Posts tagged ‘detroit lions’

This Sunday the hapless Lions will visit Soldier Field, and amazingly they will be even more toothless than they were in Detroit five weeks ago. But even without Jon Kitna and Roy Williams no team in the NFL is a complete pushover.

Still the Bears somewhat maligned defense unit should be able to feast on a back-up QB, Dan Orlovsky, who leads an offense with only one legitimate weapon in Calvin Johnson. Aiding the cause should be the return of starting CBs Charles Tillman and Nathan Vasher who both appear to have recovered over the bye week.

The real test, at least in my eyes, is to see if the Bears offense will come out of the bye week without missing a beat. Kyle Orton had been playing like a Pro Bowler over the last three games and it’ll be important to the Bears second half that he immediately squash any potential doubts that it might have been a fluke. He should have default #1 wide receiver Brandon Lloyd as well as Devin Hester on the field to help.

So now for those and more keys to the game we turn to the Bearscast Over/Under:

Over/Under: 100 yards rushing for Matt Forte

The last time these two teams met the Lions stacked the line, shut down Matt Forte, and paid the price. This game should signal a change in that trend as more teams, especially the Lions, respect Orton’s ability to beat them through the air.

This should hopefully mean a reemergence of Matt Forte as a more dominant running threat. As he sees fewer and fewer 8-men boxes he will need to break tackles and get into the second level. If Forte can’t pick up his performance to compensate for the extra attention Orton is going to get the Bears are in trouble.

I think he will.

Over/Under: 2 sacks for the Bears defensive line

Here we are, another week into the season and still wondering if the Bears’ pass rush is ever going to show up. Tommie Harris and Adawale Ogunleye are by far the biggest culprits and if we are to see an appreciable improvement in the overall defensive performance it will start with those two.

What does it say that the Bears are paying them nearly a combined $17mil for 3 sacks at this point? Probably that the team and fans are getting ripped off. We’ve seen that Harris, Ogunleye, and Mark Anderson all have the talent to get to the quarterback, and yet if it were anyone other than Detroit I’d be going under here.

Over/Under: 10 snaps for rookie Chris Williams

I’ve already made my case for Chris Williams to be starting as soon as this Sunday, but now my fear is that he probably isn’t even going to see the field. For all those who cry out about line continuity, the counter is the incomparable value of live NFL action. Williams hasn’t seen any yet and he needs to get his feet wet.

The one hope is that this Bears/Lions game is as lopsided as the last so Williams can protect Rex Grossman’s blindside for most of the fourth quarter. Unfortunately the odds are against that and Lovie Smith and Co. will likely squander the opportunity to get him even as little as a dozen snaps. Why such blatant disregard for game action that could advance his development by lightyears? Because they’re the Bears.

Over/Under: 140 combined receiving yards for Lloyd and Hester

As fun as the approach by committee has been for the Bears passing game they eventually need true leaders to emerge there. Prior to his injury Lloyd looked as if he was well on his way to becoming Orton’s favorite target, as evidenced by the fact that he’s still third on the team in receiving despite missing 2.5 games. Additionally Hester has shown flashes that he’s starting to get it and it would be huge if he could build on his earlier success against the Lions.

Still you can’t argue with the ability the move the ball the Bears have shown without Lloyd and that could mean he is worked back into the offense slowly. With Hester his injuries, though both have been sustained while returning kicks, could make coaches a little gun shy.

These two will probably still be the source of most of the big passing plays while they are healthy but for the time being they will have to settle for playing a smaller role.

Over/Under: 250 yards of total offense surrender by Bears defense

400 yards and 41 points are way too much for the Bears to give up any Sunday. To make matters worse they got an extra week to think about it and an extra week’s worth of question from the media digging at them about it. If they can’t come out motivated for this game then they really have become fat and complacent.

There is still enough pride on this D to muster a big time performance. With the return of Tillman to help slow down Calvin Johnson the Bears should thoroughly out-man Detroit. Not that dominating the Lions will really serve as a barometer for the second half, but the healing has to start somewhere.

Thankfully for the Bears, the Lions are just what the doctor ordered.