Chicago Bears: Week 14

Opponent: Minnesota Vikings
Location: Away
Outcome: Loss
Record: 8-5 (2-2)

9-4 (4-0) Green Bay Packers
7-6 (3-2) Minnesota Vikings
4-9 (0-5) Detroit Lions

Sorry for the delay in this post. I've been a bit under the weather this past week.

The banged up Bears lost to the also banged up Vikings this past week. The Bears have lost 4 of their last 5 games. They are no longer in control of the NFC North, and unless they win out, they're not guaranteed a spot in the playoffs. These games are getting harder and harder to watch.

Defense
The Vikings are without Percy Harvin who was placed on IR last week. They pretty much have one offensive plan. Run the ball with Adrian Peterson. They know it, the Bears know it, the entire league knows it. Lo and behold, they ran the ball with Peterson on the first play...and the Bears let him run for 54 yards in one shot. This should have been a pretty easy game defensively. Above all else, stop Peterson and make Christian Ponder throw it. If nothing else, it would have led to lots of 3 and outs. It should have led to several interceptions. Instead the Bears defense let Peterson run for over 100 yards in the first quarter. Now granted, after the first quarter, the defense didn't let the Vikings score one more point. But by then the damage was done.

Early in the year, the age of the defense came into question and that defense responded with 7 returns for touchdowns in the first 8 games. Everyone thought the age question had been answered. But now injuries are rearing their ugly heads. A game doesn't go by where at least one defensive player isn't hurt and the question comes back in a new form. Is the Bears defense too old to last for a full season?

Offense
It's not a good thing when your offense takes the field for the first time and you're already down 7-0. It's an even worse thing when a few plays later, the Vikings get a pick and have the ball on the 5 yard line. The pick happened when Alshon Jeffery slipped on a timing route and Cutler had already thrown the ball. These things happen, (especially to a rookie who's just come back after a couple freak injuries took away about half his rookie year) but it was just a very bad start to the game and put us into a 14-0 hole that our offense is not currently capable of crawling out of. Jeffery did have a nice touchdown catch later in the game, but overall there were too many dropped passes and missed opportunities.

Devin Hester is not a wide receiver. No matter how much they want it to happen, he is not going to be Percy Harvin. Please take him out of the offense so he can do some good on returns because when he does both, he's lousy at both.

Kellen Davis is not a pass catching tight end. I'm not sure he's much of a blocking tight end either, but the fact that he had more targets than Alshon Jeffery or Matt Forte is a problem. He drops more throws than he catches, and the number of targets he gets is ridiculous.

Special Teams
Starting a game 14-0 in the first quarter is not a good thing, but the real bad omen came before the game even started. Robbie Gould, our extremely reliable kicker, somehow hurt his leg during warm-ups. He's not even sure how he did it. He was kicking a warm-up field goal and suddenly something felt wrong with his leg. He ended up kicking two extra points after touchdowns, but that's about all he was capable of. He's now on IR and out for the season.

Next week the Bears play the Packers for their last home game of the season. I would love to see the Bears beat the Packers and deny them from clinching the division, but with the wheels falling off the way they seem to be, the odds do not seem to be in their favor. Then again, the Bears prefer to be the underdog. Either way, I'll be enjoying the game with a bunch of friends (Bears and Packers fans alike) in the Chicago area. It'll be a good time. BEAR DOWN!!!