Bears vs Saints Week 8: Bears uncuff the Biscuit in 12-20 loss on the road

Full box score can be found here.

The Bears came into the superdome knowing they wouldn’t be able to win with 7 pass attempts, and this game offered more opportunity for the development of Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears’ passing game.

The young QB continued to show he can protect the ball while intermittently flashing the accuracy and athleticism that got him drafted second overall. This game has been Trubisky’s most encouraging so far, mostly because we got to see more of him. He made some great plays and some clutch throws, but he also made some surprisingly inaccurate throws. He’s clearly still developing, but I feel more optimistic about him than ever after this one.

In the end this game came down to 8 points, the exact total of points attributable to Kyle Fuller’s pointless off-sides penalty on the first drive, and the official’s bizarre reversal of Zach Miller’s touchdown. Every game comes down to the little things in the end, but this one felt particularly painful.

Costly Mistakes

The game couldn’t have started worse for the Bears. In the first drive, Bryce callahan trips himself up and misses a tackle at the line of scrimmage on 3rd down that leads to a 50 yard run after catch. The Bears managed to hold the Saints to a field goal after that, but Kyle fuller lines up in the neutral zone on the Field Goal try and the penalty gives the Saints a first down that led to an Alvin Kamara walk-in TD.

Zach Miller takes one for the team absolutely nothing

If you’re going to get injuried, going down on a heroic one handed catch in the end zone for a touchdown would be a good way to do it.

Unfortunately, that opportunity was shockingly robbed from Miller when the catch was overturned on replay, causing not only Bears fans, but national media, and even division rival Golden Tate to question the bizarre call and express outrage on twitter.

Personally, I think it’s pretty tasteless to take a touchdown from a man who was injured on the play, even if the reasoning were more acceptable. I think the NFL is hurting itself by making outrageous reversals like this.

The fact that the Bears were able to continue to play hard after this speaks to their mental toughness in a very encouraging way.

Bears win the turnover battle again

By causing the first 2 fumble game for Mark Ingram’s career. While we mention firsts, this was the first 3 sack game for Brees this season. This Bears defense is the real deal, even if they do keep making mistakes to keep us on our toes ala Callahan and Fuller.

Some new variety on the offensive play calling

Tarik Cohen lining up as receiver and not being targeted? Two 3-step drops on the first drive? Power running plays? Deep passes to Tre McBride? Dare I say I saw a slant?! I attribute this to fan whining about the predictability of the offense. You are welcome.

Akiem Hicks

Continues to dominate, and his sack against his former team today brought him up to 7, tying his previous sack record and putting him on pace for 14 sacks, which would beat anyone except Vic Beasley last year. As a 3-4 defensive end, this is beyond impressive. I’m so glad the Bears resigned him before the season started.

Eddie Goldman

The big nose tackle has had a quietly terrific seaso so far, but his preence was felt a little louder today. In addition to being a relentless force in the run game, Goldman picked up a fumble with ursine grace and for a moment, some of us thought we would see a lumbering run down into the end zone. That didn’t happen... And the fumble was reversed. But I think he caught everyone’s eye in that moment.

Jordan Howard

Jo Ho was able to predictably dominate the Saints run defense and delight my eyeballs with broken tackles and explosive bursts for extra yards.

Two weeks, two sacks in field goal range followed by missed kicks

The Bears need to get a better kicker or be more careful in field goal territory.

Check Downs

Mitchell Trubisky definitely improved his decision making in knowing when to turn and throw to his check down with some positive results . One good thing about Trubisky’s development this season is that is giving him lots of experience in seeing that a receiver is too well covered and knowing to move on.

Not a great week for Bears fans, but at least we got to see some excitement on offense.