4th and Goal(s): Bears Trying Not To Get Housed In Home Opener
Bengals geared up to make regular season return to Soldier Field miserable
By Ryan Bukowiecki
Welp, looks like the fireworks, victory food, and spiked Kool-Aid must be put away for now.
Not only did the Chicago Bears lose their first game, and in hideously bad fashion that threatened national TV embarrassment if not outright achieving it.
In a bizarre set of circumstances, this season the Bears schedule literally goes road game followed by a home game all season long and to make matters worse the team has a very difficult slate of opponents all year long with very few “easy” opponents. If there are any “easy” opponents the Cincinnati Bengals would be one of them.
Yet these Bengals pulled off an impressive upset of fellow NFC North rival Minnesota Vikings. Many analysts believe that the Bears and Vikings are pretty comparable to each other and should finish with a similar record. Adding up all these different factors means that the Bears better have all their focus on this game and not look ahead to secure their first victory of the season.
Watch out for “Joe Cool” – The Bears did a terrifically horrible job providing any type of difficulty for Rams quarterback Matt Stafford a week ago. Obviously, Stafford is a true veteran quarterback that can play at a very high level if not a top 10 quarterback.
Cincinnati quarterback Joe Burrow is still young and has plenty to learn when it comes to complexities of NFL defenses and does not have the same experience as Stafford possess.
But like Stafford, Burrow is going to be a good quarterback in this league. First goal of this game is to find a way to knock the young quarterback off his game with various defensive looks by defensive coordinator Sean Desai and get pressure with the pass rush.
Secondary concern – A fear going into the season for the Bears was that the defensive secondary at corner back could be a weakness especially at the nickel corner position, but the secondary could maybe be alright with strong play from the safeties Eddie Jackson and Tashaun Gipson.
After last week’s loss its pretty clear that the secondary could be a real issue seeing as how the safeties didn’t even think to touch a receiver down, which is taught in pee-wee football, and allowed the receiver to get up for a touchdown. These Bengals have weapons for Burrow and could cause a major issue on Sunday. The pass rush needs time to be able to get after the quarterback.
Against the Rams far too often Stafford had guys wide open 10 yards or more very quickly after the snap and it was simple pass and catch. No doubt the goal is to upgrade the play of the corners whether by scheme adjustments or better use of personnel.
Battle in the trenches – Last week the Bengals were able to impressively shut down the Vikings run game and running back Dalvin Cook. Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer doesn’t fool around with the run like Bears head coach Matt Nagy has been accused of.
Yet even with a running attack commitment the Vikings were shut down mainly because of the impressively physical defensive line of the Bengals. On the Bears end of things from week 1, running back David Montgomery was phenomenal and as a team the running game was pretty solid. Obviously if the Bears offense continues its incapability of pushing the ball downfield more than 10 yards on a throw, then being able to run the football will be essential.
Running the football with success in general should create play action situations for the passing game (sadly the Bears do not like to buy into this concept with running or play action). An offense starved of big plays needs to rely on efficiency and time of possession, the goal here is to keep the train rolling with Montgomery and give him the rock even more.
Run control in every sense – In the Bengals backfield is Joe Burrow who was discussed earlier and he sure is a stud in the making at quarterback. The Bengals running back positioned behind or next to Burrow is Joe Mixon who has already become a stud and has lost his in the making. Mixon is a complete back with lots of talent as a runner or pass catcher.
Oh and also his running style is one that is balanced with speed and power. During much of Mixon’s tenure with the Bengals he has had a poor offensive line in front of him. Yet even with the offensive line question marks, and against a good Vikings defensive front, Mixon received 29 carries for 127 yards and four receptions for another 23 yards. Yes the Bears must find a way to make things difficult and test the acumen of young Burrow, but the Bears must also slow down Mixon as well.
These Bengals have enough on both sides of the ball to pull off another NFC North upset two weeks in a row. The Bears must be ready and play with the energy that the team said was lost from last week.
Ryan Bukowiecki covers the Chicago Bears and professional football for WARR