Bears Get Off the Bus Running

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Sunday, December 6th

What a snooze fest! The rest of us left on the bus were still sleeping, but the Bears did enough in the run game to secure a victory. The gameplan dictated the Bears run the football. After all, the Rams are one of the worst in the National Football League at stopping a rushing attack. As a result, it opened up some things in the play action game allowing Jay Cutler to hit on their longest pass play of the season. It was a 71-yarder to Earl Bennett in the first half leading to a Bear's crucial field goal.

It wasn't anything special about the rush attack, the Bear's just stuck to it versus a Ram defense who much like the Bears defense, have worn down due to an anemic offense. The Bear's logged over 100 yards on 38 attempts with two new tackles who provided adequate pass protection as well. The Rams are challenged in a lot of ways which the Bears took advantage of enough to make some key plays. The biggest play was to Earl Bennet. Let's take a closer look at the play:

The Rams took a play out of the Bears defensive playbook showing the "Mug Look". It is a heavy Blitz look with linebackers in the A Gaps ( between center and guards) and both safeties up just behind the linebackers showing "Blitz 0", which is all out Blitz. The number zero just means no safeties in the middle of the field. Wake up! The game is over! You will at least learn football in this Blog, and not fall asleep doing it! In continuation, Jay made a great read recognizing the Rams were dropping to a Cover 2 shell (Zero, now 2, you got it!). Jay further recognized that MLB James Laurenitis has a tough assignment dropping from the A Gap into coverage deep enough to cover slot Earl Bennett, who was taking the middle of the field with speed. James had to hesitate further before dropping because the pass came off play action. Matt Forte faked the "inside zone run" to Laurenitis's side, he was in a bind and Jay knew it and thus took advantage.

I know it is the Rams, but it is this type of execution that must continue next week versus the Packers. Otherwise, all Bears fans will start to hibernate early. I guess a few catnaps never hurt. Even for Bears.

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