Quick Game Comments: Bears at 49ers

Defense

1. The 49ers came ready to play and they came out going at a different speed than the Bears. Lots of sharp passes that were thrown on time.
2. The 49ers came out in running formations, drawing the Bears into stacking the line and playing man-to-man coverage. They then proceeded to shred the Bears defensive backfield. The Bears had no one to cover Vernon Davis. In truth, they had no one to cover anyone.
3. Collin Kaepernick looked very accurate. Give credit to Jim Harbaugh for preparing yet another quarterback to play at the top of his game.
4. The Bears defensive line occasionally got some penetration but generally speaking, they were getting pushed around. YOu aren’t going to win many football games if you can’t consistently win the line of scrimmage.
5. The 49ers established the run and worked the play action very well.
6. The Bears switched to more zone in the second quarter in the hopes that it would stop the bleeding. They also tried to do some blitzing with limited success.
7. There were a fair number of missed tackles out there on the Bears part. That needs to be cleaned up.

Offense

1. The Bears came out running effectively on first down. It looked to me like the 49ers have decided that Brandon Marshall wasn’t going to beat them. They were doubling him and simply matching up in single coverage with everyone else.
2. Jay Cutler might have thrown into double coverage to Marshall anyway but it was evident that Jason Campbell is a different kind of quarterback. He tried to hit other receivers instead. Of course, he had little success since most of those guys struggle to get open.
3. It didn’t help that the Campbell is a timing quarterback. There wasn’t much of that going on. When he wasn’t under seige from the pass rush, wide receivers like Devin Hester were getting knocked off their routes.
4. Like many fans I had hoped (and still hope) that Alshon Jeffery will be the guy to complement Marshall. But it wasn’t meant to be tonight as he had a pedestrian game. Here’s hoping his knee injury isn’t serious.
5. Eventually the 49ers caught on and started playing Forte and stopping the run.
6. The Bears offensive line really got pushed up front. Both ofensive tackles got thoroughly dominated. Color man Jon Grudent thought there were a number of missed assignments inside as well. Like the 49er offense, the 49er defense just seemed to be playing at a different speed compared to the Bears.
7. On a related note, kind of wondering what happened to all of the max protection tonight. Seemed like the Bears left those tackles exposed an awful lot.
8. I think the all time low for the night was a three man 49er rush which resulted in a near sack of Campbell in the endzone in the fourth quarter (it was ruled a fumble with Chilo Rachal recovering in the endzone). Three man rush.
9. Hey, now. 7:27 left in the third quarter and the screen pass finally makes its appearance. A little more of that might help in the future against these aggressive defenses.
10. Campbell took a pretty good hit in the third quarter and he was shaking his head. He was evidently having trouble clearing it. I was left wondering if he wasn’t playing with a concussion the rest of the time he was in. The men responsible for protecting him should really be ashamed at the beating he took.

Miscellaneous

1. Mike Tirico was his usual professional self. Jon Gruden proved insightful as always. Yet another very good announcing crew for the Bears. Now that five of thier prime time games are gone, we might be seeing more of the B teams but for now its hard to complain about the announcing teams the Bears have drawn.
2. Drops were not a problem on either side.
3. There weren’t an inordinant number of penalties and very few of them had a big impact.
4. Blake Costanzo distinguished himself in his old home with a holding call. In fairness he made a nice play on kick coverage near the end of the third quarter. I note that the 49ers didn’t opt for the somewhat stupid decision to pooch kick to keep Devin Hester from running the ball back. They did a reasonable job of neutralizing him in more conventional ways.
5. the Bears didn’t get many turnonvers, something head coach Lovie Smith wn’t be pleased about. Campbell turned the ball over but I cant say it made a difference this game as the offense wasn’t moving the ball anyway.
6. Once again, the Bears simply got beat by a better team. This time it was one that played not just well, but really outstanding. The Bears, on the other hand, were flat.They’ve played probably the best two teams in football the last two weeks and certainly they won’t see any teams this good again all year during the regular season.With two road games in domes and games against the Packers and Seahawks coming up, its critical that the Bears rally and win against a beatable Minnesota team at home next week. Due to inflated expectations, many fans are, I know, disappointed that the team didn’t put up a better showing against the Texans and 49ers. But I would contend that this week, more than the last two, is when we find out what they’re really made of.

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