Second Half Analysis Of The 2020 Chicago Bears Season
January 21, 2021, 9:41 PM CST
I've now come to the end of yet another article page. Great. I've finally got around to doing the second half of my season analysis. Mock Draft 4.0 is postponed until after the conference championship games. That way, I can restart and get a more accurate draft order with more accurate players (such as Colts drafting a QB). Well, let's pick up where we left off, Week 9 at Tennessee. Oh yeah, this will include the Wild Card game against the Saints.
Week 9: 24-17 L @ Tennessee Titans
Offense: D-
Defense: B-
Special Teams: C
Offense struggles again. We had a "Makeshift Offensive Line" that game. Now let's give credit where credit is due, the defense did a good job stopping Derrick Henry. One run was all it took to show 68 yards on the stat sheet. Even still, they did amazing when you consider Henry rushed for over 2,000 yards this season. The A.J. Brown 2nd Quarter touchdown wasn't even the defenses fault, it was a great catch. The 2nd Titan touchdown came on a fumble recovery. We ALMOST amounted another 4th Quarter comeback, but fell up short. Special Teams gets C since I forgot but Santos kicked a field goal, it was only a chip shot though.
Week 10: 19-13 L vs Minnesota Vikings
Offense: F
Defense: B
Special Teams: A
Foles' last game. Granted, he did get injured on the final drive. The defense stopped Dalvin Cook, until Akeim Hicks got injured. Mack also got an interception. But special teams gets an A thanks to Cordarrelle Patterson returning a kick 104 yards against his former team. Ironically, that was our last score of the game. 149 yards of total offense deserves an F on the board.
Week 11: Bye
Week 12: 41-25 L @ Green Bay Packers
Offense: F
Defense: F
Special Teams: F
Fire everybody. (No special teams was not bad just needed to give F's across the board because this was a nightmare but this also found our o-line combo and Montgomery started to take off)
Week 13: 34-30 L vs Detroit Lions
Offense: B+
Defense: C+
Special Teams: C
… (At least Patterson had a good ground game so resign him Pace and this was also Bilal Nichols "breakout" game)
Week 14: 36-7 W vs Houston Texans
Offense: A+
Defense: A+
Special Teams: A+
We're back! I'm going to leave you with this quote from my dad via Lance Briggs' weekly gradings, "A Pluses across the board? I do believe hell froze over."
Week 15: 33-27 W @ Minnesota Vikings
Offense: A-
Defense: C-
Special Teams: B-
At this point we Bears fans realized we might just make the playoffs. It was a good revenge game. Montgomery ran 32 times and ran for more yards than Dalvin Cook, despite Cook rushing for 132 yards. Defense couldn't stop Cook, despite Hicks being back by this point. Special Teams did pretty good.
Week 16: 41-17 W @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Offense: A+
Defense: A-
Special Teams: A
Not as good as the Texans game, but very close. Jimmy Graham showed he was worth the 8 million dollars. Roquan showed that he deserved First Team All-Pro, but we all know he got second team. Santos hit 2 field goals, and Mitch had one bad throw with Montgomery doing good and Artavis Pierce getting his first career touchdown. Oh yeah, 3rd Quarter domination. We didn't do nothing our first 14 3rd Quarters besides the Patterson return.
Week 17: 35-16 L vs Green Bay Packers
Offense: C
Defense: C
Special Teams: B
I know the score looks bad but it was 2 late Packer scores that illuse it from the rest of the game. Offense did surprisingly worse than it seems. Special Teams hit 3 field goals, plus the Patterson 200 IQ play to start the game. We still made the playoffs and faced off against the New Orleans Saints.
Wild Card Round: 21-9 L @ New Orleans Saints
Offense: C-
Defense: C+
Special Teams: C
Well, the season ended here. A loss to the Saints in the Wild Card. Now, I'm not giving F's because to be fair, the Saints wasted SO much clock in the second half on just 2 drives. A late Jimmy Graham touchdown was good, probably the best meaningless touchdown in NFL History. But it was the only high point.
Don't talk about the Wims drop. I'm saying that's the new double doink. Check articles page 5 tomorrow for an article on a UDFA from last year.
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First Half Analysis Of The 2020 Chicago Bears Season
January 15, 2021, 10:22 PM CST
The season has ended for the Chicago Bears with yesterday's 21-9 Wild Card loss to the New Orleans Saints. It was a wild ride. For both this website and the actual team. I started this site on Google Sites and nobody looked at it unless they somehow had the link. After the Buccaneers game, I got the domain in which you are currently using to look at this. If you're wondering why the picture is of Cairo Santos, it's because that was the photo for the first ever article on the old site. I started with only 3 pages, Home, Articles, and Scores. Now I have 12 pages, not including dropdown menus. If you're wondering what I'll do this offseason, I'll be focusing on 2 pages, Player Profiles and Outside The Bear Cave. I'll also occasionally post mock drafts on the Articles. In fact, I'm currently writing Mock Draft 4.0. It's based on before the Wild Card Round began because they take a while to write. Also, my annual Chicago Bear Cave Awards will be out soon, so stay tuned. But with that out of the way, let's get into the game by game analysis of weeks 1-8 for the Bears.
Week 1: 27-23 W @ Detroit Lions
Offense: B-
Defense: C
Special Teams: B+
Now you should understand how this works. I'll give grades to each field and share my reasoning. Anyways, this was the first game of the season, and our first 4th quarter comeback. Mitch played well, and I think we needed to get back on our feet after the offseason was basically cancelled. Decent game on defense, especially with the late Fuller interception, but boy did we almost blow it at the end with D'Andre Swift dropping the ball in the endzone. Luckily, we held on and got the win.
Week 2: 17-13 W vs New York Giants
Offense: B
Defense: A
Special Teams: C
I don't particularly remember how, but I do remember the Special Teams unit was not great in this game. The offense did okay, but the defense stepped up. Robert Quinn got a strip sack, then proceeded to do nothing the next 13 games. We should've had a late pick six from Eddie Jackson but the touchdown was nullified for a bad penalty call.
Week 3: 30-26 W @ Atlanta Falcons
Offense: B+
Defense: C
Special Teams: C+
The only game that Nick Foles played good for us. Our second 4th quarter comeback of the year, this time by only 16 points instead of 17 points. We didn't have a good rushing game. We know this because the most rushing yards by a player was Mitch Trubisky with 45 yards on one run. Our defense was terrible. They weren't the reason we came back, it was just because the Falcons kept throwing the ball. In the end, Foles had 3 touchdown passes (though it should've been 5) and we won. Oh yeah, special teams wasn't great after Tarik Cohen suffered a torn ACL on a punt return.
Week 4: 19-11 L vs Indianapolis Colts
Offense: D
Defense: B+
Special Teams: C
Offense was absolute garbage this game. 27 Montgomery rushing yards were terrible. Defense did a decent job holding Indy to field goals, but in the end it wasn't enough. We didn't recover the late onside kick, but Santos hit a field goal.
Week 5: 20-19 W vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Offense: B-
Defense: A-
Special Teams: B+
Great bounce back game against Tom Brady. This was probably the peak of our season. Another bad rushing game, but passing and defense did just enough to squeeze out a victory. And two more things, the Kyle Fuller hit, and Tom Brady and the 4th Down meme.
Week 6: 23-16 W @ Carolina Panthers
Offense: B
Defense: A
Special Teams: A+
We had a great defense/special teams performance in this game. Hope you started us in fantasy week 6. Highlight plays include, 3rd play interception by Tashaun Gipson, Kmet's first NFL TD, Santos career long 55 yard field goal, First 3rd quarter points of the season, and Houston-Carson game sealing interception.
Week 7: 24-10 L @ Los Angeles Rams
Offense: F
Defense: C+
Special Teams: C
From now on, if I don't remember anything from Special Teams, I'm giving it a C. But this was by far our worst offensive game of the year. We gave up 17 unanswered points, and the only reason defense gets a C+ at best is thanks to Eddie Jackson's fumble return touchdown.
Week 8: 26-23 OTL vs New Orleans Saints
Offense: B-
Defense: C+
Special Teams: B-
After jumping out to a late first half 13-3 lead, we collapsed and went into the half up only 13-10. Then we went down 23-13 early in the 4th. We were able to come back and send it to overtime, but with Nick Foles being so unathletic, we wound up letting New Orleans drive down field and kick a game winning 35 yarder. The only reason special teams is B- is thanks to Cairo Santos' late 51 yard field goal.
Stay tuned soon for the second half of the season, or weeks 9-17. The next thing I post will be a google form for the fan awards that will be open until NFL Honors night. I will also give my player awards that night as well.
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Internet Trolls Give Trubisky One Final Sendoff As A Bear
January 10, 2021, 8:12 PM CST
We all know that the Bears-Saints game was on Nickelodeon along with the CBS Broadcast. We all know how the Bears did. Nickelodeon also had a fan vote as to who the NVP (Nickelodeon Most Valuable Player) was of the game. The votes came swarming in for Mitch, who completed 19-29 passes for 199 yards and a touchdown, and most of that was in garbage time. But the trolls have voted him the NVP, and his Wikipedia page also displayed the award for a short time, but I don't think it does anymore.
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Bears Season Ends With 21-9 Loss To Saints
January 10, 2021, 7:22 PM CST
Sad day in Chicago. The Bears season has ended with a 21-9 loss to New Orleans. For the second time in three years, we make the playoffs and go out in the Wild Card round. It's also likely the last games for both Mitch Trubisky and Allen Robinson in a Bears uniform. Also, why do we always get points on a meaningless final drive?
The game started off pretty good for the Bears actually. After a few punts, the Saints got the game going with an 11 yard touchdown reception from Michael Thomas. The next drive, after Javon Wims made a great 28 yard catch, a trick play with multiple laterals left Wims wide open in the end zone. Perfect throw from Trubisky. He dropped it. An easy catch dropped. We turned the ball over on downs at the end of the drive. The Saints would miss a 50 yard field goal. After a Chicago punt and a Saints fumble, Cairo Santos would hit a 36 yard field goal. It stayed 7-3 for a while, until New Orleans drained 7 and a half minutes on their first second half drive (came after a Bears punt) until Latavius Murray caught a 6 yard touchdown. Bears 3 and Out. Next Saints drive drains almost 9 minutes, boom Kamara touchdown because the Bears couldn't tackle. 3 and Out Bears. Saints go 11 plays but get stopped at the one. on what could have been the final drive for Trubisky and Robinson, the duo connected 3 times. Jimmy Graham caught a buzzer beater touchdown against his former team and just went straight into the locker room. No extra point attempt.
I will have a full season analysis tomorrow and the moves the Bears should make over the offseason coming soon. Look out for the first Outside The Bear Cave article later today.
NFL Touchdown On Nickelodeon
Keys To The Game: New Orleans Saints
January 10, 2021, 9:48 AM CST
In what could be my last Keys To The Game of the year, it's probably one of the most important ones. We find our way back into the playoffs for the second time in three years. This is mainly thanks to our late season surge due to an easy schedule. But we almost beat New Orleans earlier this season, and I definitely think we can if they follow these three keys.
1. Targets To Robinson=Success
So let me get this straight. Your best receiver is a free agent after this year and you want to keep him. And your plan to pay him less money is to target him 5 times and say that he wasn't open the rest. Now don't get me wrong, Darnell Mooney played a tremendous game last Sunday (and was my MVP of the week). But he's ruled out today. You have to get the ball to A-Rob instead of checkdowns.
2. Medium Range Passes From Mitch=Success
Throwing it deep is a disaster waiting to happen. Throwing it short will get anywhere from 6 to -3 yards. Throwing it a medium distance of about 12-25 yards works best with Mitch, mainly anywhere between 12-18 yards. That kind of pass will move the team downfield and get touchdowns instead of field goals, and with Kamara, Thomas, Sanders, and of course, Brees on the Saints, we need those touchdowns to keep pace with this high-powered offense.
3. Defensive Line Needs To Step Up
Second (Should've been first) Team All-Pro Roquan Smith is out for today's game, leaving us with either Josh Woods or Joel Iyiegbuniwe at starting ILB alongside Danny Trevathan. Our defensive line needs to get pressure on Brees to throw it into our secondary so we can get interceptions. If we get interceptions, we might get more opportunities to score points.
My prediction for this game is Bears 29, Saints 27. So far, I'm 2-1 on my picks, but my NFC Super Bowl pick is out. I almost dead on nailed the Buffalo-Indy score, if only the Colts didn't convert that last two point conversion. Props to Washington for playing the Bucs tough, I knew that Tampa was going to win, but I was rooting for Washington.
