The Ticket Chest

Lovie is making deals

Wednesday, January 14th, 2009 | Chicago Bears, NFL | No Comments

The Chicago Bears are hard at working making big deals this off season. Rob Marinelli will be the assistant head coach/defensive line. As most NFL fans know Marinelli is the recorded breaking ex head coach of the lions that wa 0-16 this year. Yes, they did not win one game. Two years after blowing the Super Bowl the Bears are hiring Rob Marinelli? Lovie and Marinelli both had coaching positions with Tampa Bay.  Looks like Lovie likes to hire friends, first Bob Babich and now the coach for the worst team in NFL history. I guess if you look at Chicago sports this is not a big surprise, the Cubs have not won the World Series in over 100 years and got swept the last two years in the playoff but fans keep buying tickets.  Let see what else the Bears do this year, I think they should try and sign Michael Vick and Plaxico they are both great players.

Tags: Chicago Bears, Lovie Smith, Rob Marinelli

Vikings lose what will the Bears do?

Monday, December 22nd, 2008 | Chicago Bears, NFL | No Comments

It will be a warm -15 below with the windchill on Monday night in Chicago and the Bears are taking on the Packers. Back in Nov the Packers rolled over the Bears with a 37-3 win but a lot has changed since then. Fast forward to Dec 22 and the Bears are now 8-6 and the Packers are a sad 5-9. It looks like this game is only important to the Bears right now since they need to win the next two to make it into the playoffs. Also, the Bears expected Matt Forte to be in the lineup on Monday after dealing with injured right toe. Forte is 8th in the NFL with 1,115 yards and seven touchdowns, the Bears defiantly need all there best players on the field for the last two games.

If the Bears do lose tonight they still have a shot for a wild-card spot. The Bears need to win the next two and Philadelphia needs to beat Dallas at home. On top of this Oakland needs to defeat Tampa Bay on the road. All of these are very reasonable situations, but with the Bears who knows what team will come out to play. Lovie Smith is only focusing on Monday nights game and not worrying about the Playoffs right now.  The Bears need everything to go perfect the next week for them to make it in the Playoffs and lets see if the Packers of Nov take the field. I’m going to make a crazy prediction and say the Bears are going to win this game tonight.

Tags: Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers

Bears Crush Rams 27-3; Now Look To Battle With Vikings

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008 | Chicago Bears, NFL, Sports | No Comments

The Chicago Bears road the shoulders of Matt Forte and a bruising defense to help defeat the lowly St. Louis Rams 27-3 in the Edward Jones Dome. Forte carried the ball 20 times for a career-high 132 yards, good for a 6.6 per carry average. Forte had a 13-yard touchdown run in the 1st quarter that gave the Bears a 7-0 lead, and then a 47-yard touchdown run in the 2nd quarter that all but put the game away with a 21-point Bears lead. Kyle Orton was efficient, if not spectacular – completing 18 of 29 passes for 139 yards. Orton completed a 7-yard touchdown pass to Jason McKie in the 1st quarter, and he did not throw an interception – all of which amounted to a respectable 85.3 passer rating.

The Bears defense finally showed some teeth, albeit against a weak Rams offense playing without stars Orlando Pace and Stephen Jackson. The Bears defense knocked starting quarterback Mark Bulger out of the game after just 2 pass attempts. Replacement quarterback Trent Green threw 4 interceptions – 2 by Lance Briggs, and 1 each by Brian Urlacher and Charles “peanut” Tillman. The defensive line finally pressured the quarterback – registering 5 sacks – 2 by each of Tommie Harris and Ogunleye, and 1 by Alex Brown.

The victory allowed the Bears to keep pace with the Minnesota Vikings, who defeated the Jacksonville Jaguars 30-12 on the road. The Vikings and Bears now sit atop the NFC North division with 6-5 records. The 2 teams battle it out for the outright division lead on Sunday night in Minneapolis. With only 4 games left after the contest, it is a must-win for each team. Each team will have to pull out all the stops to get the all-important victory. There are 7 teams with better records than the Bears and Vikings in the NFC, so the only realistic shot at the playoffs will be through a NFC division title berth. So it all comes down to this. Will the Bears build off of the Rams performance and put up a good fight at the Metrodome? Or will the Bears return to the form shown at Lambeau Field 2 weeks ago where the team was embarrassed 37-3? We’ll have to wait and see Sunday night. It most likely won’t end up being the shootout that saw the Bears beat the Vikings 48-41 in Week 7 on the lakefront at Soldier Field, but it should still be just as exciting nonetheless…

Tags: Chicago Bears, NFL, St. Louis Rams

Bears Embarrassed at Lambeau, Lose 37-3 to Packers

Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 | Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, NFL, Sports | No Comments

Ouch…

The Chicago Bears were tied atop the NFC North Division with the Minnesota Vikings, who had just beaten the Green Bay Packers. The Bears were getting their starting quarterback back after Kyle Orton had missed the Tennessee Titans loss the week before due to a sprained right ankle injury suffered the week before against the Detroit Lions. The Bears had something to prove against the Brett Favre-less Packers, who trailed the Bears by 1 game and were looking to make a statement of their own. It seemed the Bears had things going in the right direction, and then BAM!!! They actually had to play the game on Sunday.

Bears 3, Packers 37. Not good. The Bears managed only a 35-yard Robbie Gould field goal in the 2nd quarter. The Bears’ offense sputtered along for most of the game. Orton completed only 50% of his passes for 133 yards, with no touchdowns or interceptions. The Bears managed only 9 first downs and only 234 total net yards. The lone bright spot was Matt Forte who compiled over 100 total yards from scrimmage – 64 rushing yards on 16 carries and 40 receiving yards on 6 receptions. After Forte, the Bears’ next best receiver was Greg Olsen who caught 4 passes for 45 yards. The offense may have been out of sync with Orton getting back up to speed after the week off, but the Bears have a lot to be concerned with as they come down the home stretch.

The Bears’ defense was ineffective once again. Packers Quarterback Aaron Rodgers completed 23 of 30 passes for 227 yards. Rodgers threw 2 touchdowns and 1 interception, good for a 105.8 passer rating. Packers Running Back Ryan Grant rushed for 145 yards on 25 carries and scored on a 4-yard rushing touchdown to give the Packers a 14-3 in the 2nd quarter. Packers Kicker Mason Crosby also kicked 3 field goals, including a 53-yarder at the end of the 2nd quarter to give the Packers a 17-3 halftime lead. The Packers gained 24 first downs, controlled the clock for over 37 minutes and amassed a total of 427 net yards.

The Packers defense is good, but the Bears offense should have been to produce a better offensive attack to take less pressure off the Bears defense. Orton probably wasn’t fully up-to-speed after dealing with his right ankle injury, but the team will need to execute better if it still hopes to make the playoffs at the end of the season. The defense was atrocious. The Bears did not have 1 touch on Rodgers all game long. The front line is not getting any consistent pressure on the quarterback, as Tommie Harris, Mark Anderson, Adewale Ogunleye and Alex Brown have not lived up to the expectations going into the season. That factor is allowing opposing teams’ offenses to execute their designed game plan at will. Lovie Smith and Defensive Coordinator Bob Babich are not making any adjustments during the course of the game, and that is compounding the problem. Immediate changes are necessary if the Bears defense expects to stop anyone during the last 6 games of the season.

There is some good news. The Bears schedule is beatable down the stretch. They have road games at the St. Louis Rams (2-8) and Minnesota Vikings (5-5) the next 2 weeks. Then the Bears have 3 consecutive home games at Soldier Field – the Jacksonville Jaguars (4-6) on Sunday 12/7; the New Orleans Saints (5-5) on Thursday 12/11; and the Greeen Bay Packers (5-5) on Monday Night Football on 12/22. The Bears finish on the road at the 3-6 Houston Texans. So the Bears do not have to face a team that has a winning record currently. The Bears have already beaten the Vikings and are capable of beating both the Vikings and Packers – both wins would make it very likely that the Bears would win the NFC North and make the playoffs. The Jaguars and Saints are both having down years, and as long as neither team finds the right “answer” when they play the Bears, the Bears have a good shot at winning both of those games. The Rams and Texans are both bad football teams, so a loss to either of those teams would be devastating to their playoff chances. So even though the Bears have a lot of holes, and my rating of the Bears’ defense and Head Coach Lovie Smith’s schemes is poor at best, they still have a very good chance to return to the playoffs in 2008-9. Once in, anything can happen – just ask the 2007-8 Super Bowl Champion New York Giants.

Tags: Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, NFL