THE GOOD
Barring injuries the Bears have a fantastic defensive line unit and most of them are pretty young. Tommie Harris, Dusy Dvoracek, Adewale Ogunleye, Alex Brown, Mark Anderson and Israel Idonije's average age is 27. With Anthony Adams, Dan Bazuin (assuming he makes the team) and Marcus Harrison the Bears also have depth. Now if they could just learn to stop the run.
Now that we see the potential in Kyle Orton the pressure shifts to the wide receivers. Rashied Davis is the only guy who could start that has had anything like a good game. Davis capped his pre season performance with a 58 yard, 2 TD performance.
Teams playing the Bears this year are going to start just giving the Bears the ball on the 50. Devin Hester has had limited time as a returner, but you know he will get his. Now teams have to worry about two others, Danieal Manning and Earl Bennett. Two weeks ago Bennett took a punt back for a TD. Last night Manning racked up 171 return yards on 2 run backs. Could you imagine if the Bears put Hester in for the return and Manning and Bennett at the 30 and 40 yard lines? If they wanted to could also bring in Garrett Wolfe who has been working on taking returns and Rashied Davis who also has had some return success in the past.
Roll Call. The Game Thread comment winner for yesterday is #23 who logged 77 comments. The next three were ChiFan13 (73), SamuraiMike50(43) and halfblindcubbiegirl(36).
THE BAD
The defense is looking bad. They have been getting thrown on by everybody they face. Charles Tillman and Nathan Vashar have their contracts, are both healthy and Mike Brown is supposed to solidify the defense. There should not be so many open receivers.
Brian Urlacher's back up Rod Wilson was carted off the field yesterday in the third quarter with a broken arm. The Bears have some depth at the linebacker spot, but Wilson played very well last year when needed and has been improving.
THE UGLY
Devin Hester. Yesterday Hester had 1 catch for -2 yards. His pull so far for the preseason is 4 catches for 36 yards. It would be a push for the Bears to put him out as a starter. Then again who else do you want to put out there? Brandon Lloyd would be the next option based on numbers. In three preseason games he has 5 catches for 56 yards.
Greg Olsen. I don't know if it is Olsen not being ready or in position or the Bears play calling, but Olsen has seen very little of the ball. We keep hearing how dynamic he is, maybe somebody should show us. In his 3 preseason games he has only 3 catches for 24 yards.
Kevin Jones' cut back. Yesterday after breaking a 34 yard run the Bears handed off to Kevin Jones again. He ran into some problems and made a spin move that put him headed to the outside. Had he stayed that course he had some day light and probably could have gotten 8-10 yards. Instead he cut back into the waiting arms of the 49ers defense.
Charles Tillman's missed lunge. Coming on a corner blitz Peanut decided to go for the feet and laid out, but performed a Olympic caliber belly flop and J.T O'Sullivan's feet. The miss allowed O'Sullivan to stop, set his feet and deliver a perfect ball for the TD.