Bears have No. 1 run defense

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So, I know there’s a weather thread, but @stephenboyd57 pointed this out and it shocked me as well.

Rk Tm G Att Yds TD Y/A Y/G EXP
1 Chicago Bears 12 275 948 6 3.4 79.0 20.35
2 San Francisco 49ers 12 243 948 6 3.9 79.0 -0.11
3 New England Patriots 12 330 1064 9 3.2 88.7 57.85
4 Philadelphia Eagles 12 258 1084 7 4.2 90.3 -16.59
5 Detroit Lions 12 296 1117 11 3.8 93.1 16.46

That is pretty compelling. And the yards per attempt would suggest it isn’t necessarily a fluke, either. The good news? Not only are we not far behind, but in Chicago’s last 9 games, they gave up over 100 yards just once—to the Lions, who averaged 5.2 yards per carry and and tallied 115 on the ground without any outliers.

Of course, Chicago had success running the ball in that game as well.

If field conditions are shit, it’ll be whatever team simply is the toughest in trenches.

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And who doesn’t turn the ball over and who excels on special teams.

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And the wind in overtime

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And who puts liquid heat in the other team’s jockstraps

nerds GIF

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I love football. But if I’m at a game where it’s windy as hell, 32 degrees and sleeting diagonally, I’m likely not excited about overtime.

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Can’t take the wind in a dome. That’s why its important to have someone scout out where the HVAC vents are located before the game.

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Dome teams should be able to manufacture their own winds

I’ll be on the grounds crew

IMG_8454

Or would that be air crew?

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And the Bears have rushed for 1652 yards this year. The Lions 1648 yards. Both top 5 rushing teams with top 5 rushing defenses.

Could be a tight game in poor conditions.

Our main advantage is the passing game which is way better than the Bears. Hopefully not too windy

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I hope the offensive line has this pinned in their lockers so they can see how far they can make them fall.

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One thing that makes me feel better is Monty is gonna to be really hyped to play against his old team. If the field is sloppy, Jamo’s speed could also be an X factor as well. Oh wait, never mind, Goff doesn’t throw to him even when he’s open.

Cold may bother Goff and Williams but it ain’t gonna bother LaPorta.

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I also think an advantage could be that Monty played a bunch of seasons in shitty weather on that field. This is in no way “new” to him.

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We averaged over 5 ypc against them last time. If we don’t turn the ball over…we win.

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This is not the game to have ragnow out.

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The Bears rushing numbers are kind of fraudulent. I would question how many of those are Fields.

As far as the defense. I am again not sure how to take those as I suspect teams were just running the ball late into the line to burn clock being up 2-3 TDs.
I get it. Obvious their run defense does not suck. But they have won 3-4 games. So you have to ask how relevant those numbers are.

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He will know which cleats to wear too. No excuses.

Big concern for me is that the money in Vegas is on Chi.

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I remember when we had the #1 run defense.
Good times.

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We had over 100 yards rushing against them and had the ball for less than 20 minutes. That being said, the Bears defense has been playing well.

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I say we get 200 yds as a team.

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Their D was no match for our running game Nov 19th, we had 22 attempts for 115 yards, 5.2 per carry.
They had 46 attempts for 183 yards, 4.0 per carry. Fields had 18 carries for 104 yards so the rest of the team had 28 carries for 79 yards, less than 3 ypc. Clearly this is about us stopping Fields.
Guys, Fields also had a QBR of 73.6 that game, Goff’s was 52.5 so I’m more concerned about their passing game. Fields is going to get his rushing yards but he has only rushed for 1 TD this season. Stay home on D, keep your assignments and don’t let Fields expose you.
Field has 77 carries this season in 8 games, 18 were vs us. That means he averages less than 9 vs everyone else. The fact is we are probably the #1 running D in the league if you take away the Fields numbers. As we all know, you can’t.

It was a crap game for turnovers for us. Honestly, this game is less about stopping the Bears and our O simply not turning it over.

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There’s running games and there’s real running games. In crappy weather it can turn into a toe to toe slug match in the trenches. Line em up and run them over. Power running, and scat backs that depend on cuts and speed aren’t going to have that effect. Even minus Ragnow, I put my money on the Lions Offensive Line and Monty Python to sack up and win that battle.

On the other side, I can’t think of a worse time to be missing Alim, but I’m also not impressed by the Bears power running game either.

If this turns into a fight in the phone booth, I’m putting my money on Campbell’s Kneecap Soup. The Lions have that tough mentality, and the Bears are too used to losing.

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