Abandoning running game helps sink Bears

Discussion in 'Chicago Bears' started by truebluefan, Oct 19, 2010.

  1. truebluefan

    truebluefan Administrator Staff Member Administrator

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    "When Lovie Smith vowed at the beginning of the season that he was going to forget the recent past this year, he wasn't kidding.

    In the Bears' regrettable 23-20 loss to the Seahawks at Soldier Field, Smith coached like a guy with absolutely no recollection of what happened the previous Sunday.

    That was the one in which the Bears ran the ball for 218 yards against the Panthers, the team's best rushing output in 20 years. Yet playing at home with a quarterback coming off a brain injury, the Bears called just 12 handoffs in a game they asked a makeshift offensive line to protect Jay Cutler 47 times.

    The Bears went from a 65-35 run-pass ratio to 80-20 pass-to-run. A football team cannot expect a carryover effect if it drops the ball mentally.

    Talk about an identity crisis. It was the short-term recall of the Bears' quarterback we were worried about, not the coaching staff, right?

    "There was an emphasis to run the ball," Smith said with a straight face afterward. "We tried to run the ball a little bit, couldn't do that. It's not as simple as you look at what happened the week before and just say, 'Let's do that every time.' "

    Even trying to do it every other time would have kept the Seahawks' blitzing defense honest more than the Bears bothered. Nothing slows down an aggressive pass rush like having to respect the run. Making a better effort to establish a ground game also may have helped the Bears' defense stay off the field on another day it was overworked."

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/sport...ears-haugh-chicago--20101017,0,3607686.column
     

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