Bears Upset Steelers
The Bears beat the Steelers today 17-14 on a game-winning kick by Robbie Gould. I was checking out twitter after the game, and Steelers fans are taking it none too well. First off, everyone pretty much agrees that the Bears suck, and its pathetic to lose to them. Second, they mostly pinned the blame solely on kicker Jeff Reed, because otherwise they "dominated" today. I don't really know about that. I mean, yeah, Reed missed two makeable kicks, and at times the Steelers looked strong. But really the final stats for both teams weren't all that different. Time of possession was even, Pittsburgh had 4 more first downs and 30 more yards. They did have significantly more rushing yards, but the Bears passed more. Bears won the critical turnover battle as well, two to zip. It's hard to win when you lose the turnover battle, look at the Bears last week. Sure, on a neutral field the Steelers are favored by seven...but the Bears aren't exactly the Lions here.
Anyways, enough overanalyzing the defending Super Bowl champs' fans. Lets talk about the Bears.
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Cutler was very solid today, and he made some throws that only a handful of guys in this league could have made. He was in control, and professional. I also liked how he handled the elements. When the heavy rains hit, Pittsburgh pretty much stopped throwing downfield. Not our Jay. Strong work.
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Johnny Knox was pretty great, as were Greg Olsen and Kellen Davis. Hester and Bennett were afterthoughts in the offense, and while you'd like to see more from your starting wideouts, I'm cool with what I saw. Even without Polamalu, the Steelers defense is among the best in football, and they were concentrating on shutting down Hester. Perfect time for rookie Knox to step up and make plays. Is he our clear-cut #3 at this point? He's gotta be. He might even be our #2. Or #1. Only time will tell.
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I don't know what's wrong with Forte, maybe it was just the defense he was facing. All I know is, Cedric Benson ran for 140 yards today against Green Bay, after Forte barely mustered 50. And today he was completely worthless in the running game (though he did make a few catches out of the backfield.) Perry's calling it early: Sophomore Slump. I'm going to give him another week before I go that far. Like I said, Steeler's D rocks.
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Alex Brown was a motivated man, today. Motivated to get to the quarterback so he could showat off his new Gator chop. I gotta ask -- why now? Did you just remember that you went to Florida? I don't recall him ever doing that before this year. Perhaps the recent dominance of his alma mater has got him feeling frisky. In any case, he got hurt late and was unable to finish the game. Let's hope his news is better than Urlacher's.
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The rest of the defense was pretty shaky. Mendenhall had his best day as a Pro, and only a slippery ball kept Roethlisberger's targets from making plays.
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I thought Hillenmeyer started out rather shaky, as Pittsburgh was going right at him and making plays downfield. He ended up getting the job done and was a solid if unspectacular replacement for Urlacher.
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As for the other new starters...eh. Bowman didn't get beaten as bad as Vasher, but he did give up some plays on his side of the field. Manning looked a little shaky as well, though no more or less than Payne last week. Roach was his usual invisible self.
Good day for the Bears. Really, my only concerns at this point are Forte and team health. This team stays healthy, they should be in the mix at the end of the year. And that's about it.
Bear down.