State of the Bears: Week 1

Well... nobody saw that coming.

Not only did the Bears go down to Indy, while they were opening their new stadium, and beat them, they flat out kicked the Colts asses for 60 minutes.

The Bears defensive line was dominant. I'm sure the loss of Jeff Saturday had a lot to do with this, but no matter who the Bears rotated out there, they pressured Manning and stopped Addai. The Bears also did a lot of cool stuff strategically. Lots of different looks, lots of fronts, they walked the safeties up, they backed the LBs off, they stunted... they did everything possible to try and throw Manning off his game and I think they succeeded as much as one can against Peyton. This was the first time this Bears defense has been healthy since the San Diego game last season and it showed. It's a lot easier to blitz when you can trust a cornerback to be ok with only one guy over the top.

The most shocking aspect of this performance was the fact that the Bears, honest to goodness, outcoached the Colts. Babbich and Lovie came up with a way to beat that crusty old troll Tom Moore, which is more than most can say.

On the other side of the ball, it's all about Matt Forte, and that's both good and bad. I love this kid, and really, how can you not? Vision, moves, speed, durability. Four things this kid has in droves that have been hard to find in the Bears backfield recently. You can't really fault his performance. The problem is, there's not a whole lot else to be happy about. Yes the tight ends are good, but the quarterback isn't, and I don't believe either TE will be utalized nearly as often as they could or should be because of the guy behind center.

As for the guys on the ends, well... it doesn't get much worse than the 6 they trot out there on a weekly basis (though Seattle is going to give them a run for their money.) The Bears WRs caught a grand total of 6 balls for 50 yards. If I'm John Fox, I put eight in the box on every play against Forte until Orton finds a way to move the ball on his own, and if eight isn't enough to stop him, I'll go with nine. I have zero confidence in the Bears passing game, in any form, until they prove otherwise, which is why I'm still picking the Panthers this weekend.

So all in all... the state of the Bears is a hell of a lot better now than it was just last week. I still don't think this is a playoff team, but I do think we're now trending much closer to 'best case senario' than anyone could have predicted.