[CBFF] CBFF Blog: Five months later: matchup killed the Bears

[Victor Waldron]

(author's note: as noted below I never saw TV footage of the game
other than highlights before last week. Some content may have been
previously discussed here.)

Five months later: matchup killed the Bears

By Vic Waldron

After five months the Bears playoff loss still hurts. Thanks to CBFF
member Jim Ferolie I was able to watch the game on television for the
first time, a heartbreaking loss that I had witnessed in person.

Getting beyond in game coaching nuances such as clock management and
play calling I believe the Bears lost because they didn't match up
well against Carolina. So what about that 13-3 beating the Bears
administered in November? Ancient history. It's not about the teams
themselves but rather the matchups of individual players that changed
the result the second time around.

See, in the NFL with so much preparation and great athletes running
around it can be difficult to find a great opportunity to create a
mismatch. Often the offense will try to pair a key playmaker with a
weaker defensive player in hopes of making a big play. A good
defensive coach will try to compensate by rotating personnel to match
or add double teams to contain such a player. This is where the Bears
failed.

I appreciate Lovie and Rivera wanting to stick to the "scheme," and it
did work effectively for most of the season, but failing to account
for certain mismatches cost the Bears the game.

Mismatch: Bears secondary versus Steve Smith

Let's be clear about one thing up front: Steve Smith is a great
player. Now that that's out of the way the discussion will continue on
how poorly the Bears matched up against him.

-Smith's first touchdown (on the second play from scrimmage) was there
for the taking. On that play he was one-on-one with Charles Tillman
(can we dub him "Toast"?), already not the best matchup, but even
worse the safety on that side of the field was rookie Chris Harris.
Let's ignore the fact that the "Cover 2" was not on during the play,
as Harris was near the line of scrimmage to stop the run. Fact is, the
Bears had Pro-Bowler Nathan Vasher and Pro-Bowler Mike Brown on the
other side of the field covering.....Keary Colbert??

-Smith's second touchdown (after the Bears closed the gap to 16-14)
will live in infamy. The secondary depleted by injuries left Chris
Thompson alone with Smith. Again, let's ignore the fact that the lone
safety was playing the other side of the field: who was Pro Bowler
Nathan Vasher covering on the opposite side of the field? If you're
going to go one-on-one with Smith is Chris Thompson really your man?
(In all fairness to Thompson, he was setup to fail.)

Smith knew he had it made and signaled to his QB Jake Delhomme before
the snap to change the play and send the ball his way. If you're the
Bears brain trust, why would you *not* call a timeout and take a look
at the situation more closely? Smith was calling for the ball **right
in front of the Bears' sideline**!!!

Lovie had said that in their version of the Cover 2 they don't flip
the cornerbacks based on matchups. That's fine if you have two CBs you
can trust, but in this game Tillman was clearly lost and no one else
could have served as an adequate partner to Vasher.

-Smith's run on a reverse to setup the last Carolina TD was genius by
John Fox in exploiting a depleted Bears secondary. With so much speed
on NFL defenses these days getting positive yards on a reverse is
difficult unless someone is stupid and over pursues. That's exactly
what happened. If replacement safety Mike Green had held containment
(instead of over pursuing on the backside of the run) he might've had
a play on Smith or at least slowed him down before he got to the
corner. There's no guarantee that Mike Brown would have made the play
if he hadn't been injured earlier in the game, but there's a reason he
was named to the Pro Bowl.

Now I'm not an NFL coach nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last
night, but why would the Bears put themselves in such potentially
disastrous situations? Everyone in the stadium *knew* the Panthers'
game plan was to get the ball into Smith's hands, so why *not* have
you best players on him **at all times** regardless of what the scheme
calls for?

I'm not bitter but I am plenty sad that the Bears lost a game that
they could have won. Steve Smith was going to get the ball regardless,
but you have to wonder what the final score would have been if we had
matched up personnel against him better.

(And hindsight is 20/20 part too: Grossman and the first team offense
should have played at least the first half in Mini-soda the last game
of the regular season. Injury prevention be damned, the offense was
flat until late in the second quarter.)