Peterson, Longwell Destroy Bears
The Bears lost a heartbreaker to the Vikings today on a last second 55-yard field goal by Ryan Longwell. The final score was 34-31 but in truth, it shouldn't have been that close. If not for some last minute fireworks, the Bears in effect lost by two touchdowns. And there's exactly one reason why.
Adrian Peterson. He just destroyed the Bears today. 224 yards rushing with three touchdowns, and a key 53-yard kick return that set up the game-winning field goal. He looked like Reggie Bush at USC out there. A man among boys. Of course, the Bears certainly did their part in making Peterson look like an inner-circle Hall of Famer. Poor tackling, poor defensive play-calling. You can't arm tackle a runner like that. You can't afford to "go for the ball." And I don't know what Bob Babich was thinking, but if I'm calling the plays I stack 8 guys on the line and force Tarvaris Jackson to beat me. Call me crazy, but I'll take my chances with the guy with five career starts and a QB rating of 40.0. If he beats you, he beats you. But Jackson didn't come close to beating them today. He had one nice touchdown pass among his nine completions. Today was all AP.
Minnesota scored 34 points today without running a single play in the red zone. That's got to be some sort of record. Of course, the Bears weren't much better. They managed to get the ball in the red zone exactly once.
I'm just about done with Brian Griese. I mean, he's OK, but he's got zero upside. If the defense was playing like it did the first two weeks, then he'd be great. Just don't be stupid with the ball and make a few plays. But with the defense struggling, they need more. They need Sexy Rexy. Well, maybe not necessarily Grossman. But if the Bears lose a few more they'd be stupid not to give Orton a look. Griese is a good QB for a team with a Great Defense and solid run game. The Bears have neither.
Actually, the running game looked pretty good today. Benson was consistently breaking out for 8 to 12 yards a pop. He ended up averaging only 3.7 yards per carry, but his performance was good enough to keep the tough Viking run defense honest. The problem today was Turner didn't use him enough. I'm going to go on record and say that the Bears will never win with Griese attempting 45 or more passes in a game. They're now 0-2 this year under such circumstances.
Griese's problem is he doesn't have any balls. He checks down on virtually every play. Take away the two long TDs at the end and he was averaging less than 5 yards per attempt. That's not good, folks. But oh, those touchdowns.
The first was a nice crossing pattern to Muhammad. Griese fired it in there perfectly before Moose earned his paycheck for the first time this season. Cutting, juking, and out-running. After a stupid onside kick by the Bears led to a quick three-and-out by the defense, up next was the 80-yard bomb to Mr. Ridiculous himself, Devin Hester. Where have they been hiding this guy? Why haven't they tried this before? This was the first pass intended for Hester this season that was more than 10 yards downfield. I mean, the guy has got to be one of the fastest two or three guys in football, with soft hands no less, and it took them until the two-minute warning of game six to send him deep? They should be trying this at least once per quarter. He'd be a lock for a touchdown per game, if not more.
And then there's his punt return today. That was nuts. He had five guys surrounding him at the ten and he just side-stepped out of it and took off for an 89-yard TD. Simply amazing. Too bad the team doesn't have more Devin Hesters.
Any thoughts of this team making the playoffs should be put to bed. While they're obviously not technically out of it, it's going to take quite a turnaround to put this team back into contention. I think last week's great second half had everyone putting their "Bear Goggles" on, and that made us forget about the horrible performance in the first half. I think that first-half team might have been the real Bears, and the Bears are going to join a long list of recent Super Bowl losers that haven't done squat in the following season.