Chicago Bears Vs Miami Dolphins: NFL Week 7 Pre-Party Livestream and Open Thread

The Bears head into Week 7 at 3-3 and still hunting for their first home win of the season - they get the Miami Dolphins, who won their game against the Jets in Week 5 and took the Packers to the wire last week. With that win, the Packers maintain their game edge on the Bears in the division, as did the Lions with their win. Obviously, the Bears need to keep pace as the season goes, and this should be a winnable game against the Dolphins.

That being said, the Dolphins do offer some areas of concern - an unpredictable offense with multiple targets and a run game with some read option concepts and Lamar Miller, who's figured to get a bigger share of the workload, especially as Knowshon Moreno heads to IR. And their defense can do some work, with ends Cameron Wake and Olivier Vernon each able to pick up sacks on quarterbacks.

As for the navy and orange, having their offensive line fully healthy is a thing against those ends; it means they don't have to keep an eye on two young tackles, and can help one side as opposed to both Michael Ola and Jordan Mills. And a healthy offensive line means Jay Cutler can do more of the things he and the offense did last week; run well, have Alshon Jeffery (and Brandon Marshall) make plays, and score some touchdowns. The defense really came to play last week, can they put together another solid week against the Dolphins?

Let's find out.

To buy tickets, visit the NFL Ticket Exchange.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From the Lester A. Wiltfong, Jr Dept of Self Promotion:

Let's lead off with the best linkdump in the biz, the Weekend Bears Den. Spongie's got the links updated with game previews and such, so go check it out. Because Spongie's awesome.

Sam came up with three ways the Bears could win, or lose, today's game.

Dane decided to stir the pot a bit - Do you trust Jay Cutler late in the game?

I've put together this week's TV listings, the Six-Pack, and the PTMY.

Les has the injury report for the game right here.

Steve Ronkowski did some awesome playbook work, as did Les with the Sackwatch and the Matt Forte touchdown.

The procedures for today are the usual noon-game procedures: The game starts at noon, so the first-quarter thread will go live at kickoff, noon central, 1 PM ET, with subsequent quarterly threads appearing as the game progresses. At the end of the game, we'll have the quick recap for you as well as Notes on Monday morning (Yes, this time, in the morning, not at 7 PM or whenenver it posted this week). We'll also have a later games thread for your enjoyment after the game.

Now, with all the propers out of the way, Bear Down.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The WCG Sunday Livestream returns again this week; I'm back from Atlanta just in time for Sam to be unavailable this week, so it'll be just me, myself and I on the stream this morning. I'll be taking your comments, questions, and other remarks on one of three avenues:

• Here, yes here, in this very comment thread.
• Over at my Twitch channel at http://twitch.tv/sjs_illini
• Over on my Twitter at @SJS_illini.

We'll go live at 9:30 AM CT, so, here's the stream window. See you all then.

Watch live video from SJS_illini on www.twitch.tv