Chicago Bears vs New Orleans Saints: NFL Week 7 Pre-Party Livestream and Open Thread

Good morning. Did you have a productive bye week? I spent mine doing chores and playing FFXIV with friends. Hopefully the Bears spent their’s getting good at football.

The Bears’ trip to London brought the fans’ world falling down (okay, we needed one more London pun...) as carrying a 3-2 record (tied for 3rd/4th in the NFC North) into the bye with, at the time, the toughest remaining schedule in the NFL is not a recipe for optimism already. Kyle Long hitting injured reserve elicits mixed feelings - on the one hand, Long (and a large chunk of the offensive line) have not been playing up to reputation, but on the other hand, welcome to the starting right guard position, Ted Larsen and Rashaad Coward. Akiem Hicks hitting injured reserve, not as many mixed feelings. Kahlil Mack and the Bears were held sackless by the Raiders. In short, not exactly a two-week stretch the Bears were hoping for.

But, maybe there’s a little light. Four of the Bears’ next five opponents all lost their most recent game, and the fifth won an ugly 13-6 game - coincidentally, that’s the one they’re playing today. After two weeks of watching Chase Daniel, the Bears get Mitchell Trubisky back in a starting role today. Maybe the bye gave everybody a chance to focus. Maybe Matt Nagy found the plays that work buried in the back of the playbook.

The Teddy Bridgewater-led Saints have been a mixed bag of production - they’ve scored 30 points in three of their six games (33 and 31 under Teddy), but they’ve also put up three games of 13 points or fewer. Without Alvin Kamara against a Navy and Orange defense looking for redemption after the London debacle, if the Bears are going to get themselves back into the NFC North conversation...

Announcing it with a win at home today would be huge. Bear Down, my friends.

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Sam’s off today, so today Jeff’s volunteered to hop on in his stead. I’ll lead off solo for a minute and he’ll join us when he’s able to make it. That’s okay, because we have a lot to talk about - things such as strength of schedule weirdness and the weirdness of the Bears’ season so far. Plus I’ve been winning the Madden games lately. Weird!

• Which upcoming game worries you the most?
• Who’s the most dangerous team in the NFC?
• With four games remaining against the NFC North, are you worried about the Bears’ divisional finish?

If you want to get in touch with us during the stream, there are several ways to do that:

• Check the comments down below. You know, the comments in this post. Here on WCG. The ones I’ll be reading.
• Chat over on our Twitch side, over at SJS_illini
• And of course our Twitters exist. I’m at @SJS_illini; Jeff’s at @gridironborn; the main handle is @WCGridiron.

We’ll be live at about 9:30 AM CT. See you then.