Hi all - Bears fan here.. interesting thread, a few thoughts...
1. Most of the discussion here about Urlacher is off base I think - he is almost a complete opposite of a Clay Mathews - he is a sucky blitzer and he is terrible at shedding blocks. What makes Urlacher special is his size and speed - his game in the secondary. Unfortunately for us, once Urlacher retires in a few years, if we don't find another physical freak to play MLB, our cover 2 look is going to implode.
2. The Bears play a lot of cover 2, but they don't play it more than about 33% of the time. We play a lot of Nickel as well. Anyhow, the point is - and this is a misconception Chicago fans have as well - the Bears aren't in cover 2 every play.
3. Luck... The Bears are lucky.. I consider it X-Factor. That said, it is what I sort of define as an Institutional luck. We are coached to create turn overs, we run tons of tip drills - all of that scoring defense and turn over generation that is a hallmark of the Bears is drilled very very hard. It is part of the Lovie trip. Obviously, this doesn't have anything to do with all the breaks we caught with 2nd and 3d string QB's, but it helps to explain a lot of the defensive play.
4. On hating the Vikings... I think both Bears fans and Pack fans hate the Vikings the most because they are just so hatable. I respect the pack. Old timers probably feel different as there was a LOT of dirty, tough, physical play between our club and yours in the 60's-80's. Lots of late hits and injuries and all that.
5. The Lions game that "the bears stole" or whatever... We don't really care because in 2004, the same thing happened to Bernard Berrian against the Lions. The process of the catch rule was referred to affectionately at the time as the "Berrian Rule". No one really cared cause the Lions and Bears were both just awful that year.
OK, that's enough out of me. Goodluck this weekend - No injuries.
Bear Down!
GREAT post man and welcome to the forum!
No, you forcing fumbles isn't luck. But JJ fumble, in which the ball didn't go out of bounds, THAT is luck, when the ball go out of bounds, when key starters miss the game against the bears due to injuries...
About the Lions game, it was lucky, but we were lucky in the first game with the Woodson pick 6 (though it's a different situation. There was a lot of game left in our case, in your case the game ended BECAUSE of that).
About Urlacher... First of all, Matthews is a complete player. He's very good covering. Not as good as Urlacher, but for an 3-4 OLB he's great. He's complete.
And there's a reason Urlacher is thought amongst the best MLBs of the decade. He's ridiculously good at covering and tackling, he's incredibly instinctive, has ball skills and is assignment sure. IMHO, like you said, his weakness is shedding blockers and causing fumbles, cause he's not an impact hitter like a Ray Lewis. But he's the perfect cover 2 player.
Regarding your coverage, I think you're wrong. From what I've seen, you play cover 2 70% or so of the time. Of course, it's not all Tampa 2. You do some man, you do some pressure zones, but, most of the time, your safeties are 15 or 20 yards deep, playing zone. It's rare to see you cbs playing singled out deep zone in a cover 3, for instance, or even in singled man, without safety help.
But you probably know more about them than I do...