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i was at the game today, which means that my view from section 350 in the wessyde of the north endzone trumps all of you and your high def tvs and replays and hyperfocus.
anyways, even though i boldly predicted a 37-3 victory in the name of WOO BEARSing, i thought that the giant head of dennis green was going to rise up over the horizon and there would be some ass-crowning involved. after a first drive that saw michael vick flat out overthrow a wide open tight end on a seam route on a ridiculously easy TD, the bears began to impress. early on the special teams played well, forte broke a big run which the bears cashed in on, and then a couple'a defensive holds and a march down the field for a TD. 14-3. i can work with this.
then the second quarter comes around and the eagles start to get revving... they realize "hey, if we overload the line we can sack this guy with the bad body language" so they do that (with ~6mins left in the 2nd they had three sacks on the bears, two of them were big "fuck you" moments on third downs where cutler had no chance) so then they score a TD, look like they're going to score another one (but julius peppers had that clutch shoestring tackle on vick) but get a FG... and then after stopping the bears again, they're moving down the field with around ~2-3 mins left in the half... they're in the redzone. first and goal. and then...
BAM! chris harris with teh INT of the year thus far... and not only that, but the bears move the ball down the field and as i'm in the stands doing a press your luck "no turnovers... no turnovers... no turnovers... STOP!" i mean i just wanted them to kill the clock kick a FG and go into the half with a slightly larger lead and then get the ball at the half. but they cash it in for a TD. even after a OH NO JAY WTF ARE YOU DOING PLAY (that one iso to bennett in the endzone where he and the DB were doing a tango and the crowd wanted a PI flag and jay forced it, the ball bouncing off the back of the DB's left shoulder) and after a play where i swear devin hester had to be close to getting an offensive pass interference call after nearly tackling the WR on a throw OOB. they punch in the TD, manage to hold the eagles scoreless b4 the half..... then they get the ball and punch it in again. good special teams play all around.
so in ~3:00 of offensive gametime wrapped around the half, the bears went from up 14-13 to 28-13. that's big boy football. couple that with the 17 play 83 yard ~10 minute bataan death march of a FG drive, and next thing you know you're up 31-13 in the waning minutes of the third quarter. on a good team. one that i would still argue is probably better than the bears overall, unless the bears continue to dodge the giant rising head of dennis green in teh horizon as we run the gauntlet over the next 5 games (next week = admiral ackbar quotes)
also, i must admit, even to the philly fans to my right were WTF ANDY REID EAT A DONUT with his coaching decisions in the last quarter and a half, i really liked what he did there. down 31-13 with a 4th-n-goal at the ~5, he elected to take the FG. that really drew the ire of the philly fans, but i'm like... dude. it's a 3 possession game, TD/TD+2pt/FG. take the FG while you've got it, make it a two possession game... maybe you get a safety, maybe some shit breaks... you need the FG regardless. 31-16. then the next time the eagles hit the redzone i think there was a huge sack which had them third and goal from the 19 and then they maybe got a couple'a yards, if that. so it was 4th and goal from the ~15+ yard line with ~8-9 mins left. i figured it was four down territory, but andy reid had realized that the bears were done scoring and said "fuck you, i know you're not going to do shit against us" and took that next FG.... 31-19. there were two fake onside kicks, one of which backfired and would have been a plus-territory drive if not for a nick roach hold... so like, long story short the eagles get the ball with ~5 mins left and methodically march down the field with EXCELLENT offensive play-calling (basically, they kept occupying urlacher when he'd drop back into coverage and open up the middle of the field and hit it. obviously, the bears were in a position to concade the middle and give up those yards and keep the clock ticking, but still, as shang tsung says it was "all too easy") and speaking of the middle of the field BAM, ron mexico cutler/favre's it up and threads triple coverage for a 30 yard TD.
31-26 with 1:48 left. it all comes down to a foreal onside kick. credit the wind/god/the-ghost-of-walter-payton with an assist because they had to use a punter or someone to hold the ball on the tee for the onside kick attempt. johnny knox leaps up and gets the ball, thus queueing up the sample from aliens "game over man, game over!"... however, as i told the eagles fans to my right when the eagles stopped the bears after kicking that FG to make it 31-19 "the eagles are gonna win this game"
if they recovered the onside kick, you know what, i think the eagles would have won it. they had all of the momentum in the world and they had just gashed the shit out of the bears D. 13-0 advantage in the quarter... they just ran out of time/outs.
i'm not taking anything away from the bears win.... lovie/martz/cutler's usual 1-2 wasted timeouts weren't at horrible places, there were no challenges to be made, and in all three phases of the game the bears hands down beat the eagles... however, by the end of the game, the eagles had the bears figured out and were closing in pretty quickly. hell, they had the bears figured out in the 2nd quarter as well, but chris harris' giant INT changed things. obviously you can't use the what-if bell in teh NFL, otherwise i'd be talking about "what if vick doesn't horribly overthrow that TE on the seam route on their first possession?" or "what if devin hester got called for offensive pass interference on that one touchdown drive in the 2nd?" (he looked like he was about to tackle that WR on an OOB bailout throw...)
ah well. i think the eagles are a quality team... michael vick impressed the hell out of me, he's really improved as a QB... he stayed in there and made solid throws and was aaron-rodgersesque-nimble in the pocket. andy reid's playcalling was excellent... he put them in a position to win, however, a couple of missed plays, combine that with an assist to the shit-turf on teh knox td... yeah.
that said, i hope the bears can beat the lions next week and be 9-3 entering the gambit for the last 4 games... however, the bears seem to equally play up/down to their opponent, so who knows?
THIS TL;DR SINI POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY... THE CITY OF BENSENVILLE! HOME OF THE CHICAGO SPORTS TALK RADIO CALLER HALL OF FAME... MARK YOUR CALENDARS: IN 2011 THE BRAND WING WILL BE OPENING! ALSO BROUGHT TO YOU BY SPARTUH MOTORS IN MORTON GROVE! THAT'S SPARTUH WITH AN U-H"
_________________ Curious Hair wrote: Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?
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