Your Monday Night Football Game Thread (Now with Alshon GIF)

Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico
Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico

Here’s everything you should know about tonight’s game. (Well, I mean, you probably need some background knowledge in the sport of football, among other things, but I can only do so much.) I’ll be Tweeting heavily throughout; if you’d like to join in, you can follow me @BearsBN. Feel free to say hi. I’ll also be monitoring the comments, if you’d like to talk about the game here, you should feel free to do so!

Who: Cowboys (7-5) at Bears (6-6)

When: Coverage starts at 8:30 on ESPN; Mike Tirico and Jon Gruden (pictured) will have the call.

Where: Soldier Field, Chicago; it’s a dry forecast, but temperatures are expected to be in the teens with wind chills near (possibly below) zero.

Notes:

  • Whichever team wins moves into a tie for first in their respective division; a loss for Chicago would be more damaging, due to their lack of a tiebreaker over Detroit. (Dallas currently retains an outside shot at a wild card berth as well, although a loss tonight would very much jeopardize that path.)
  • Dallas is just 2-4 on the road this season, while the Bears are 4-2 at home.
  • The teams have met four times since 2004, splitting those games, but the Bears have won the previous two meetings, including  a win in Dallas on Monday Night Football last season.
  • The Bears will retire Mike Ditka’s iconic #89 jersey at halftime. How could they lose with Coach Ditka in attendance?
  • Apparently Jay Ratliff will be under “no limitations” tonight, which makes sense; there’s only four games left, and all are basically must-win. No point being overly protective now.
  • Bear Down!

    GIF via SBNation (@SBNationgif)
    GIF via SBNation (@SBNationgif)

    Update: Holy…man. Alshon may have just topped his catch from last week with this crazy play to give the Bears a 24-14 halftime lead.

     

    written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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