Bears Finally Take to Air
Here come the Chicago Bears, impressive runaway winners of their first two games, each a division game.
And they seem clearly capable of winning another one today at Minnesota
After showing Second City citizens how a well-led pro club bounces back from years of uninspired football, the Bears are now playing the game just right.
They put a championship defense together last year in Coach Lovie Smith’s second season, and this year they have fixed the offense, lining up Rex Grossman at quarterback -- after his years of injury -- and making sure he throws the ball.
Known for many years as a running team, the Bears have changed direction this year in a season highlighted by another change.
They’re now calling their plays aggressively.
First-Down Throws
If effective signal-calling is the least-understood part of modern football, the Bears quite suddenly are -- or seem to be -- one of the few pro clubs with a real understanding of the art.
After an easy 26-0 win over Green Bay on opening day, Grossman threw often on first down last week against the Detroit Lions.
He cashed the first of his four touchdown passes on a three-yard play after a Lions fumble.
Then with passes on five of seven plays, he set up a field goal.
In the second quarter, Grossman passed on four of five plays to score the touchdown that made it 17-0.
And before halftime, with passes on five of eight plays, he produced the 24-0 touchdown, en route to a 34-7 trouncing.
Bears Have the Talent
The Bears’ 2-0 start hasn’t surprised Smith or offensive coordinator Ron Turner, two of the few NFL coaches who apparently understand that passing is the way to play today’s football.
Defensive teams have caught up with ground plays, and, in any case, running plays take too long, wasting too much offensive time.
On pass plays, Grossman has been standing in with style to remind Bears fans why he was the team’s first-round draft choice four years ago from Florida.
Hardly the largest of NFL quarterbacks, Grossman, 6 feet 1 and 210 pounds, prospers for two other reasons: He thinks fast and throws fast.
And Smith has surrounded him with talent -- notably at the receiving positions with reliable Muhsin Muhammad, speedy Bernard Berrian and athletic tight end Desmond Clark.
Moreover, if Grossman has the bad luck someday to go down again with another injury, the Bears are ready with the veteran replacement they imported this year, Brian Griese.
Passing Teams
Counting them up, at least seven NFL teams have started the season playing modern, pass-first football -- the Cincinnati Bengals with Carson Palmer, New England Patriots with Tom Brady, Pittsburgh Steelers with Ben Roethlisberger, Philadelphia Eagles with Donovan McNabb, Seattle Seahawks with Matt Hasselbeck, the Bears, and the Indianapolis Colts with Peyton Manning -- sometimes.
It won’t be much surprise if, several months hence, two of these seven title contenders are in the Super Bowl.
Manning Is Different
The Colts are becoming something of a mystery team this year.
Against the New York Giants, they came out passing to get the lead. Against hapless Houston they ran. That is doubtless the doing of their veteran quarterback, Peyton Manning.
As Colts coaches freely confess, Manning has veto power over the plays called from the bench, and he’s not too bashful to change the calls -- usually favoring ground plays.
He seems to believe, against the bulk of the evidence, that runs are necessary to set up passes.
In this fashion he has succeeded in most regular-season games but lost his way at the end of the schedule. His big-game record is not good.
The Colts would be harder to beat if Manning passed most of the time, though that won’t happen if he continues as the play-decider. A great passer, he fancies himself a strategist -- against the evidence.
The 2006 Fight is Over for Gibbs
The Dallas Cowboys won a forget-it game from the Washington Redskins the other night, 27-10, when the better quarterback, Drew Bledsoe, dropped elderly Mark Brunell to 0-2.
Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs, in his second coming to the nation’s capital, has a problem. He paid insufficient attention to pass offense and to passers during the off-season, when he decided to bring back Brunell for a 14th NFL season. So the Redskins still don’t pass well enough.
Last time Gibbs was in the league, passes weren’t that important, and pass-play design didn’t have to be that complex.
He doesn’t seem to realize that times have changed. In the pass-offense league that the NFL has become, Gibbs appears to have little knowledge of how to play.
Even after bringing in veteran offensive coach Al Saunders as associate head coach, Gibbs still doesn’t get it.
Dallas Coach Bill Parcells has a better understanding of the new game. To beat Washington, he kept lining up the Cowboys in one-back pass formations -- the most modern in the NFL.
And even though the uncommon Dallas receiver, Terrell Owens, broke a finger in the first quarter, a passing team can continue to perform with common receivers.
Washington is a running team, and it’s harder to replace good runners. Since the night Gibbs lost Clinton Portis in a meaningless game over the summer, he has been lost.
Fans of the Redskins, including the many in two nearby chambers, the House and Senate, can only hope that Gibbs doesn’t waste too much more of their time before making the leap into the 21st century.