1st Pre-season Game 2017

   Some thoughts on the team after their first preseason game against the Broncos. Although this is still a mirage of what’s to come when the season starts, it’s still more real than what happens on training camp.

   Starting with what was evident but it’s the most important thing to point out, Mike Glennon’s interception on his second pass attempt was the result of a horrible decision, floating the pass where there where 3 broncos and a striding Bear on a deep route. Aside that Kendall Wright was open in the middle and there was a clear penalty for contact to Glennon’s facemask, that pass was never meant to be throw there. Glennon is big and slow, bootlegs are an eternity to him and his attempted pass while running from pressure was awful to the feet of Zach Miller who was less than 10 yards away. If he had taken the sack instead of the turnover, his dreadful QB rating would mean nothing because its 1 qtr of the preseason and there’s still 2 more games to play to clean things up which will not get easier against the Cards and Titans defenses. Mark Sanchez looks like a washed-up backup QB, let’s see how much time his experience gives him a spot on the team.

   There was little to no running game in the first quarter to shed some pressure of Glennon, the O-line struggled to move the pile and maintain their assignment, at least one guy at each play seemed to lose containment resulting in short gains by the running backs. One I consider had a bad day was Hroniss Grasu who didn’t look strong enough on the run game. Jordan Howard got stuffed in his three attempts, it wasn’t until late in the second quarter that it started to come to life where the rest of the running backs shined with solid playing. Tarik Cohen look’s the part of a change of pace back and is willing to block, didn’t like when at the hand off he hasitated or tried to make a little juke to try to confuse the defense instead of flowing with the play like Benny Cunningham did, he followed the play and made the juke of spin move when necessary, he’s not as fast and elusive as Cohen but he is stronger and can get short yardage with power. Kadeem Carey is the hammer who can still get those tough short yards on third down. Joshua Rounds looked like an all-around average running back who lacks vision at the NFL level. Carey and Cunningham are in for a battle for a spot if the team decides to go with 4 RB’s and no FB. Maybe Jeremy Langford looses his job due to injury? If Cunningham is out of the PR/KR competition, it’s going to be harder for him to win a spot.

   Out of the receivers, everybody seemed to have contributed in some way by catching a pass or just blocking up front. The one guy I was disappointed on was Adam Shaheen who dropped 2 passes by trying to catch it with his body and didn’t look to good pass protecting. Hope he improves quickly because there is too much competition at TE and doesn’t result in droping someone else who looked good  because of the high expectations Shaheen could bring.

   Defensively, aside from the fourth quarter, looked good, no turnovers but they kept the offense from producing big plays and held them to ten points. They pressured the QB several times but Trevor Siemian did a good job of getting rid of the ball quickly. There were flashes of things I’d like to see more of like Leonard Floyd and Johnathan Bullard’s speed and Akiem Hicks and Mitch Unrein’s disruption in the line of scrimmage but who took my attention was Nick Kwiatkoski who seems to have improved his game. DB’s and S’s were silent but made tackles when needed, one missed interception by Chris Prosinski was the closes to a turnover the Bears had all night.

   Finally, Mitch Trubisky comes in and revives a passing game that was none existent in the first half and rips the third and fourth stringers of the Broncos for the first score looking like a second round pick, making Deonte Thompson and Ruben Randall look good. Things that impressed me where the accurate throws on the run in bootlegs and that he always maintained vision downfield. Displayed awareness in the pocket and showed composure when the pocket drew smaller or when he got pressured he would climb the pocket not losing his field vision. Showed good footwork, no problems with the snaps under center and ran when needed and most importantly he protected himself. He didn’t throw deep missing in his one attempt to Victor Cruz which was a bit overthrown but not enough to get intercepted. He did attempt intermediate throws that were on point. One bad action I saw is that on one play he jumped to throw the ball and it wasn’t necessary. Other than that, I thing he played excellent and believe he gained some necessary confidence and NFL experience besides Chicago’s hopes and dreams for now.