Dennis

Because the Bills having to face da Bears this Sunday scared the poop out of you? BEAR DOWN!!!

Just about all we saw from Seattle was 4 receiver sets. But we didn't go to the dime, we stayed in the nickel package and kept in 2 LBs. Urlacher and Briggs are fast enough that we can afford to do that against 4WRs. Our Defense stresses speed, not strength. Playing 60 minutes of no-huddle might gain you an advantage. Since our D is so fast, they tend to tire out more quickly as well. So you might just wear them out. But you'd better be damned good at your no-huddle, it increases the chances of Offensive mistakes greatly, as well as limiting your play-calling. Also, crowd noise at Soldier Field could prevent you from audibling at scrimmage, something you really need to do in a no-huddle. Seems like an awfully big risk to take...

Da Bears play from a "Cover-2" Defense all the time. That defensive scheme has very little blitzing, if any. The Safeties are back covering the 2 zones behind the LBs. The LBs usually cover the field vertically to help out the Secondary. But we still have 15 sacks so far this season. Almost all of the pressure comes from the front four. Our Secondary is very good and fast. Da Bears have 4 INTs so far and 10 fumble recoveries. No one has scored a passing TD on our D yet, in fact the sole rushing TD was scored when we were in a soft prevent defense in the 3rd Qtr against Detroit (score was 24-0 at the time). Since the Defense is already spread out in zone coverage, trying to "spread" them out more with 4 receiver sets doesn't work. Ask Seattle...

But look at how they won. Packers - SHUT OUT Brett Farve for the first time in his career of well over 220 games Detroit - Against a team that only the week before held the defending NFC Champs to 3 FGs we scored 34 points Vikings - against the up-and-coming rival Vikes (also 2-0 then) in a fight for the division lead we lost the game and then at the end came back to win in their house Seahawks - hosting the unbeaten (3-0) defending NFC Champs, we didn't just win, we totally dominated them. Shaun Alexander would not have made up the 31 point differential. Remember the 'Hawks scored 42 points against the Giants one week before playing us without Shaun Alexander Also, da Bears have allowed only ONE Offensive Touchdown in 4 games. And that only happened when we went into a soft prevent defense in the 3rd Qtr. against Detroit after running up the score 24-0 at Halftime. Our QB Rex Grossman has only been sacked 3 times in 4 games, even though all of our opponents tried to pressure Rex throughout the game in an attempt to force a mistake from an inexperienced QB.

I don't think you've watched many Bears games if you think that your players right now are that close to da Bears. Besides, it's not how the D-lines, etc. match up to each other that counts. It's how da Bears D-line matches up to the Bills O-line, da Bears Corners to the Bills WRs, da Bears LBs to the Bills RBs, etc. And how the Bills D-line matches up to da Bears O-line, Bills Corners to Bears WRs, Bills LBs to Bears RBs & TEs...

Da Bears have allowed only 7.2 points per game (lowest in the NFL), while scoring 29.0 points per game (#4 in the NFL). The Bills are allowing 16.2 points per game (#9 in the NFL) while scoring only 17.5 points per game (#19 in the NFL). Notice the difference? Da Bears are on average scoring over 4 times as many points as they allow. That speaks of a team that is very hard to beat. The Bills are almost breaking even in points scored vs. points allowed. That's a team that's still struggling to find ways to win. In any case, I hope that you can enjoy beating up on Detroit and Green Bay as we did..

Bowen shows as the starter on the Depth Chart @ nfl.com, but I won't argue - you know your team, I don't. Both teams are more-or-less healthy and at full strength. We got a break with Seattle. No, not Alexander - I think we could have contained him regardless. The Seahawks line was beat-up, particularly on the left side. We were able to go thru that side pretty well and get into their backfield to break up the pass all day. Since the Defenses are "carbon copies of each other," I assume that Buffalo plays out of a Cover-2 shell on most everything as well. In that case, I have to give da Bears the edge, since effective Cover-2 takes time to learn to play well. It's easy to blow a coverage. Remember that Grossman and the Offense practice against da Bears D all week long, so if Buffalo's copying our D, so we'll know how to handle it. Since you say your O-line is "smallish" and athletic I expect da Bears to pound it all day long, even platooning our linemen to stay fresh and keep up the pressure. An undersized line can be worn out by a relentless attack.

Specifically, what matches do you see in the Bills favor? Both teams seem to have healthy Offensive and Defensive lines. On Defense the Bills are down a starting LB (Spikes) and Strong Safety (Bowen). The Bears Offense is still missing one WR (Bradley) but Moose, Berrian, and Davis are doing OK without his help right now. On Offense, the Bills look healthy, as does da Bears Defense. So on the injuries front, the only difference would appear to be that the Bills D seems to have a slight disadvantage against da Bears O. Da Bears Offense has finally started rolling. Our WRs have the speed to get separation and the TEs have good hands to catch the dump-off passes when the WRS are covered up. Surprisingly, the weak spot is our running game. But that hasn't really hurt us yet. No one has been able to shut down our passing game yet, but sooner or later someone will. It's just a matter of the right team having enough game film to study. So our running game has to become a priority again. Our Defense is lights-out. Very fast. They REALLY fly around the field. But that means that they can be worn out by an opponent that manages to control the clock, as the Bills have been doing this season. Under the cover-2, they'll give up small gains but prevent the big play that keeps a drive going. They're also good at takeaways with 4 INTs and 6 recovered fumbles so far this season.

Da Bears started out playing two really bad teams, Green Bay and Detroit. And we did exactly what a good team is expected to do against a bad team. We stomped 'em flat. The Vikings are legitimate up-and-comers. They were tied with us @ 3-0 for the lead in the NFC North and had HFA in the Metrodome (where the 12th man really makes a difference). It was a bitter fight against a division rival for the #1 spot in the NFC North. The Seahawks are much more than just Shaun Alexander. Otherwise they wouldn't have run up 42 points against the Giants the week before we played them. They still have their QB, a healthy WR corps and other capable running backs, why couldn't they score more than a pair of FGs against us? Besides, Alexander doesn't play Defense - so how come we could score 37 points on the defending NFC Champs? I expect Sunday's game to be similar to the Vikings game, close and hard-fought on both sides of the ball. Buffalo seems to be just as legit an up-and-coming team as Minnesota. But ulitmately I expect that just as the Vikings haven't had enough time to gel as a team under a new Head Coach with a new playbook, the Bills will fall just a little short against the Bears greater team cohesion and ability to play all parts of the Coach's gameplan well. But da Bears do have real weak spots. Some would argue that although he's a 4th year vet, Grossman is really still a rookie because he's only played a handful of games. So he can be pressured to do rookie mistakes. The Vikings managed to force him (while trying to avoid an End Zone sack for a Safety) to toss a pick that they ran back for a TD. Rex doesn't scramble well, he tends to back up more and end up losing even more yards when he does get sacked. But he has a quick-release and is getting better with his reads. He unloads to the TE in the middle now instead of forcing a long one into coverage. So he's hard to get to quickly enough... On Defense, da Bears have trouble against POWERFUL running backs like Jerome Bettis or Mike Alstott. Those guys managed to dump Urlacher on his ass all day long last season. Da Bears D is built for speed, not sheer power.

Don't expect da Bears to be looking past Sunday's game or taking it easy in a "sure win" against Buffalo. Green Bay and Detroit were "gimmie" games. Chicago didn't just take the "gimmie," they pounded the Packers and Lions as hard as they could. I think that they did start to look past Minnesota a little at the Seattle game, but the Vikings reminded them that was a bad idea. They haven't had time to forget that. Da Bears see a chance this week to go 5-0. They haven't done that since 1986 when the reigning Superbowl Champs went 6-0 before losing to the Vikings in week 7. Da Bears are serious about a Superbowl run this year, and so are being compared to the '85 Superbowl winners. They want to prove themselves BETTER than that squad, so they are approaching EVERY game like a playoff game. Be prepared...

Da Bears O-line have been giving Grossman plenty of protection and time to make the play. But da Bears O-line is getting a little old. If you could overload one side and get into the backfield with Grossman you might have a chance. Although he has looked pretty good under pressure, sometimes he just dumps the ball to avoid the sack too quickly or else he tends to run away from scrimmage resulting in a bigger loss on the sack. Rex seems to be getting over his tendency to throw a pick under that kind of pressure, but he did allow Minnesota to score on a pick while he tried to avoid a sack for a Safety. That's the only weak point in the Bears passing game right now. The WRs are getting good separation or else the TEs are wide open. The running game has been subpar, but we mounted such a lead against Seattle that we were able to tinker with it during the game. So that may change as well... Don't count on beating the Bears D. They don't lay down too often...