Anybody else watching this? Bears defense isn't impressing. Gore had a 28 yard run earlier and the backup had a 16 yard run. To top it off, they're secondary isn't looking that great. The 49ers offensive line is doing an ok job of keeping Sullivan off his back, I think they've allowed one sack. EDIT: Bears just got beat two consecutive times on a deep pass. Davis beat the secondary then Jason Hill scored on a deep pass. My God, Bears fumbled on two straight kickoffs. Recovered the first one but not the second. Alex Smith is in.
The Bears' D is still coasting on their 2006 performance. They've done nothing since then to justify the praise. I'm not surprised that Gore and DeShaun Foster are getting things done against them.
Lol, the thing is that Foster isn't even playing. Its the third stringer whose making plays against their first string defense. Are you watching it? Its local channels but I don't know how it is down south for you guys. Alex Smith has happy feet back there. He doesn't look comfortable imo. The Bears offense is looking pretty good especially Rashied Davis. Jason Hill is going to be something special.
I've got DirecTV, but no NFL Sunday Ticket. I just catch the replays on NFL Network. (My DVR is near full from all the recordings...) I really like Gore and Foster this year.
Bears defense is stepping up. They seem to have missed some tackles early in the game but have shaped up. They were just talking about Bob Babich, the DC, being on the hot seat. Alex Smith isn't impressing me. He can't hit a wide open guy. He constantly throws it behind the receiver. Earlier in the ball game he threw a pass toward the sideline that wasn't pretty and he had a receiver wide open off of a curl route. He still has happy feet. Only thing that I've liked so far in this game from Smith is the mobility, he scrambled for a 11 yard gain when the receivers were covered but that's it. He just threw a nice TD pass but I still don't think he will win this job. I know Nolan wants to decide on the starting QB after this game. I've yet to see Shaun Hill though. Grossman is now entering the game. I thought Orton looked pretty good tonight and he's been named the starter by the team. One off-topic note is that the Giants Kicker Lawrence Tynes suffered an injury and could be out until mid-season. A possible fill-in is Jay Feely. EDIT: LOL blocked punt by Brandon Lloyd. Never thought I'd see the guy run at full speed.
I gotta say, the 49ers backup RB's are looking good. Thomas Clayton and Keasy have made some plays. Both are fast. Keasy was a former LB who converted to FB but has gotten looks at both RB and FB. He's a nice ST player as well. I like Clayton though, nice speed and shifty. A lot of the plays so far seem to have been running plays on both sides. Grossman threw a pass that sailed over a open receiver and got booed heavily. Hill hasn't done much other than hand-offs. Caleb Hanie of Chicago is coming in. Some Bears fans have brought up Hanie at the QB spot. He came in earlier in the first quarter I think and threw a touchdown pass but then sat down again. EDIT: Shaun Hill has thrown some passes, at the moment he's 6 for 7. He has about 60 yards passing.They all seemed to be short passes and then turned into longer gains if you ask me. Looking at Hanie, I'm basing this off of one play but it seems as if he holds on to the ball too long. He could have thrown away a pass but just held on to it and took the sack. Typical rookie mistake. Btw, Urlacher and Patrick Willis just did an interview. Man you got to love these two guys. Urlacher was pissed but kept it "clean" to Pam Oliver. Willis was talking about how he studies film non-stop. Hell of a LB he's going to be.
One big note to pass along that I forgot to mention earlier was that WR Josh Morgan started today. He has been very impressive in camp. He has good leaping ability and good hands. They like him a lot and believe they have a young Torry Holt in him. I'm not going to go that far with him but I do like him a lot. Many thought he would be a PS candidate but he's beaten out the competition and may have solidified that number two spot opposite of Bruce. Morgan did not have a catch tonight but it wasn't his fault. Many throws were completely off while Morgan was open. Those passes were thrown by Alex Smith who seems to have lost this job to O'Sullivan, who looked good tonight. The bad passes included one that lead Morgan across the middle right into Mike Brown who blasted Morgan. Another couple had Morgan running across the middle but the ball was thrown behind him and the last one was way off when Morgan ran a nice curl route on Tillman and got open, only to have Smith throw it out of his reach.
My analysis of the game. Chicago Forte could be the back Chicago was expecting Benson to be, and he'll come with a cheaper price tag and a better attitude. Orton for what they have on the roster is and has been for awhile the best choice for starting QB. He controlled the clock and managed the drives very well. R. Davis had alot of good receptions, def. the player of the game for Chicago, IMO. Manning on SP looked good, he hits the holes as fast as a bullet. Not bad for being the backup. Kevin Jones saw limited carries but looked good, first run he broke a 20 yarder I think. Him and Forte are going to have to be consistent for the O to succeed. The line looked good St. Claire is filling in well for Williams at Lt. Now for the defense. I'm sorry I thought they looked pathetic. The starting D gave up 27 points almost all in the first half. Missed tackles, blown coverage, the secondary looked confused at times. Bob Babich is in serious hot water, IMO. These guys are some of the highest paid D players in the league. No way they should do this poorly. Why Rivera was ousted still blows me away. I wont even talk about Grossman...please.... S.F. J.T. O'Sullivan should be the starter, period. He has complete control of the scheme and the tempo he runs. Gore looked like the old Gore of two yrs ago. Martz is going to turn Davis into a top 5 TE in this league by the end of the yr. The defense looked good, some questions up front. The front four got pushed around alot. Spikes will be starting by week 3, odd man out, IMO, Lawson. Backup RB's for 49er's were decent but ran against the second team D of Chicago. Clayton is an explosive runner who cuts on a dime.
Yeah, I liked what Forte did in the game. On the fourth down run, he impressed me. I agree that the defense looked bad in the first half but in the second, they looked much better in my opinion. Btw, I like Beekman out of BC for the Bears. He looks to be a good linemen for them. Also, they are looking at bringing in Fred Miller to play Tackle to fill in for Williams who is likely out for the season with the back injury. I think Miller played for them the last few years. Regarding the 49ers side, O'Sullivan did look good like you said. Gore is going to be a monster in that offense that Martz will use. I think you'll see MANY catches from Gore and close to 1200 yards rushing. As for Davis, I really like him and I find it interesting how they are going to use him. One thing that caught me was that one of the commentators talked about how Davis was watching video of WR's, not TE's. He'll be a good TE in this league but I don't see him being a top five guy for a couple years. He definitely has the complete package. I have to disagree with you on Lawson though. I can't see him being on the outs. He was a first round pick that prior to the ACL injury, was a key part to that defense. He's a very athletic player who moves quick for a linebacker. They won't give up on him just yet. He's a good player once he's healthy and it will take him some time this year to get used to the game again but he'll be fine. Spikes will be the starting ILB so he can take on blockers for Willis. I'm not sure if your saying that Spikes will replace Lawson or not but Lawson I believe is an OLB while Spikes will play inside as mentioned previously.
