W8vsNYJ: No Mack, no sack?

   The Bears where able to win the game that they should have won against the Jets depleted offense led by still very raw Sam Darnold. 

   Again, the offense started slow, aside from the long touchdown by Tarik Cohen, they didnt do much. Once the second half hit, the Bears offense put enough point to seal the deal. Mitch Trubisky was off again on his throws but did enough with his legs to open the field for some big plays, still a work in progress but wins make it easier to be patient. The defense never did let its guard down until Eddie Jackson's late hit that ended being a personal foul that cost the Bears not to get the ball back and ended in New Yorks only touchdown, other that that the defense was solid and made the very intelligent choice of not playing Khalil Mack. It never was a necessity to play him on this game because even if Mack didnt get traded to Chicago, the Bears still where viewed as a good defense before the start of the season, so they had to show that they were good enough to take down a team like the Jets and so they did, so its best to have him as close to 100% as possible heading against the more difficult opponents.

   The injury to Kyle Long will hurt, maybe more on moral and leadership on the field that in the playing itself, last time he got hurt Erick Kush did a good job in filling in for him but its looking more and more like this team is not all in on the power run with Jordan Howard, working more with Cohen skill set while using diversions with Taylor Gabriel. Howard is the short and goal line hammer, on this game he pounded the line to end the game, but that's it. So it seems the line is more focused on protecting Trubisky and confusing the defense to create holes for the runner. I'm still waiting for Howard to one cut and go but he gets trapped at the line too often due to bad blocking or the defense piling up at the line of scrimmage. I guess its a good thing that Howard got better at catching the ball.

   Next the Bears go to Buffalo to take on what I consider to be the worst team of this season (although the Raiders don't make this an easy pick), this means that I expect the Bears to win this one by taking care of the ball and not letting LeSean McCoy beat them with side line runs and screens, the Bill got size in their receiving corps led by Kelvin Benjamin and newly acquired Terrelle Pryor so safety's Jackson and Adrian Amos have to be ready against the deep ball, or just beat up the QB, that would be better. Trubisky needs to protect the ball like last time, the Bills secondary is their pride and joy and only the group that makes them have a chance to compete. Even so, I believe the Bears should keep Mack out of this one until next game against the Lions, they have to prove one more time that they are good enough to beat low tier teams even if its on a hostile environment with some of the weirdest fans.