Chicago Bears: Week 9

Opponent: Tennessee Titans
Location: Away? (see first paragraph)
Outcome: Win
Record: 7-1

6-3 Green Bay Packers
5-4 Minnesota Vikings
4-4 Detroit Lions

51-20. Do I really need to say anything else? Chicago Bears fans were drowning out the Tennessee Titans fans in Tennessee. "Let's go Bears" was heard clearly on the television. This was partly due to the score and partly due to the proximity to Vanderbilt University where several of the Bears went to college. It was a fun game to watch.

Offense
Overall a great performance from the offense. Cutler had 3 passing touchdowns and 0 interceptions. Matt Forte also got into the end zone (with a little push from the line). The balance for receiver targets was also much better than it has been as of late. Marshal was targeted 10 times and Bennett was targeted 8. There has been some concern that Cutler was too focused on Marshall and wouldn't throw to anyone else, but that clearly wasn't the case this week. Hopefully we'll have Alshon Jeffery back soon so Cutler has 3 fantastic targets to throw to. The one area of concern that I still have is the offensive line. They are still losing a lot of yards with false start penalties, and they are still letting a 4 man rush through when in a max protection scheme. The one fumble Jay had was because he got blindsided by a (seemingly) unblocked rusher.

Defense
5 fumble recoveries and 1 interception returned for a touchdown. The Chicago Bears defense is a beast! Tillman has 4 forced fumbles on his own, and the first one was on the Texans' first play. This entire defense really continues to shine this year giving the offense plenty of time to ease into their new system. So far they have 7 turnover returns for a touchdown at the halfway point in the season. The record is 9 in an entire season. It would be amazing to see the Bears break that this year on the way to many more wins.

Special teams
Finally!!! That was my response to Devin Hester’s 44 yard punt return that landed the Bears in the red zone. He trusted his teammates to get the first few blocks and turned up field. From then he just did what he does. It wasn't a touchdown, but it was a lot more than we've seen all year from him. Hopefully it's just the start of things to come. The other great play was the blocked kick for a touchdown. Both special teams and defense made this game really easy on our offense.