the job done. Of course, Griese came in for most of the fourth quarter and the game-winning FG drive, and some have got their panties in a bunch about it. I say no big deal. It's good to get Griese some meaningful work. Let's say Grossman goes down in the first quarter of the first playoff game, like Jim Miller in 2001. How good is a rusty Griese going to be? Who knows? Give him a quarter this week and maybe a half next week and we know he'll be all right. It's not like Grossman's confidence is going to be shaken by being pulled. He's a gunslinger, he could give a f--k. If his confidence can be shaken from being taken out in the fourth quarter of a meaningless game then he'll never amount to anything in the long run anyways.
- Since Cedric Benson's breakout game three weeks ago, he has clearly been outperformed by Thomas Jones. Duly noted. He's starting to make me nervous about dumping Jones in the offseason.
- From here on out, we should re-name Mark Anderson "Mr. Highlight Reel." (Mark Anderson is as boring as it gets, anyways.) All he does is make plays, including two sacks today and the game-changing forced fumble. He has 12 sacks on the year, and that's truly amazing because sees at most 20 snaps per game. In other words, he's been playing like Lawrence Taylor on Tecmo Bowl. An unbelievable find in the fifth round of this year's draft.
- The line in general played pretty well today, though I must note that it was only the Lions. So the popsicles are staying in the drawer.
- Yay! We got Vasher back! Boo! Tillman (and Todd Johnson) were out. We still don't know if the secondary has been giving up these big plays because all the injuries or because they're bad. I'm still counting on the former.
And that's that. Merry Christmas, everybody!