Good as Gould

As we all should know Robbie Gould is an all star in the kicking industry.  He has connected for 23 of 25 field goals attempts this season which means he has a 92% consistency.  This would put him on pace to break the team record he set in 2008 which was 89.7% (26-29) completion percentage.  Dan Bailey is the only kicker that has made more kicks in the NFC this year.  Even though that he was overshadowed by Raiders Sebastian Janikowski in last Sundays game Robbie Gould made some amazing kicks. He made a 50 and a 53 yarder in the 4^th quarter to keep the game as close as possible.  Gould is 5-5 from 50 yards and beyond this year. 

                Gould is by far the most underrated Bears players.  It is hard to be a kicker in the NFL because everyone feels like it is a joke of a position.  It is no joke when the game is on the line with no time left in the fourth quarter or your team wins by a field goal.   I have played soccer for 13 years and I cannot kick a field goal to save my life.  I think the longest one I have made was a 10 yarder.  Not to mention this was a high school regulation field goal, and not the skinny NFL field goals.  Gould is consistently kicking 50 yard field goals to help out the bears.  To Gould, it is really more like an art rather than a profession.  

Playoff Race

Even after Sundays loss against the Raiders the Bears are still very much in the playoff race.   The opportunity to defeat the Packers for the NFC North division is not likely.  The Packers are currently sitting on an 11-0 record while the Bears are only at 7-4.  In order for the Bears to win the division the Packers would basically have to lose the rest of their games and the Bears would have to win out.  This is where the wildcard opportunity comes into play.  The teams that win their divisions automatically make the playoffs.  After that, they take two teams from each conference with the best record which are considered the wildcard spots.  Currently the Bears are in a three way tie for the wildcard spot.  The Bears (7-4) are tied with the Lions. (7-4), and the Falcons (7-4).  All three of these teams have proven to be great this year and it will be interesting to see who will make it. 

                Lovie Smith states “I really like that we control our destiny.  At this time of the season you want to get yourself in position. We’re in the playoff race and we do control that. We’ve got to take care of business.”  The Bears and Lions currently are the same in the first two tiebreakers which are regular season record, and division record.  The 3^rd tiebreaker is the record vs 12 common opponents.  The Bears are 5-3, and the Lions are 5-2.  It will be a very close race to say the least and every game will be extremely important from now on. 

Bears vs. Raiders Post-game

The Bears just suffered a very disappointing (25-20) loss against the Oakland Raiders about an hour ago.  Everything seemed to be going our way, but the Raiders just made bigger plays.  This was Chicago’s first game this season without their starting quarterback Jay Cutler.  So giving backup Caleb Hanie the start was on everyone’s minds.

                To be completely honest I do not think that Hanie had such a bad showing in today’s game.  He threw for 254 yards and 2 touchdowns and 3 interceptions.  This is a very impressive start for a backup that has never started in an NFL game.  I saw a lot of good things come from him.  He ran the ball very well and made some impressive passes.  The only problem I had with those stats is that he threw for 3 interceptions!  One of them was on a 2^nd and 1 screen to Davis within the Raiders 10 yard line seconds before halftime.  In my opinion this was really the biggest play of the game.  Not only did this interception give the Raiders the ball on Chicago’s 6 yard line, but it was 2^nd and 1!!!  With how the Bears running backs were playing they could have easily gained the one yard with a rushing play.  The Bears really blew an opportunity to score right before half and because of this it gave Oakland the momentum going into half time.    

                But not all is bad in Chicago.  I think this game showed us a lot of strengths in the Bears offense.  Hanie can throw and run the ball well.  The Forte Barber double threat could be one of the best run forces in the league, Robbie Gould is still golden form 50+ yards, and we have a fairly simple schedule ahead of us (minus the Packers). 

                So keep your heads up Bears fans, I have a feeling that there are good things to come.  

NO CUTLER!!!

Jay Cutler was injured in last Sunday’s game against the San Diego Chargers.  He injured it in the last 9 minutes of the game by trying to make a tackle right after he threw an interception.  Now this is an interesting subject to talk about.  Some players would call him stupid for trying to make a tackle on a play like that, while others would say that he showed toughness.  You would never see quarterback’s like Tom Brady or Payton Manning trying to make a tackle like Cutler did after an interception because they see the consequences in it.   But let’s say the Super bowl was on the line and the play depended on the quarterback making a tackle.  Who would you rather have back there? Tom Brady and his skirt or Jay Cutler and his vengeance?  I think the answer is obvious.  The only problem about Cutlers mentality is the fact that they were in week 11 of their season and not the Super bowl.  Cutler is projected to be out for 6-8 weeks of the season which means that he will be back come playoff time, if the Bears make it to the playoffs…

But enough cries for Jay Cutler.  I say on with the old and in with the new.  Caleb Hanie will finally get a chance to prove himself over the next few weeks or so.  He looked excellent in the NFC championship game against the Packers.  He threw for 2 touchdown passes and a lot of great completions.  With that said though he was running more of a two minute offense against the packers.  They did not bring any pressure on Hanie during his play.  I am sure Hanie will get a lot of pressure in Chicago’s next game against Oakland and I am excited to see how he handles it. 

I will give more updates on Cutlers injury in future posts…

Analyzing Jeff Hughes blog

I would like to think that my blog is the only one that matters, but in reality there are many great blogs out there with lots of good information.  I would like to analyze a blog that I came across the other day because it is contains good relevant information to my blog.  It is written by Jeff Hughes and is titled Da Bears Blog.  It is a site that is dedicated to the Chicago Bears which seems like a similar goal to mine.  You can find this blog at http://www.chicagonow.com/da-bears-blog. 

                First off I think the organization and format of the blog is very well done.  Everything seems to be easy to locate.  I also believe that the actual blogs include very good content. For instance a very simple blog of his just listed all of the reasons why the bears won the football game.  Although it was just a list it was very entertaining to read.  Another thing that stands out to me in this blog is that there were great pictures for each post.  These types of pictures really give really give you a visual image rather than just a mental when reading the blog.

                The only thing that I would really have to criticize is that there is too much going on in his sidebar.  It almost looks like it overpowers the blog.  I feel that if he had more readers focus on the content rather than the ads he would be more popular, but other than that I can only hope that one day my blog will produce as much traffic. HAHA

Oo yea, and remember…. I SPEAK THE TRUTH!!

Earl Bennett

I know I mentioned Bennett’s performance a little bit in my last blog, but I would just like to reiterate how important he actually is to our team. He made some huge plays in last night’s game to give the Bear a 30-24 victory over the Eagles.  This was his first game back since week 2 and he caught 5 passes for 95 yards and a game winning touchdown.  Lovie Smith stated “He made a lot of big plays. For a guy like Earl, when you haven’t played in a long time, you’re anxious to come back and get out there on the football field and show people what we’ve been missing. He gave us a boost.”  Smith seems to be very happy that Bennett is finally back and what a better time than a Monday night matchup against the Eagles.

            One of the best parts about Bennett’s performance was that he played just as well last season against the Eagles.  In the last two seasons Bennett had a combined 14 receptions, 208 yards, and 3 touchdowns playing Philadelphia.  I’m not exactly sure why the Eagles cannot contain him, but whatever he is doing seems to work.

 The Bears have been struggling in their receiving core for the past couple years.  We tried to move Hester and Knox to our main slots, but defenses are catching on to their tendencies and realizing that Hester is only good in the open field.  But with Bennett gives Chicago a nice variation of speed and precise route running that most defenses have trouble guarding.  So needless to say I am very excited about the Cutler to Bennett connection in the future.  We will see if they can continue their success in next Sunday’s game against the Lions. 

            If you want to see more about Bennett’s post-game check out this post game interview at http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/multimediapopup.asp?mm_file_id=2672&play_clip=Y&rn=15.  

Bears Vs. Eagles Post-game

                Wow what a great victory for the Bears.  It really came down to the wire at the end, but once again the bears came out with a victory.  This was a much needed victory because we have not been playing the greatest football in other stadiums. Chicago has had 2 of their 3 loses in away stadiums (Detroit Lions, New Orleans Saints), but even with Philadelphia’s home field advantage the bears were victorious.

            I would say that the most interesting part about the victory would be the diversification of the Bears offense.  Most of Chicago’s offensive production usually comes from the run game.  Although Matt Forte did run for 133 yards, I would say that the pass game became the most surprising to fans.  Cutler threw for 208 yards, 2 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions.  We do no usually see these types of number coming from Cutler. This just shows that Cutler can produce good games, but his pass success was not solely on himself.   It seemed like Cutler had a lot of help from an old friend in his receiving core.  That’s right Earl Bennett did WORK tonight.  He had 5 receptions for 95 yards and a touchdown.  Bennett has been injured most of the season.  People forget that last year he was one of the better receivers on our team, and now that he is back and healthy it makes a huge impact for the Bears offense.  I think that the Eagles were so focused on Forte’s run game that they forgot that Cutler could even throw the ball.  This is the type of game the fans needed to see from Cutler.  We all know that he has struggled in the past, but this just proves that there is a lot of potential in this Bears offense.