Chicago Bears News and Notes 9/23/09

The Tribune's David Haugh says that Lovie's win over the Steelers was one of his five best games. Haugh mentions the Arizona Cardinals Monday Night Miracle #1, the Bears/Panthers defensive battle in 2005 which catapulted the Bears into the playoffs, the comeback victory in Minnesota in 2006, the Packers/Bears game on Christmas in 2005 where the Bears clinched a playoff spot, and Sunday's game. I have to disagree with Haugh on this. I don't think Lovie did that great of a job on Sunday unless he paid off Jeff Reed to miss those two field goals. The Bears played a pretty sloppy game on Sunday and I thought they left a lot on the table.

Vaughn McClure has an article on how the Bears still remain confident in their run game despite the fact that Matt Forte only has gained 84 yards in 2 games. While Forte hasn't been that great, I wouldn't put all the blame on him. The Packers and Steelers are both good teams at stopping the run and I don't think the Bears run blocking was that great in the first two games. I still think Forte will have a breakout game on Sunday against a banged-up Seattle Seahawks team that just got blasted by Frank Gore this Sunday.

In Seahawks news, T.J. Houshmandzadeh said that he hopes to have a break-out game on Sunday against the Bears because Jerry Angelo didn't make an attempt to sign him. Houshmandzadeh said: "Man, the Bears ain't holler at me. Jerry Angelo probably didn't even think I can play. So I'm going to show him Sunday." Angelo said a few months ago that he though Houshmandzadeh was too expensive and he's probably right. I thought the Seahawks overpaid the minute I saw the news cross the wire.

The Seahawks still haven't announced if Matt Hasselbeck is going to play on Sunday with his broken ribs suffered on Sunday. The Bears are preparing this week as if they are going to face back-up quarterback Seneca Wallace.

Keep checking back for more news and notes and a game preview on Saturday as well as a game recap sometime on Sunday. BEAR DOWN!

Chicago Bears News and Notes 9/22/09

Not much news from Bears camp today.

In his blog on Chicago Now, Adewale Ogunleye says that boo birds should stay at home. Not sure I agree so much with Adewale. The boobirds came out criticizing Ron Turner's playcalling in the 1st half. These people pay $100 to sit there in the rain and they have the right to boo in my opinion. Should they be booing? No. But they can do whatever they like.

The Sun-Times' Mike Mulligan has an article on the Bears run game and how the Bears are losing their balance. Can't say I disagree at all. While the Bears did a nice job getting the win on Sunday, I feel they failed to establish a run game. Maybe it has to do with the performance of the offensive line. The run blocking hasn't been good at all. The pass blocking has been better but that's not saying much at all. Hopefully Forte and the Bears run game succeeds this week in Seattle. Frank Gore and company ran all over the Seahawks on Sunday. Matt Forte is not Frank Gore but he should still have a good week.

John Mullin of CSNChicago.com has an article on Jay Cutler and how he proved he was clutch during Sunday's victory over the Steelers.

Power Rankings

This will be a daily Tuesday segment where I will show multiple power rankings from around the web.

ESPN.com has the Bears at 14 in this week's Power Rankings up 1 spot from last week.

cbssports.com has the Bears at 19 this week up 1 spot from last week.

foxsports.com has the Bears at 17 this week up 3 spots from last week.

nfl.com's experts rank the Bears at 14 this week while the nfl.com community ranks the Bears at 4. Someone needs to get the Superfans away from the computer.

CSNChicago.com's John Mullin ranks the NFC North and has the Bears at 3rd in the NFC North. Can't say I disagree with the ranking at all so far. The Packers beat us fair and square in week 1 and while they had an embarrassing loss to the Bengals on Sunday, they still deserve to be ahead of us. The Vikings beat the Browns and Lions (yawn) but are winning the games they need to win. The Lions are the Lions. Mullin also goes over the Bears schedule this season in the article.

Sorry for the late entry tonight. Hope to get up today's a little bit earlier. BEAR DOWN!

Chicago Bears News and Notes 9/21/09

The Bears take on the Seattle Seahawks this upcoming Sunday at 3:15 PM at Quest Field in Seattle, Washington but there are plenty of questions concerning the injury status of some Bears and Seahawks. The Seahawks said today that QB Matt Hasselbeck has a fractured rib and will prepare this week as if he won't be playing. Hasselbeck on the other hand, told a Seattle newspaper that he will try and play this week.

The Seahawks have a long list of injuries, most of them from yesterday's game. Some of those injuries include WR Deion Branch (hamstring), CB Travis Fisher (hamstring), LB Lofa Tatupu (hamstring), CB Marcus Trufant (undisclosed), and more.

On the Bears side of things, Pisa Tinoisamoa (Knee) is questionable. Desmond Clark is out with the ribs injury. And Lovie Smith said Alex Brown should be good to go Sunday with a sprained ankle injury.

In today's Tribune, Vaugh McClure has a nice article on Johnny Knox and his rise to "stardom" out of the middle of nowhere. In the Sun Times, Rick Telander has an article on Jay Cutler.

Check back throughout the week for more news and notes leading up to Sunday's game. Check back Saturday Night for a preview of the next day's game. And check back on Sunday Night for a full recap on the game.

Here are highlights from Sunday's big win:

Bears clip the defending champs; Gould good as Gold again

The Bears defeated the defending champion Pittsburgh Steelers 17-14 at rainy Soldier Field today.

I don't think the Bears played their best game today but it was good enough to pull off the victory. Some guys I have to give props to include Johnny Knox who had another excellent game and is looking like a huge 5th round steal for Jerry Angelo so far. Johnny Knox caught 6 passes for 70 yards with a TD. Jay Cutler bounced back after a poor outing in week 1. Cutler went 27-38 with 236 passing yards and 2 touchdowns. A huge improvement over last week's 4 interception performance. Alex Brown also had an excellent game with 2 sacks and Lance Briggs pitched in with 8 tackles of his own. The real props has to go to Robbie Gould though who hit the game winning field goal with 15 seconds left from 45 yards in the sloppy rain. Jeff Reed had just missed 2 kicks before that as well.

But as I said, I don't think the Bears played as good as they could. I thought the defense was shaky most of the game despite only giving up 14 points to a very good Pittsburgh Steeler offense, I thought the offense outside of Cutler and Knox wasn't that good. Forte had another bad game and the receivers dropped way too many passes. It was almost like having 7 Rashied Davis's out there. And I thought the coaching wasn't that great. At one point in the 2nd half, the Bears called for a screen pass on 2nd and 13 and completed it for about a yard and on the next play they ran a draw for Forte that only went for about 6 yards.

But forget all that, the Bears pulled off a huge win today moving them to 1-1 on the season and they get the Matt Hasselbeck-less Seattle Seahawks next week in Seattle as Hasselbeck left today's game with broken ribs. So he won't get the start next week and Seneca Wallace will start in his place. So the Bears have a good chance at going 2-1 in a tough stretch of 3 games to start the season. Hopefully the Bears are up for the challenge.

Check back all week for more news and notes previewing this weeks battle against the Seattle Seahawks.

BEAR DOWN!

Bears/Steelers Game Preview 9/20/09

Football is back again at Soldier Field. The defending Super Bowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers come into town after their week 1 win last Thursday against the Tennessee Titans. The Steelers won that game 13-10 thanks to a field goal in overtime by Jeff Reed to move them to 1-0 on the season. Santonio Holmes had 9 receptions for 131 yards in the game with a TD. Look for him to have another stellar game against a shaky Bears secondary. Ben Roethlisberger went 33-43 with 363 passing yards, 1 touchdown, and 2 interceptions. While the Steelers passing game was above average, the run game was horrible to say the least. Willie Parker ran for 19 yards on 13 carries against the Titans and now he has to go up against a pretty good run defense in the Chicago Bears. The big news out of week 1 for the Steelers was that Troy Polamalu tore his MCL and is out for 3-6 weeks. Polamalu is the Steelers defensive leader.

Like the Steelers, the Bears also lost their defensive leader in Brian Urlacher in their only game. While it's debatable (or not really) that Urlacher is still the best Bears defensive player like Polamalu, it's still a huge loss for the Bears. The Bears are coming off a less than average game against division rival Green Bay Packers losing 21-15 on a late TD reception by Greg Jennings. Jay Cutler had a horrible debut throwing for 4 interceptions. He did throw for 277 passing yards and a touchdown to Devin Hester but he only completed 17 passes out of 36. Hester had a pretty good game caching 4 passes for 90 yards including that TD reception. Bears running back Matt Forte also struggled in the Bears opening game. Forte rushed for 55 yards on 25 carries against the Packers. The only real bright spot for the Bears in their opening game was the performance of their defensive line. Led by Adawale Ogunleye, the Bears sacked Packers QB Aaron Rodgers 4 times and put a ton of pressure on him. Another bright spot was Bears rookie WR Johnny Knox who caught a 68 yard pass from Cutler that should have led to a Bears TD but Cutler threw an interception in the Bears red zone.

This week, the Bears have to face yet another 3-4 defense. Look for a lot of pressure to be put on Cutler from the Steelers offensive line like the Packers put on him last week. Personally, I think the Bears bounce back this week and take this one 27-17. I think all the pressure is on Cutler and he'll come out and have a good game like he did in that 2nd preseason game against the New York Giants.

Urlacher article

The Tribune's Vaughn McClure has a nice piece on Brian Urlacher. Urlacher says in the article that if he could play, he would but the doctors warned him that if he did play, it could become a career ending injury. The doctors also told Urlacher that this is one of the worst injuries you could have to your hand.

Check back tomorrow after the game for my recap. If the Bears win, expect an early recap. If they lose, expect one at around midnight.

Chicago Bears News and Notes 9/18/09

Vaughn McClure has a nice piece on Bears linebacker Lance Briggs and how he's going to have to take over for Brian Urlacher who is out for the season with a dislocated wrist. Briggs was named defensive co-captain earlier this week. There's other interesting tidbits in the article as well on Lance.

Bears safety Kevin Payne lost his starting spot to Danieal Manning this week for his mistake that led to the Rodgers 50 yard touchdown pass to Greg Jennings that ended up being the game-winner for the Packers.

The Tribune's Dan Pompei has a nice piece on Pittsburgh Steeler head coach Mike Tomlin and how the young head coach has already left a mark on the NFL.

The injury report for Sunday's tilt against the Steelers looks like this:

Steelers:

OUT: Polamalu and WR Limas Sweed

Probable: LB Lawerence Timmons and CB Ivan Taylor

Bears:

OUT: TE Desmond Clark and LB Pisa Tinoisamoa

Probable: Al Afalava, Anderson, Tommie Harris, Danieal Manning, Omiyale

The preview thread for tomorrow's game will be up sometime tomorrow night. Come back and check it out.

Chicago Bears News and Notes 9/17/09

In breaking news (sort of), the Bears have claimed Cornerback DeAngelo Smith off waivers from the Cleveland Browns and waived Trumaine McBride.

Vaugh McClure writes that Derrick Brooks still thinks that signing with the Chicago Bears could happen despite him taking a job at ESPN2's First Take yesterday. Brooks says that the chances of him landing in Chicago are "high" based on his own optimism in an interview with ESPN 1000's "Waddle and Silvy".

The Chicago Tribune's Dan Pompei has a piece on Bears defensive end Adewale Ogunleye and how he credits Bears defensive line coach Rod Marinelli for his success thus far this season.

The Sun Times' Neil Hayes has an article on how the city of Chicago can never stop whining, this time about Jay Cutler.

In Walter Payton news, the Chicago Park District has agreed to talk to the Payton family about putting a possible statue outside of Soldier Field. The argument is that Soldier Field should be a war memorial and Payton's statue shouldn't be placed there. The Chicago Bears will also honor Payton on November 1st when the Bears take on the Cleveland Browns which is the 10th anniversary of his death.