Recapping the 2007 Bears
The Bears wrapped up their dismal season Sunday with a win over the also sucky New Orleans Saints. It's the first time they won two in a row all season, and the fact that they waited until weeks 16 & 17 to accomplish this feat tells you everything you need to know about the 2007 Bears.
This season didn't go well for the Bears. In fact, most would call it a disaster. Why, I'd go as far as to call it a HUGE FUCKING DEBACLE, and among the most disappointing seasons in my lifetime. But that's just me. I can be ornery sometimes.
Coming off a Super Bowl trip in January, virtually all experts picked the Bears to repeat as NFC North Champions, and a healthy portion of those folks picked the Bears to make a return trip. Not many were picking the Bears to win it, but you can see the type of lofty expectations this team had. In fact, early in the season I was referring to 2007 as "The Championship Season." And why not? They had Tommie Harris and Mike Brown healthy, and, well, I'll just link to my 2007 preview.
The defense, especially, should be markedly improved over what we saw last February. Tommie Harris and Mike Brown are healthy while Tank Johnson and Ian Scott have been replaced by Darwin Walker and Dusty Dvoracek. Call me crazy but I think that's an upgrade. Dvoracek has looked like an animal this preseason, and Walker has the 5th most sacks of any Tackle in football over the past six years. This is what most of the national media is missing when discussing the Bears. They talk about the defense being downgraded with the loss of Tank without mentioning the new guys coming in. News flash, the new guys are good. And I didn't even mention Archuleta.
Turns out Mike Brown and Dusty Dvoracek were lost for the season in week one, and both Harris and Walker battled injuries all year. Further, Archuleta was a shell of his former self, and a huge downgrade/waste of money.
I only had a handful of concerns going into this season, and they can be seen in my preseason preview. It turns out, I was a frickin wizard, as virtually every one of my concerns reared it's ugly head.
- Injuries to key guys: The aforementioned Harris & Brown, along with a banged up Brian Urlacher, Cedric Benson and offensive line.
- Benson not living up to expectations, with no viable backup. Peterson proved that he is a good third-string back, capable of only a spot start at best.
- No receiver stepping up. Bernard Berrian finished the season strong after battling a severe case of the dropsies early on. The rest of the guys were mostly invisible. Muhsin Muhammad only showed up sporadically.
- Rex Grossman taking a step back. No, he didn't have 32 turnovers this season, but he didn't come close to 23 TDs either. Griese was a barely competent backup, but the Bears needed a lot more than competent to win games this season.
Any other reasons for failure that I didn't foresee?
- Aside from the injury to Ruben Brown and the premature death of Fred Miller, the rest of the offensive line simply didn't play well. Oh wait, Fred Miller is still alive?
- Poor play by Adam Archuleta and the secondary. You can pin some of the blame Jerry Angelo for trading away Chris Harris and Dante Wesley, but they seemed like solid enough moves at the time. With Mike Brown, Nathan Vasher and Kevin Payne all missing practically the entire season, and Archuleta completely falling on his face, the depth they thought they had simply wasn't there. Manning and McGowan seemed like better options for fourth-string safety than Chris Harris, so I give Angelo a pass on that move.
- Poor play from Mark Anderson. It's clear that he's purely a pass-rush specialist only, ala Simeon Rice. He couldn't stop the run to save his life. With Alex Brown back in the starting lineup the last few weeks, the run defense improved greatly. Keep them both for next year and use Anderson on passing downs only. He can still get to the Quarterback.
- Poor coaching.
- Ron Turner is too conservative of a offensive coordinator for a team with such a shoddy defense. His play-calling was the very definition of vanilla. His misuse of Devin Hester and Greg Olsen was criminal.
- Bob Babich failed horribly in replacing Ron Rivera. Trust Lovie on this one? I think not. The defense ranked 28th this season and at times seemed worse than that. 353 all-purpose yards to the real Adrian Peterson?
- Lovie Smith, left the aforementioned buffoons in charge. Also, all those false starts and holding penalties just scream poor coaching.
Did anything go right?
- Devin Hester, of course. Six return TDs, and an unquantifiable improvement in field position every week. A true superstar, the team's MVP. Should I go on?
- Special Teams coach Dave Toub did an excellent job, using Rashied Davis as the short man and using his unit's talents to it's fullest. Israel Idonije was pretty impressive in the wedge, and Ayanbedejo had another Pro Bowl season.
- The kicking game was solid. Robbie Gould was pretty much automatic inside 50 yards, and Maynard was his usual solid self.
- A few individual players had good-to-great years:
- Lance Briggs, Pro Bowler
- Tommie Harris, when healthy, Pro Bowler
- Charles Tillman, should-be Pro Bowler
- Adewale Ogunleye, lived up to his contract finally
- Brian Urlacher - a down year from him and he certainly didn't deserve a Pro Bowl bid, but overall he was still a better-than-average MLB.
- Bernard Berrian. Not sure if he's worth top 10 money, but I think the Bears need to make a strong effort to re-sign him.
- A few young players showed me enough to keep them around.
- Kyle Orton - on the whole, he's about as productive as Rex Grossman, but...
- He has much better pocket presence.
- He has as strong an arm, if not stronger.
- He makes better decisions.
- He isn't reckless with the football.
- He doesn't wilt in the cold.
- I'm not necessarily saying Kyle Orton should be entrenched as the starter next season. He's simply not that accurate of a thrower, and that deficiency might override all of his strengths. But they could do a lot worse than Orton. Somebody's going to offer Grossman big money, and if my choices are Rex for 4 years or drafting a QB and using Kyle as an interim starter, I'm going with Kyle. That's all there is to it. (Now, Derek Anderson on the other hand...)
- Greg Olsen was a solid first round pick, though like I said I don't think he was used enough.
- Trumaine McBride and Corey Graham were pretty solid for rookies. Kevin Payne, too, before he got hurt. Garrett Wolfe showed just enough to keep his job as a third or fourth string runningback, though you'd have to say his season overall was a disappointment.
And that's really about it. In the end, this season of discontent finished a sterling 7-9. They've got a lot a questions coming this offseason, but I'm going to save them for a future post. I will say right now that Lovie gets to keep his job. After the last two seasons, he earned a "get out of jail free" card. A trip to the Super Bowl and a 6-2 record versus Green Bay tend to get you some leeway. At least one season's worth, anyways. Talk to me next year if they miss the playoffs again.
Till next time...