Kudos to the Bears Coaches
”We said before the game that it was going to be about execution and
trying to be the team that made fewer mistakes It’s a long season. We have to be critical of ourselves and look at our mistakes and mental errors and big plays we gave up.”
These are the comments of the Colts Pro Bowl safety Bob Sanders, downplaying the significance of the coaching strategies after the Bears beat them Sunday. And for the most part he’s right. But the danger is that those words can be taken as an indication that the coaching staff had little to do with the win on Sunday. And because I think that would do them a grave disservice, I wanted to write a (hopefully) short post to give well deserved praise to the coaching staff.
First of all, though they probably weren’t all that special for the most part, the fact that the coaches devised solid game plans to work against the Colts shouldn’t be underestimated. Bob Babich’s plan to crowd the line and making Peyton Manning guess who was coming by making it look like everyone was, was a pretty good one. The Bears kept a lot of pressure on a rusty Manning who hadn’t practiced much and obviously wasn’t himself. The fact that the Colts offensive line was banged up and not in top form made his job a lot easier but give credit where credit is due. Babich took advantage of it.
Ron Turner’s plan was similarly unspectacular but similarly solid and deserves praise. The Bears ran the ball against a defense that was susceptible to the run. Because they were out matched with John St. Clair at left tackle against Dwight Freeney, they frequently lined up with Matt Forte or one of the tight ends to that side to help out. (Yeah, I said I’d have done it even more often but what do I know? It worked, didn’t it?) They kept the passes short, setting up the occasional deep ball to one of the tight ends, who were split out to take advantage of one-on-one matchups with linebackers.
Some (though certainly not all) of these things may have seemed obvious but sometimes the obvious eludes even the best coaches. Consider this comment from Steve Rosenbloom’s blog:
“I still don’t know why the Colts’ tailbacks weren’t cutting back on the Bears’ aggressive pursuit. Didn’t they TiVo any game the Bears have played for the last two years?”
This was among the most perceptive statements I heard from any columnist after the game. The truth is that Tony Dungy and his staff failed to do many of the things that smart teams do to beat the Bears, this the foremost among them. If they did recognize these weaknesses, they did a poor job of getting the players ready to execute the plan because they didn’t do it.
Game plans and schemes aside, what the Bear coaching staff did best was prepare this team to play. They used the skepticism that many of the members of the media and many of the fans (including me) expressed about the teams chances to motivate them. Sure its an old tactic but its still a goody. If that’s what it takes, I’m all for it. Penalties aside, the Bears executed almost flawlessly on a night when that’s exactly what they had to do.
Bottom line, it was very obvious to me that this team was well coached and well prepared at each position going into the game. Given the talent level, the players each individually did their jobs and played to their ability. Putting players in the best position to succeed is ultimately a coach’s job and the Bears staff certainly did just that. Kudos to them.
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