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Good morning. Week 11 finds the Bears in that weird, awkward place between “Mathematically having something to play for yet” and “Hmm, I wonder what time the Blackhawks are on.”
Sure, any number of fans can hope that the team packs it in en route to a top 3 draft pick and looking like fertilizer for DeShone Kizer, but between key pieces on this roster auditioning for other teams and rookies showing what they can do in the remaining ticks of the 2016 season, that just doesn’t happen. So today, the 2-7 Bears go against the New York Giants looking to rebound from a simply atrocious performance last week.
The Giants, despite a very solid win-loss record, haven’t done it without some nail-biting of their own. All six of their wins to this point have all been within a single score and two of their three losses have been to NFC North teams, including a 14-point loss to the Vikings back on week 4. They also start with and allow bad field position, don’t hold on to the ball for long stretches of time, and occasionally are prone to bouts of turnoveritis.
(Does that last sentence sound like another team we all know?)
Nevertheless, they’re 6-3 and face a Bears team that, given a really good opportunity to string together back to back wins, found a way to look worse than anyone thought possible. For the Navy and Orange to win this game, it starts with not turning the ball over, getting the ball to Cameron Meredith and Zach Miller if they find their way into open space, and methodically churning out first downs. Should be a good time.
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Gameday Linkage Below: Let’s go.
Week 11 Previews: Game Preview (Sam) | Key Players (Sam) | Injury Report (Les)
Bears In Transition: Coach Edition: Candidates to Replace Fox (Zerg) | Fox’s Bears Need to Show More Life (Zerg)
Bears In Transition: Quarterback Edition: Free Agent Quarterbacks (Dane) | Any ‘16 Bears on the ‘17 Core? (Les) | Bears Scouting Kaaya (Les)
Bears In Transition: Miscellany: Receivers No Longer Go To Chicago to Die (Zerg) | Robbie Gould Strikes Back (Jack)
Power Rankings: WCG Rankings (Ken) | Roundup (Les)
Propers and procedures of course, opening thread goes live at noon, with subsequent threads popping as the game goes on. We’ll follow the game immediately with our quick recap as well as our threads for the late games, and I’ll be back with Scribbles in the morning.
And with all the propers out of the way... Bear Down.
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The WCG Sunday Livestream doesn’t stop, nor do we believe WCG has lost faith in us. Sam and I will be in to entertain you for two hours leading up towards kickoff with mostly bad Madden and occasionally entertaining and correct analysis.
If you want to get a hold of us, there are a number of ways to do that:
- Here on this page. Look down, that’s a comment thread.
- Over on the Twitch site itself at /sjs_illini
- And over on the Twitters. I’m @SJS_illini, he’s @SamHouseholder.
We’ll go live at 9:30 AM CT, and we’ll see you then.