Posted by ESPN.com’s Kevin Seifert
After Chicago’s 48-24 victory over Detroit, here are three (mostly) indisputable facts I feel relatively sure about:
I don’t want to diminish the skills of the Bears’ kick and punt returners. And I’m no special-teams expert. But I have to believe that the blocking schemes employed by Chicago special teams coordinator Dave Toub are some of the best in the league. Look at what happened Sunday. The Bears had four players notch a return of at least 24 yards. Johnny Knox had a 102-yard kickoff return and Danieal Manning brought one back 43 yards. Earl Bennett had a 25-yard punt return, and Devin Hester notched a 24-yarder. When success transcends the identity of the returner, you have to credit blocking and scheme.
With 4.5 sacks this season, defensive end Adewale Ogunleye is now a half-sack short of his 2008 total. I don’t think anyone has been more impacted or invigorated by new defensive line coach Rod Marinelli. At 32, Ogunleye seemed to be nearing the end of his career. He’s in the final year of his contract. But if he continues to record sacks at this rate, I wonder if he’ll earn himself a rare third contract. Pass-rushing is too rare of a commodity to ignore, no matter how old the player.
I hadn’t really thought about it before, but I agree with coach Lovie Smith’s assessment that quarterback Jay Cutler sometimes plays the game with the mentality of a defensive player. It shows up not only in his willingness to jaw with opponents in between plays, but also with the way he runs. We’ve now twice seen Cutler go all out to block on the edge to help a runner turn the corner. And suffice it to say, his dive and helicopter spin into the end zone was not the safest route -- if he were looking for it. I don’t think he was.
And here is one question I’m still asking:
How in the world did the Bears settle on a defensive game plan that featured eight men near the line of scrimmage and mostly single coverage against Detroit receiver Calvin Johnson? And how did that single-cover man turn out to be Zack Bowman? We didn’t really get a good answer on that Sunday, but the Bears did acknowledge their mistake after Johnson tallied 119 receiving yards in the first half. Starting in the third quarter, Chicago matched Charles Tillman against Johnson and switched back to their Cover 2 scheme. Their concern about the Lions’ running game proved unnecessary; tailback Kevin Smith managed only 30 yards on 19 carries.