Teaching Bears Old Tricks. Running the Ball and Defense

For a fan base as football starved as we are, thus far our Chicago Bears have not given us much to be excited about.

Three pre-season games, three loses. But more important so than the final game outcome, is the level of play from our team.

With everything to lose and only a Super Bowl to gain, the 2010 Bears have started awfully slow this pre-season.

But that’s just it, it’s pre-season. Remember Bears faithful, the NFL is all about who is playing well in winter, not summer.

We knew the offense would have some growing pains. When learning maybe the most complex offensive system around, you have to expect some foul ups. The receivers are still young and raw. Not only are they and quarterback Jay Cutler trying to learn Mike Martz’s offense, but they are also still trying to learn each other.

Three meaningless games in August will in no way get this system and the players running the system to look sharp. I suspect early on in the season, the Bears will look to their running game to steal a few victories.

Run blocking and the Bears duo at running back, Matt Forte and Chester Taylor, have been a bright spot for a struggling offense. We all know how Coach Lovie loves to run the ball. For his sake, the running game had better carry the offense early in the season.

With four home games in the first seven, two division games/two very winnable games, the Bears have a chance to revert to their old brand of football while still perfecting the passing game; all while winning.

Week eight brings the BYE, followed by a trip to Toronto to face the Bills. With a winning record to start the season, the Bears offense could then start to take flight and really be in mid-season form, by mid-season.

Running the same defensive system for years now, you would think that the Bears would have it down pat. Add in new faces Julius Peppers and Chris Harris, it looked like our problems with pass rush and the secondary were solved.

Peppers has been everything that we had hoped for. I kinda like the 2006 version of Harris better.

Lovie does not have his team tackle in training camp, so I’m hoping the missed tackles so far in the pre-season will be a moot point once September 12th rolls around.

Third downs continue to kill this defense. This has been a problem for the past two seasons. You would think that the Bears great defensive minds would be able to correct this by now. To us, it seems like an easy fix. So it must be, right?

Fix the defense on third down and fix the defense. It’s that simple.

Defense is more of an attitude than anything else. These Bears have been growling about how this team is taking it back to the 60’s and the Monsters of the Midway. Prove it. Get mad, get nasty, and execute.

With all of the talk about how the new offensive system is going to revolutionize the Bears, it may be the same old formula that gets us out of the gates winning games: running the ball and defense.