Bears at Bills Official Game Thread (Sun, Nov 4, 12:00 PM CST/FOX/Bears -10, O/U 37.5)

[adam]

Bears favored by 10 on the road. The Bills defense is very good but their offense is arguably one of the worst in the league. They have scored 37 points in their last 5 games (averaging just over 7 per game) and are coming off a MNF loss to NE. 

In contrast, the Bears have scored less than 23 once (in a 16-14 win). Just based on averages, we should be winning this 24-10 in a game comparable to last week. 

It's all about taking away McCoy. Hopefully, our LB's neutralize him out of the backfield. 

Sunday weather looks like it is going be partly sunny and in the mid to high 40's. Winds will be around 10 mph. So weather should not be any worse than last week.

Bears final injury report for the week: 
Out: Braunecker (concussion), Long (foot)
Questionable: Mack (ankle), Robinson (groin), Nichols (knee)
Good to go: Kush (neck)

I am going with Bears 27-10 to stay 1st in Division. DET plays at MIN, and GB plays at NE.  So there is a great chance that 2 Division teams will lose and we know one will at a minimum barring another tie. 

Bears 5-3
Vikes 5-3-1
Packers 3-4-1
Lions 3-5

or

Bears 5-3
Vikes 4-4-1
Lions 4-4
Packers 3-4-1

WC Watching, SEA plays at home against SD, and CAR plays TB at home. 

[Stinger226]

this site closed down now? Bears are kicking ass and no one has anything to say?

Recap, MT not on today

            D is not missing Mack

           J Howard back in the game plan.

[ChileBear]

36 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

this site closed down now? Bears are kicking ass and no one has anything to say?

Recap, MT not on today

            D is not missing Mack

           J Howard back in the game plan.

I'm listening on the radio and loving it. Taking care of biz on both sides of the ball.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

Trubisky’s tendency to overthrow comes back to haunt him.  INT to Buffalo. 

D is looking solid. Roquan building on his tackle total. 

And add a sack by Isaiah Irving.  

[BearFan2000]

We sure are getting called for a lot of BS penalties at key times. Billed helped out a lot on that cheap TD

[Bears4Ever_34]

This game has been so bad on all levels. The officiating has been absolutely atrocious. Bears offense going backwards, the defense forcing turnovers, but still can't get to the quarterback. 

It's really going to come down to these next 3 weeks to determine how legitimate this team is at making the playoffs. If you had to ask me today, my gut tells me they're no better than the 3rd best team in the division. 

[Connorbear]

Good win for the team.  The defense took advantage of a bad offense and the offense did just enough.  

As Bears4Ever_34 said, the next 3 weeks are the season.  Two wins and we have a good shot at the playoffs.  Let's see how it plays out. 

Peace

 

 

[Bill]

All things considered this was an ugly game.  Almost any other team and we lose.  Sloppy play and the offense was not fun to watch.  Best bright spot was A. Smith on D.  He is now starting to play like a real difference maker.  I look forward to next week and hope for the return of Mack and Robinson, who has had no effect on the offense yet. 

[Stinger226]

34 minutes ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

This game has been so bad on all levels. The officiating has been absolutely atrocious. Bears offense going backwards, the defense forcing turnovers, but still can't get to the quarterback. 

It's really going to come down to these next 3 weeks to determine how legitimate this team is at making the playoffs. If you had to ask me today, my gut tells me they're no better than the 3rd best team in the division. 

You watching the Bears game, lots of pressure on Peterman, offense out of sink , lots of penalties that took us out of drives. Noisy place to play it showed up. 

[Stinger226]

1 minute ago, Bill said:

All things considered this was an ugly game.  Almost any other team and we lose.  Sloppy play and the offense was not fun to watch.  Best bright spot was A. Smith on D.  He is now starting to play like a real difference maker.  I look forward to next week and hope for the return of Mack and Robinson, who has had no effect on the offense yet. 

If you like defense it was beautiful, offense was ugly but did enough to not have a repeat  of Miami game, I could care less if we won 3-2, its about winning not style points.

[adam]

30 minutes ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

This game has been so bad on all levels. The officiating has been absolutely atrocious. Bears offense going backwards, the defense forcing turnovers, but still can't get to the quarterback. 

It's really going to come down to these next 3 weeks to determine how legitimate this team is at making the playoffs. If you had to ask me today, my gut tells me they're no better than the 3rd best team in the division. 

I agree on the officiating, but not much else. The offense was missing Robinson and Long, and still is missing Shaheen. My biggest concern is Trubisky's accuracy on his deep throws. I can't remember a long one he hit with a receiver in stride. He has been overthrowing receivers for weeks. We need to figure out what is going on there. 

The defense was without Mack again and they completely dominated the game and scored twice. I will take a pick-6 over a sack every time. We had 4 sacks and several negated by BS penalties and one resulted in intentional grounding. So we should've had 7-8 sacks easily. Now did they miss a few sure, but that would've put them in double digits. I thought the defense played great.

3rd best team? If the Packers lose against NE, they will have a losing record, they are not better than us. Minnesota, possibly, but we have yet to play them, so time will tell there. 

I don't care how we got here, but we are 5-3 at the halfway point in the season and in 1st place in the Division. 

[Stinger226]

I replayed all of L. Floyd plays and he actually played well. His problem is when blockers get to his body he has a hard time separating. I think all of that is related to his hand injury. You need your arms to fed off blockers and not being able to workout his are strength while he was in a cast. I think he will be just fine going forward as his gains his arm strength.  

[Stinger226]

2 minutes ago, adam said:

I agree on the officiating, but not much else. The offense was missing Robinson and Long, and still is missing Shaheen. My biggest concern is Trubisky's accuracy on his deep throws. I can't remember a long one he hit with a receiver in stride. He has been overthrowing receivers for weeks. We need to figure out what is going on there. 

The defense was without Mack again and they completely dominated the game and scored twice. I will take a pick-6 over a sack every time. We had 4 sacks and several negated by BS penalties and one resulted in intentional grounding. So we should've had 7-8 sacks easily. Now did they miss a few sure, but that would've put them in double digits. I thought the defense played great.

3rd best team? If the Packers lose against NE, they will have a losing record, they are not better than us. Minnesota, possibly, but we have yet to play them, so time will tell there. 

I don't care how we got here, but we are 5-3 at the halfway point in the season and in 1st place in the Division. 

MT is just a work in progress and will have good days and bad days. I think his biggest problem is not having his feet set when throwing. It will be a slow progress but I think he has some of the better teachers in the NFL, so will be no problem going forward.

[ChileBear]

16 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

MT is just a work in progress and will have good days and bad days. I think his biggest problem is not having his feet set when throwing. It will be a slow progress but I think he has some of the better teachers in the NFL, so will be no problem going forward.

I agree. Big picture here--we beat the Bills by 32pts, are 5-3 and in first place. We ARE a very good team that still needs to gel to be what we all want. I love it and also agree that these next 3 games are the key to this season. BEAR DOWN!

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Can we say Roquan Smith arrived? Heck of a stat sheet today.  A lot of the young kids got plenty of reps today also. 

[ChileBear]

13 minutes ago, ASHKUM BEAR said:

Can we say Roquan Smith arrived? Heck of a stat sheet today.  A lot of the young kids got plenty of reps today also. 

Yep, heard his name alot on the radio.

[AZ54]

I only got to watch the last quarter of the game but I will take a 41-9 win  every day of the week and I don't care how we get there.  This is against the same team that held the Patriots to a 12-6 game through 3 quarters last week.  

[AZ54]

9 hours ago, ChileBear said:

I agree. Big picture here--we beat the Bills by 32pts, are 5-3 and in first place. We ARE a very good team that still needs to gel to be what we all want. I love it and also agree that these next 3 games are the key to this season. BEAR DOWN!

I don't understand this modern approach to sports where people can't celebrate a good ass kicking.  I don't see too much negativity here but around the internet it's pretty bad considering the final score.  You might think Trubisky kicked someone's dog.  Wins are never perfect, even blowout wins.  Entire seasons are much less so and especially with a young roster.  I'm old enough to remember watching the '85 Bears and I can say some of today's fans would have been very critical of that team during the season.  Take a look at some of those games and below is a summary of the Packers game we won 16-10.  People would have wanted to bench McMahon and there'd have been criticism of Payton for not getting going until his 4th quarter TD.  A Bears DT was the leading receiver in fantasy points too.  It's sports and if we took the human nature out if and it were perfect I wouldn't watch it.   

We're winning games without some key players on the field.  We're doing that by getting contributions from many players on both sides of the ball, and who that is differs from week to week.  This is not the teams of the last few years where we were forced to rely on a few select players to have a good game or we lost.  For me that is the biggest improvement this season and it's become very apparent the last month.    

My only regret is that I'm on vacation this week and won't be able to talk about teams in the playoff hunt with the Packer fans at work.   

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Chicago_Bears_season

"The Packers increased tensions in the Bears-Packers rivalry after putting horse manure in the Bears locker room. However, the Bears had the last laugh against their hated rival, winning 16–10, and Perry scored his first career receiving touchdown along the way. Green Bay's Mark Lee and Ken Stillsintensified the game after Lee sent Payton over a bench and Stills leveled Matt Suhey.^[16] With the Bears in trouble and trailing 10-7 in the 4th quarter, a Steve McMichael safety proved to be the key play that turned the game. This cut the lead to 10-9 and the Bears got the ball at midfield following the safety free kick. On the ensuing drive, Walter Payton sealed the victory with a 27 yard touchdown run, putting Chicago up for keeps 16-10."

[ChileBear]

4 hours ago, AZ54 said:

I don't understand this modern approach to sports where people can't celebrate a good ass kicking.  I don't see too much negativity here but around the internet it's pretty bad considering the final score.  You might think Trubisky kicked someone's dog.  Wins are never perfect, even blowout wins.  Entire seasons are much less so and especially with a young roster.  I'm old enough to remember watching the '85 Bears and I can say some of today's fans would have been very critical of that team during the season.  Take a look at some of those games and below is a summary of the Packers game we won 16-10.  People would have wanted to bench McMahon and there'd have been criticism of Payton for not getting going until his 4th quarter TD.  A Bears DT was the leading receiver in fantasy points too.  It's sports and if we took the human nature out if and it were perfect I wouldn't watch it.   

We're winning games without some key players on the field.  We're doing that by getting contributions from many players on both sides of the ball, and who that is differs from week to week.  This is not the teams of the last few years where we were forced to rely on a few select players to have a good game or we lost.  For me that is the biggest improvement this season and it's become very apparent the last month.    

My only regret is that I'm on vacation this week and won't be able to talk about teams in the playoff hunt with the Packer fans at work.   

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Chicago_Bears_season

"The Packers increased tensions in the Bears-Packers rivalry after putting horse manure in the Bears locker room. However, the Bears had the last laugh against their hated rival, winning 16–10, and Perry scored his first career receiving touchdown along the way. Green Bay's Mark Lee and Ken Stillsintensified the game after Lee sent Payton over a bench and Stills leveled Matt Suhey.^[16] With the Bears in trouble and trailing 10-7 in the 4th quarter, a Steve McMichael safety proved to be the key play that turned the game. This cut the lead to 10-9 and the Bears got the ball at midfield following the safety free kick. On the ensuing drive, Walter Payton sealed the victory with a 27 yard touchdown run, putting Chicago up for keeps 16-10."

Love the post AZ.

 

[Stinger226]

5 hours ago, AZ54 said:

I don't understand this modern approach to sports where people can't celebrate a good ass kicking.  I don't see too much negativity here but around the internet it's pretty bad considering the final score.  You might think Trubisky kicked someone's dog.  Wins are never perfect, even blowout wins.  Entire seasons are much less so and especially with a young roster.  I'm old enough to remember watching the '85 Bears and I can say some of today's fans would have been very critical of that team during the season.  Take a look at some of those games and below is a summary of the Packers game we won 16-10.  People would have wanted to bench McMahon and there'd have been criticism of Payton for not getting going until his 4th quarter TD.  A Bears DT was the leading receiver in fantasy points too.  It's sports and if we took the human nature out if and it were perfect I wouldn't watch it.   

We're winning games without some key players on the field.  We're doing that by getting contributions from many players on both sides of the ball, and who that is differs from week to week.  This is not the teams of the last few years where we were forced to rely on a few select players to have a good game or we lost.  For me that is the biggest improvement this season and it's become very apparent the last month.    

My only regret is that I'm on vacation this week and won't be able to talk about teams in the playoff hunt with the Packer fans at work.   

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Chicago_Bears_season

"The Packers increased tensions in the Bears-Packers rivalry after putting horse manure in the Bears locker room. However, the Bears had the last laugh against their hated rival, winning 16–10, and Perry scored his first career receiving touchdown along the way. Green Bay's Mark Lee and Ken Stillsintensified the game after Lee sent Payton over a bench and Stills leveled Matt Suhey.^[16] With the Bears in trouble and trailing 10-7 in the 4th quarter, a Steve McMichael safety proved to be the key play that turned the game. This cut the lead to 10-9 and the Bears got the ball at midfield following the safety free kick. On the ensuing drive, Walter Payton sealed the victory with a 27 yard touchdown run, putting Chicago up for keeps 16-10."

I always take a realistic view of my sports teams but I am forever an optimist. I think by an over view of people on here it is easy to the positive members and the negative ones. Your so right, I am happy with a blowout even when the offense does not look good. To be honest, if we won 3-2 I would be happy. 5-3, first place and a couple blowouts this year, Im all in.

[Mongo3451]

I agree.  A 32 point road victory is just that.  I can't wait for Trubisky to stop over throwing the deep pass, cause it's going to get ugly when he does!

4 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

I always take a realistic view of my sports teams but I am forever an optimist. I think by an over view of people on here it is easy to the positive members and the negative ones. Your so right, I am happy with a blowout even when the offense does not look good. To be honest, if we won 3-2 I would be happy. 5-3, first place and a couple blowouts this year, Im all in.

 

[ChileBear]

3 hours ago, Mongo3451 said:

I agree.  A 32 point road victory is just that.  I can't wait for Trubisky to stop over throwing the deep pass, cause it's going to get ugly when he does!

 

Na, Mongo, it's going to be FANfriginTASTIC! Looking forward to Mack and Robinson back. But hey, how 'bout those "next man up" guys? We've really not had tis kind of depth for a while, and in the NFL, you need it. Oh, and they are mostly young, hungry guys. Yeah, I'm all in on the direction we're going.

[BearFan2000]

8 hours ago, AZ54 said:

I don't understand this modern approach to sports where people can't celebrate a good ass kicking.  I don't see too much negativity here but around the internet it's pretty bad considering the final score.  You might think Trubisky kicked someone's dog.  Wins are never perfect, even blowout wins.  Entire seasons are much less so and especially with a young roster.  I'm old enough to remember watching the '85 Bears and I can say some of today's fans would have been very critical of that team during the season.  Take a look at some of those games and below is a summary of the Packers game we won 16-10.  People would have wanted to bench McMahon and there'd have been criticism of Payton for not getting going until his 4th quarter TD.  A Bears DT was the leading receiver in fantasy points too.  It's sports and if we took the human nature out if and it were perfect I wouldn't watch it.   

We're winning games without some key players on the field.  We're doing that by getting contributions from many players on both sides of the ball, and who that is differs from week to week.  This is not the teams of the last few years where we were forced to rely on a few select players to have a good game or we lost.  For me that is the biggest improvement this season and it's become very apparent the last month.    

My only regret is that I'm on vacation this week and won't be able to talk about teams in the playoff hunt with the Packer fans at work.   

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_Chicago_Bears_season

"The Packers increased tensions in the Bears-Packers rivalry after putting horse manure in the Bears locker room. However, the Bears had the last laugh against their hated rival, winning 16–10, and Perry scored his first career receiving touchdown along the way. Green Bay's Mark Lee and Ken Stillsintensified the game after Lee sent Payton over a bench and Stills leveled Matt Suhey.^[16] With the Bears in trouble and trailing 10-7 in the 4th quarter, a Steve McMichael safety proved to be the key play that turned the game. This cut the lead to 10-9 and the Bears got the ball at midfield following the safety free kick. On the ensuing drive, Walter Payton sealed the victory with a 27 yard touchdown run, putting Chicago up for keeps 16-10."

Well put.  In today's age with social media and forums like this and podcasts it's a different environment where games are nitpicked and overanalyzed to death.  No win by any team is perfect.  I thought the D played great and took what the bills gave them.  I feel like we got after Petermen but could have easily had more sacks had we not been called for some very iffy penalties. Officiating was atrocious.  I feel like the turnovers for the most part weren't of the dumb luck variety but were good athletic plays.  Every week it seems we've had opportunities to make plays like that and missed this week we made those plays.  Probably could have had a couple more.  The D came up with 3 picks and a fumble two of which returned for scores.  We had 4 sacks.  Defense got us 14 points and they gave up 9 pts. which really should have been just 3 as the Bills were helped tremendously on their lone TD drive.  Seemed like the officials were calling sympathy penalties.  It was far more annoying knowing that that TD ended their streak of not scoring.  It felt really cheap. Outside of that their offense managed a single FG the entire game.  I'd say the D held it's own.

The offense added 27 points but the way people are talking (not just here) you'd think they did nothing to contribute.  Sure the D got the team rolling and the offense wasn't overly sharp at times.  This was a day that the offense didn't need to do a lot.  We were without Robinson.   This proved to be a perfect opportunity to let him and Mack heal up some more for when they will be needed starting next week.  

All in all we beat a bad team 41-9.  We are 5-3 and could arguably be 6-2 or 7-1.  We've already matched last season's win total with 8 games to go.  We're in first place in our division with 3 critical games next on the docket.  We host a crumbling Lions team (what's new), then host the Vikings, followed by a road game at Detroit on Thanksgiving.  Minny is on bye next week so we could go into our matchup in week 11 at 6-3 facing a 5-3-1 Vikings team who is beatable (one of their losses is to the Bills we just blew out).  It's not out of the realm of possibility that we  run the table on the next three games and emerge 8-3 with a 3-1 division record and well on top of our division.  These three games will be very crucial.  Even winning 2 of 3 sits us at 7-4.  The Bears have put themselves in a good position to control their own destiny.  Offense is a work in progress and we're winning games while we learn which is a plus in my book.  I don't expect us to make a serious run at the SB this year but do feel we are a playoff caliber team now.  At this point New Orleans looks to be the cream of the NFC crop along with LA and even Atlanta getting hot.  NFC north feels like a two team race now between us and Minn.  Win that and we're guaranteed no less than a #4 seed.  Take care of business these next 8 weeks and we can secure that spot.  Once the playoffs start anything can and does happen.  

[Stinger226]

Look at all the top teams in the NFC, Vikings are good and seem to be getting back into a groove but I think we have the best D of all of the playoff contenders. Everyone rated LA Rams as the best but have yet to show that. Our defense will put us in the position to win, as the O gets more stability and MT grows. We were in every game and had chances to win them all. I do not think everyone remembers our best defensive player and top WR are out and both will have an impact when back. The reason other WRs  have taken as the highlight of the game is because the other teams paid so much attention to AROB. Once he is back, we are back to moving forward with the offense.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

21 hours ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

This game has been so bad on all levels. The officiating has been absolutely atrocious. Bears offense going backwards, the defense forcing turnovers, but still can't get to the quarterback. 

It's really going to come down to these next 3 weeks to determine how legitimate this team is at making the playoffs. If you had to ask me today, my gut tells me they're no better than the 3rd best team in the division. 

They did a lot of things to shoot themselves in the foot. Was a really odd game...since you would think you'd be pretty pleased, having crushed a lousy team...but I saw more of the bad that cost the Bears earlier in the season rear its ugly head.  Defensively Floyd had his best game of the season (despite no sacks...). Offensively, Mitch had that one bad pick, but hard to say much. Just an odd flow to the game, which can make it hard to play offensively. Mitch did an excellent job converting some 3rd downs early in the game which helped set the momentum.

Penalties really hurt them...so many false starts, etc.  That said, I thought outside of those penalties (and some if it was just ugly officiating) the defense played a very crisp game.  And I'll take a blowout road win all day baby.  I'm really hoping that Arob / Mack are close to 100% as we are going to need those guys for these next 3 (and the rest of the team). Bears are going to have to play a lot better against Detroit / Minny.  The fact that Detroit gave up so many sacks is a bad thing, imo, as it means all of their guys will be hyper-focused to clean it up (plus if you look at the Lions season, they've typically responded well after a bad game).