🎶 Do you remember … the 21st night of September? 🎶
If loving Earth, Wind, and Fire (and especially this song) is wrong, then I don’t want to be right.
• Akiem Hicks has the right idea:
https://twitter.com/ChicagoBears/status/1307803528732323842?s=20
• Look, I realize Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea. However, I can totally vibe with when Leia Organa says “Don’t tell me what things look like, tell me what they are…” as we start this week off. Ultimately, 2-0 is 2-0. And the Bears are 2-0. We can talk about the good, bad, and ugly from what transpired yesterday. But one thing we won’t do is apologize for a win. Never apologize for a win.
• You always remember your first:
https://twitter.com/ChicagoBears/status/1307744261295800321?s=20
• Cole Kmet was one of 10 different Bears players to catch passes on Sunday. I have my issues with how Mitchell Trubisky played on Sunday. But I was digging his ability to spread the ball around to get everyone involved. The best offenses have balance and weapons who can be targeted at any time and place. Trubisky’s got some kinks to work out, but spreading the wealth as he has is an encouraging sign.
• One of Trubisky’s pass-catchers was his right tackle. Just like they drew it up!
• The Bears dodged a serious issue when David Montgomery left early in the second quarter due to a neck injury. Montgomery was up-ended on a carry, landed on his head, and was accompanied to the locker room for the rest of the first half. Chicago’s offense did fine without him. Well, at least well enough to open up a 17-0 lead. But Montgomery returned for the second half and finished off a day in which he racked up 127 scrimmage yards. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think this guy was Wolverine with how he heels so quickly. In any case, the Bears appear to have a special one.
• I don’t want to dwell on the Bears’ running back depth, in part because I like how the three-headed monster of Montgomery, Tarik Cohen, and Cordarrelle Patterson have looked to this point. But Ryan Nall catching passes out of the backfield doesn’t do it for me. Then again, that wasn’t the best situation for him to jump into … so I’ll give him a break.
• SOUND ON:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CFYMPe2Fl0d/
• The Khalil Mack-Robert Quinn tag team showed up early on Sunday. And I expect them to do what they did above often as the year goes on. Sure, I wanted to see Mack and Quinn come up with more sacks. But that snapshot above encapsulates everything that tag team is supposed to be. More, please!
• On the other side of the defensive coin, I’m worried about the Bears’ inside linebacker tandem. The Bears were beat far too often over the middle by backs and tight ends. When a team isolates a receiver on a linebacker, you just have to tip your cap to scheme and what not, then hope for the best. But I had high hopes that Danny Trevathan could squeeze in another stellar year as a two-way defender. It’s early. So it’s possible that he still needs to get his legs under him. Unfortunately, too many moments over the first two weeks have reminded me of watching Nick Kwiatkoski in coverage against the Packers in Week 1 of the 2018 season. I’d like to shake those memories from my brain ASAP.
• The defense’s showing would’ve been more appreciated had Eddie Jackson’s score held up. And frankly, he’s pretty ticked that it didn’t:
Here's the replay on the Eddie Jackson pass interference call, by the way, which called back a pick-6: pic.twitter.com/ZenPasAWjk
— Bleacher Nation Bears (@BN_Bears) September 20, 2020
• Baseball has an official scorer who rules on these types of things. The eye-in-the-sky rights the wrongs. Football doesn’t have one of those. And if they did, I’m not certain they’d be able to give Jackson his TD back. But they should because he deserves it. Jackson still have 5 TD returns in his young career, even though he should have seven (but two were called back).
• Even without the pick-six, the Bears defense still limited the Giants to 295 total yards, kept them from sustaining drives on third down (3/13), came up with four sacks, two turnovers, seven tackles-for-loss, and five QB Hits. That 3-for-3 in fourth-down conversions will gnaw at me for some time.
• The Chicago Tribune shares details of Tarik Cohen’s new contract. Meanwhile, the folks at Rotoworld are just mean about it:
What $17M buys: 27 scoreless yards for Tarik Cohen https://t.co/zmZtB70zHo
— Rotoworld Football (@Rotoworld_FB) September 20, 2020