Charles

Tillman

R.W. McQuarters hasn’t played particularly well in his place.

The team’s top cornerback has missed eight weeks with a knee injury.

Many Bears observers called Tillman the most irreplaceable player on the team. With Tillman, Jerry Azumah, and Mike Brown all out, teams will throw at will on the Bears.

The promising shut-down corner could miss a “major chunk of season.” This loss, coupled with Mike Brown and Jerry Azumah, may be too much for the Bears secondary to handle. The Vikings should scorch them next week.

Tillman is coming off a masterful performance against Calvin Johnson, including three passes defensed while providing sticky coverage. The Cover-2 Bears are actually using man-to-man coverage roughly 50 percent of the time since Chris Conte and Major Wright took over at safety.

Tillman left in the first quarter of Sunday’s win and did not return. The team did not comment after the game, but teammate Tim Jennings said it’s “nothing serious that we have to worry about. He’s going to rest it, take as much time as he needs. We know we’ve got a big game coming up.” If Jennings can’t go against the Packers, they’d be forced to turn to veteran Kelvin Hayden.

Tillman didn’t just look like an All-Pro, he looked like the defensive MVP of the league. Tillman forced two fumbles in the game’s first 12 minutes, and was the main reason Chicago found itself with an insurmountable 28-2 lead heading into the second quarter. Playing the best football of his career in his age 31-season, Tillman now has seven forced fumbles through eight games. He’s cruising toward his first All Pro selection.

The Bears will be without Devin Hester (concussion) and Alshon Jeffery (knee), but they’ll have WLB Lance Briggs, RB Matt Forte, and Tillman despite the latter three’s inability to finish the game in last week’s win over Minnesota. We like Tillman to match up with Sidney Rice for most of this Sunday’s affair.

It’s not as bad as it sounds. Tillman actually left Sunday’s win over the Vikings, was allowed to come back in and then left for good. He was spotted in a walking boot afterward, but hasn’t been ruled out for this week’s game against the Seahawks.

Tillman will return to his starting job opposite Tim Jennings. Brian Urlacher (knee) is also active and starting. Inactive for the Bears: NT Matt Toeaina, WR Dane Sanzenbacher, TE Kyle Adams, C Edwin Williams, DL Nate Collins, OT Jonathan Scott and DB Jeremy Jones.