If you missed the eulogy to a bittersweet era of Cubs baseball, read that here.
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If you missed Monday’s recap of the Colts game, you can find that on https://sgctc.substack.com/. But I won’t link to that here, because that game is in the past.
As the great SGCTC-certified Jimmy Butler once said, rip the rearview windows out. Even though it may be an awful, dangerous decision as fans and drivers of cars moving forward, it’s the right move to get our mind right for Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Let’s. Go.
If the Bears play the way they played Sunday (last time I’ll mention it), they may lose by 40. But they won’t, because that’s sort of what the Bears do. They’re infuriatingly inconsistent, and their play can vary from game to game and half to half. That’s a bad thing after a promising performance and a good thing after an awful one.
And here we are after an awful one. Hello Thursday.
Thursday Night Football is, by all accounts, not a good idea for player safety or quality of play. But because we’re playing a 43-year-old who probably has to do twice the weird stretching, water chugging and avocado eating to rid himself of lactic acid from Sunday’s game, it bodes well for us.
And no matter how morally questionable it is, I absolutely love Thursday Night Football. Thursday is, objectively speaking, probably the best day of the week. Any other day is too close to Monday. You have the entire weekend to look forward to, and the option to have a few drinks or not.
When the game is over, you still have a full slate ahead of you. It’s like the pregame to Lollapalooza. The anticipation is always better than the actual thing, unless you’re on wildly illegal drugs — and I’m not here to judge.
Plus, half of you probably don’t do shit on Friday anyways. I, on the other hand, put my nose to the grindstone on Friday. Because once you’re done, there’s no better feeling than slamming that computer. (Full disclosure: My boss reads this.)
One of my favorite random things about the Bucs is that they — for absolutely no logical reason — used to be in the NFC North. One of the southernmost teams in the NFL was trucking up to Soldier Field and Lambeau for division rivalry matchups.
The conventional wisdom is that if you can get to Tom Brady and make him feel pressure, you can mitigate his greatness. I always think that’s kind of dumb, because that’s also how you contain, like, Chase Daniel. But with Brady, there is some truth to that, which bodes well for a team that has one of the top two rushers in football through four weeks, Khalil Mack (sorry for all you sack watchers), and theoretically one of the other best rushers in the league on the other side.
Robert Quinn clearly is not fully healthy. He’s been sidelined for 57% of the Bears snaps in the games he’s been active. In comparison, Mack has only been sidelined for 14% of them. To me, this suggest that Quinn’s ankle is bad enough that the Bears are still worried about throwing him out there for a full game, but it’s not bad enough for them to put him on the IR.
At some point, that snap count percentage is going to need to come up. The Bears need to force turnovers if their offense is going to continue to be below average, which it likely will, given the fact that it’s been mostly below average since 2018 when Matt Nagy arrived.
Turnovers are often due to luck, and one of the reasons why NFL experts predicted that the Bears would regress in 2019, because of all the turnovers they benefitted from in 2018. But there’s a difference between random fumbles and bad throws that lead to interceptions and created turnovers.
With two of the best edge rushers in the league, the Bears need to start creating turnovers. I’m hoping that if we are able to force a few of them tonight, it will be enough for us to pull off an upset.
Yes, an upset. The Bears are 3.5-point dogs “at home” tonight. I still think it’s ridiculous that some teams are able to have fans and others are not, which is clearly a competitive balance issue, and it’s all up to the politics of the governors and mayors in each respective state and city.
If the fourth phase can’t cause a raucous, why should Tampa Bay get to allow 10,000 people who probably have had some form of the coronavirus non-stop since they were born?
Brady is arguably the greatest quarterback of all time, and is still great. But he makes a lot more mistakes than he used to. He’s already thrown multiple pick-six’s this year, largely because he can’t make those same laser throws on out routes that he used to.
The question is whether he’ll learn from that (I assume he will) or continue to attempt to make those throws that should no longer be in his wheelhouse because he is a proud guy who has never had come to grips with losing a tangible skill.
Other than Brady’s football greatness, I worry about his fame in this game. It concerns me that the Bears have been called for BS personal foul penalties repeatedly this year and have yet to face a quarterback that the league is as hellbent on defending as Brady.
Less penalties, particularly of the 15-yard variety, will be crucial. As will turnovers.
I don’t see the Bears winning this game if they lose the turnover battle — Gee, thanks Cris Collinsworth — but seriously.
The good news about Nick Foles is that I sincerely doubt he can play as uninspiring of football as he did on Sunday. Another (half) week should mean Foles is that much more comfortable in the offense, whatever “the offense” is.
But Tom Brady and Mike Evans are not the only problems that the Bucs present. In fact, unfortunately — ignore the total points — the Bucs have one of the best two defenses in the league through four weeks according to DVOA.
The Bears are catching some breaks with Chris Godwin and LeSean McCoy being out. But there’s no way around it — the Bears need to play their best game of the season if they want a W tonight.
Sports are meant to be enjoyed — so enjoy tonight. Do as I say, not as I do. The Bears may have looked like shit last week, but that’s not what tonight is about.
And this remains true. Let’s lay it all out on the goddamn line tonight, get to 4-1 and allow a long rest to let us regroup before next Sunday’s game at Carolina.
Bear down. My prediction: Bears 27, Bucs 23. Three turnovers created by the Bears defense. All of us enjoy the hell out of a Victory Friday and take a BEAUTIFUL weather weekend in Chicago by storm.
Predictions and good vibes welcome in the comments:
STILL GOTTA COME THROUGH CHICAGOOOOO!
This might be the biggest game of the season for the bears, if we play like we did Sunday I could easily see the season go into a death spiral. I also won't be able to handle people calling for Mitch to come back in as the starter if Nicky 9 incher has another bad week. We need to push the ball downfield tonight and attack their young secondary. Lets go bears!!!!
Could not be more accurate with the inconsistent play point. I feel better going into games after losses which makes zero sense. After last week, I thought we would now be an 8-8 team. However, if they win this game I will be fully convinced we are making a deep playoff run. Prediction 17-13 Bears