Da Bear Cast Blog

It was apparent that this was going to be a long day for the Bears defense as long as Matt Hasselbeck was playing the way he was. As long as he wasn’t on the sideline whining about some “nagging” side cramp because he forgot to eat a banana before the game, he was on the field throwing accurately all over the Bears. Hasselbeck was 30-44 for 337 yards and two TDs. One was a really gross sidearm toss while he was getting sacked, and of course the announcers thought it was the most amazing thing they had ever seen. They said it was “Farve-like”. Well, pretty much anything is Farve-like when you consider Brett Farve has played in the NFL for 87 years, and has thrown every conceivable pass known to man.

On the other side Rex Grossman actually played pretty well. It was good to see a progression and an obvious comfort level in the pocket that Rex showed. This was despite playing with one less offensive lineman the whole game because Fred Miller was evidently somewhere else. Rex did have a fumble that came at a crucial time in the game when the Bears were driving down the field and looking to tie the game. It was Patrick Kerney (Fred Miller’s blocking assignment) who hit Rex and stripped the ball from him. Rex finished the game 27-34 for 266 yards. If Rex continues to show poise in the pocket and the ability to scramble at least a little bit, and can grow in the area of checking down, and getting rid of the ball quicker, I think he has a future with Chicago. 

Cedric Benson also showed me something Sunday that I have never scene before. For 2 plays in the first quarter Garrett Wolfe and Cedric Benson exchanged jerseys on the sideline and Wolfe went in the game and ran the ball for 43 yards and 20 yards. Then they switched back and Benson only ran for 26 yards the rest of the game. Benson showed here what he did at Texas; when there is a MASSIVE whole, he is really good at running through it. It was nice to see him avoid tackles and actually outrun someone on the 43 yard touchdown run.

The defense showed how porous they can be without Nathan Vasher and Mike Brown in the secondary, but a lot of the credit needs to go to Matt Hasselbeck. Trumain McBride after two great performances showed that he is just a rookie giving up a couple really long pass plays. It was good to see the D line get better pressure than they have all year on a Seattle team that has one of the better O-lines in the NFL. I don’t know how much I want to blame the defense for this game because of how impressive I thought Hasselbeck was, but they still could have done much better. Apparently all those pull-ups the Hasselbeck does in the Campbell’s soup commercials are working out for him.