W17@MIN: Heating up for January

   The Bears managed to knock the Vikings out of the playoffs with relative ease even with the refs going the Vikings way on some calls and no-calls, one could say that this was a good warmup game before the real thing this weekend.
   The thing to watch in this game that really mattered most was the running game worked with Jordan Howard against a stout Vikings D-line no less, Howard and the Oline gained more than 100 yards on the ground which is important in January and even more in open field stadiums. The Bears defense made Kirk Cousins look average and shut down the run game, it was an all around great performance and they didn't need to score to finish the game with more than 20 points, this was a solid team win although Mitch Trubisky and the pass offense can still improve but with a steady run game like this one, it will take some pressure of the pass game and Trubisky, even better if he can contribute to the run with some scrambles.
   The elimination rounds begin today, starting with the Eagles visiting Soldier Field led by Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles, this time around he cant be seen as a pedestrian back up QB like I did last year. The Eagles D-line, like the Vikings, is a though one with Flecher Cox as the spear head of this defense, but the Bears will have to force the run like they did last game and not put to much on Trubiskys plate. The defense will need to repeat what they did to the Vikings this past week, get in Foles face and eliminate the deep ball while limiting big chunks in the run game, easy right? Well there are differences between the Eagles and Vikings offenses, well now watching the Eagles depth chart I believe there are more similarities between them and the Bears offenses, maybe both will be treating each other like they do in practice, this should be a low scoring game so the Bears definitely need to take advantage of their home crowd to get the Eagles off their rhythm a bit, turnovers will be big in this game and maybe a score by the defense will end up being the difference. Now I believe that if Eddie Jackson plays, the Bears have a better secondary that the Eagles, but this is no easy game whatsoever, they are going against last years defending champions, they were here not long ago while the Bears will have to turn to their veteran teammates for advice and believe that their experience coaches will point them in the right direction.