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San Francisco entered the fourth quarter with a 20-7 lead over the Chicago Bears Sunday night…and most everyone assumed they would be able to seal the deal because the superior team almost always does that! In fact, we’d just watched an entire day of teams sitting on leads like that to grind out yawner victories.
BOOM! The Bears finished off an 80-yard TD drive with 13:35 left in the fourth quarter to make it 20-14. A few seconds later, it was 21-20 Chicago after a 3-yard TD drive off an SF miscue. Another cheap TD drive (42 yards) finished out the scoring in Chicago's 28-20 shocker.
There were a lot of concerns through the Preseason about offensive execution for San Francisco, and the general team mindset as head coach Jim Harbaugh seemed to be wearing out his welcome. That didn’t matter last week in Dallas…when it was the Cowboys imploding to give SF an easy victory. You’ll see below that San Francisco was actually pretty dominant outside the turnover category. Should have been a standard Harbaugh-grinder.
Chicago 28, San Francisco 20
Chicago: 216 yards, 4.2 per-play, 0 turnovers, 33% third downs
S. Fran : 391 yards, 5.6 per-play, 4 turnovers, 54% third downs
Throw out the turnover category, and that’s what San Francisco usually does at home! Well, sometimes they win the turnover category on the way to monster blowouts. Should have been a yawner at the very least.
Other Stats
Rushing Yardage: Chicago 46, San Francisco 129
Passing Stats: Chicago 23-34-0-170, San Francisco 21-34-3-232
Drive Points: Chicago 14, San Francisco 6
Stat Score: Chicago 12, San Francisco 22
Sloppiness: Chicago 11, San Francisco 33
(For you new visitors, Drive Points are those scored only on drives of 60 yards or more; Stat Score is a calculation of what the final score “should” have been based on the formula: 2 times rushing yards, plus passing yards, times 0.67, divided by 15; and Sloppiness is a quick assessment of sharpness based on 5 times the number of giveaways plus the number of incomplete passes. The lower the number, the better in sloppiness because you want to avoid being sloppy)
I don’t usually run penalty counts. But the fact that SF was flagged 16 times on a night where they were also losing the ball four times seems relevant. It’s hard to imagine a more poorly executed game from a playoff caliber team. Stat score says it should have been a double digit win. Though, Chicago did win Drive Points 14-6. Give Jay Cutler credit for finishing off a couple of long drives. SF had two long field goal drives, then a bunch of giveaways…against a Bears defense that graded out as one of the worst in the league last year.
Both teams are 1-1. Chicago’s actually in a four-way tie for first in the NFC North (Green Bay, Detroit, Minnesota also 1-1). San Francisco is still tied with Seattle thanks to the Seahawks loss today in San Diego. Arizona leads the NFC West with a 2-0 mark.
Did it feel to you like almost every game this afternoon was 24-10ish? Cincinnati/Atlanta landed right on that number. But, seven other games were within 10 points of it one way or another (26-10 for Dallas, 30-7 for new England, and so on). Make it eight for the week if you count Baltimore’s 26-6 win Thursday. Chicago/San Francisco was right there to be another one until that wild and crazy fourth quarter. Not exactly Red-Zone-errific. Karma frowning on all sorts of things in this sport right now.