[CBFF] Any Given Sunday: Dolphins over Bears

[mactbone]

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/2006/11/07/ramblings/any-given-sunday/4508/

Any Given Sunday: Dolphins over Bears
11/7/2006

by Ned Macey

21 years ago, the Miami Dolphins beat an undefeated
Chicago Bears team with the winning quarterback
throwing three touchdowns. On Sunday, the Dolphins
again beat an undefeated Bears team with their
quarterback throwing three touchdowns. Rest assured,
the similarities end there. These are not the same
Dolphins, these are not the same Bears, and Joey
Harrington is definitely not Dan Marino. 

The Bears were the consensus best team in football
coming into Sunday and the presumptive NFC
representative in the Super Bowl. Despite numerous
pre-season predictions to the contrary, the closest
the Dolphins are getting to the Super Bowl will be as
guests at a party in South Beach. 

The Bears’ run to 7-0 included an improbable win over
Arizona where they were able to overcome a dreadful
offensive performance. Rex Grossman was abysmal in
that performance, and unfortunately, he matched that
level of play in the second half on Sunday. A fumble
on a punt return and struggles both running the ball
and stopping the run made this poor performance
impossible to overcome. 

The obvious goat of the game was Grossman. In his
first year as the full-time starter, Grossman has
exceeded expectations and provided Chicago with the
potent passing offense they lacked a season ago.
Entering the weekent, they ranked among the ten best
passing offenses in football according to DVOA. A
matchup against the mediocre defensive secondary of
the Dolphins, in Chicago no less, seemed like a
certain blowout. 

Things in the NFL do not always go according to plan.
Conventional wisdom was wrong for two reasons. The
first is the much-reported story that Grossman
struggles against pressure. The second was an injury
to deep threat Bernard Berrian. 

As the game progressed, it looked like the Dolphins’
base defense was to rush five defenders. Grossman was
flustered throughout the second half, consistently
throwing wildly and off his back foot. The two
second-half interceptions were terrible throws.
Grossman was sacked three times after being sacked
only six times in his first seven games. 

Grossman definitely needs to improve his composure in
the face of a rush, but his cause was hurt by the
injury to Berrian on the Bears’ first offensive play.
Berrian is not the best receiver in the world, but he
can stretch the field. The Bears had numerous
opportunities to connect on deep pass plays against
the Dolphins’ suspect secondary. Grossman hit some of
them, including a nice catch by Muhammad on the team’s
only touchdown. Despite some success, numerous big
play opportunities were left on the field. 

Without Berrian, Justin Gage became the second
receiver. Gage caught only two of the six passes
intended for him and fumbled after one of his
receptions. Gage is not a bad receiver, but he is much
more of a possession guy than Berrian. The speedy
Rashied Davis is an intriguing player, but he is not
prepared to be a consistent contributor. 

With or without Berrian, Grossman needs more help from
the Bears running game. Despite huge strides forward
in the passing game, the rushing offense is no more
potent than a season ago. Both starter Thomas Jones
and backup Cedric Benson are averaging less than four
yards per carry. Benson is not playing at a high
level, but his performance is adequate and should keep
Jones fresh for the stretch run. 

The Dolphins running game is more than adequate
because Ronnie Brown is developing into an elite
running back. A year after splitting carries with
Ricky Williams, Brown has the running game all to
himself. Brown has 151 carries. The next highest
running back on Miami is Sammy Morris with nine. After
struggling to run consistently the first five weeks,
Brown has two 100-yard games in the last three weeks,
averaging over five yards per carry in both. 

Brown’s previous big game was against the Jets, a team
with a poor run defense. His fine performance on
Sunday is worth noting, as the Bears run defense is
among the best in football. Brown had particular
success running to the outside, away from the teeth of
the defense and linebacker Brian Urlacher. On his 12
runs up the middle, Brown gained 35 yards and had only
one run over five yards. On the 17 runs to the edge,
he gained 122 yards. 

The Dolphins were particularly effective running
behind right tackle Vernon Carey, and they have been
successful running in that direction all season. The
Dolphins have been able to run outside in both
directions since the insertion of erstwhile guard
Damion McIntosh as the left tackle against the Jets. A
year ago, the Dolphins ran extremely well behind
McIntosh down the stretch, but for some reason they
imported L.J. Shelton at the beginning of the year.
Moving McIntosh to guard and starting Shelton at left
tackle was an enormous mistake. Shelton has now safely
moved inside to guard, where he has played better. 

The Bears defense gave up four runs of at least 15
yards to Brown, and the easy explanation is the injury
to Mike Brown. The Bears’ longtime safety is gone for
the season, replaced by Todd Johnson. Even with Mike
Brown, the Bears have been susceptible to outside runs
and have given up a fair number of long runs.
Admittedly, Johnson was invisible on Sunday, unless
you count watching him consistently being pushed out
of plays. The Bears will miss Brown’s knack for making
big plays, but this minor problem in run defense is
more often the result of linebacker overpursuit. 

One final problem for the Bears is that much of their
early success has been the result of an
extraordinarily high level of special teams play. They
have excelled in almost all aspects up to this point,
creating enormous field position advantages for both
their offense and defense.

That is a problem because it is simply unsustainable.
Only one team since 1998 has had a full-season special
teams DVOA over 7.8%. Before the Miami game, the
Bears’ special teams DVOA was 13.7%. They had even
further benefited from things outside of their
control, like opposing teams’ kickoff and punt
distances. 

Their DVOA started to drop early in the second
quarter. Devin Hester fumbled a punt inside his own
10-yard line. Three plays later, Miami took a lead it
never relinquished. The Bears special teams did make
some nice plays, blocking a field goal and generally
providing good coverage. But they also fumbled a kick
return that they recovered and dropped another punt
that did not count because of a procedure penalty.
Special teams will continue to be a strength for the
Bears, but they will not be as potent as they were
through the first half of the season. 

The Hester muff started about as bad a sequence of
football as has been played all season. One play after
Harrington converted Hester’s muff into a touchdown,
Grossman was picked by Jason Taylor, who brought it
back for a touchdown. The Bears fumbled the ensuing
kickoff but fortunately recovered it. Seven plays
later, Grossman was sacked and fumbled on another big
play by Taylor. It was a superb overall performance by
Taylor, who proved he still is capable of making the
big play at 32. He remains one of the top defensive
linemen in football. 

The bleeding stopped thanks to a Harrington
interception on an exceptional individual effort by
Alex Brown (another great defensive lineman).
Harrington, in fact, did everything he could to keep
the Bears in the game. The one thing that can be said
in his favor is that he avoids sacks. This is in large
part because he seems to throw more passes behind the
line of scrimmage than past the first-down marker. His
first two touchdowns were nice throws, but his third
one was nearly intercepted. The three drives covered a
total of 42 yards. 

The Joey Harrington era is only likely to last the
season, as either Daunte Culpepper will get healthy or
the Dolphins will start form scratch. The rebuilt
offensive line has shown the ability to free Ronnie
Brown. The defensive front seven, while aging, is
still a venerable group that excels against the run.
If the Dolphins get average play from Harrington, and
the pass rush can protect the mediocre secondary then

 well then the Dolphins may win six games. 

More likely, the Dolphins will get inconsistent play
from Harrington and watch their secondary get exposed
by everyone from Damon Huard to Jon Kitna. This
victory highlighted some of the pieces that made Miami
a chic playoff pick. Unfortunately, the pieces that
have them 2-6 are likely to be featured on a regular
basis going forward. 

For the Bears, the most important question is what Rex
Grossman’s real level of play is. Grossman’s overall
stats rank among the middle of the pack in starting
quarterbacks. However, he has been very good to
excellent in every game but two. In those two games,
he has been beyond terrible. These two performances
have helped make the Bears’ offensive performance the
most inconsistent in football. 

What can we expect from Grossman going forward? In all
honesty, your guess is as good as mine. There is no
precedent for a player spending 75 percent of the time
as one of the game’s best quarterbacks and the rest of
the time as the second coming of Ryan Leaf. His
overall stats say he is an average quarterback, but he
has not played one game at an average level. 

The second half of the season presents more difficult
opponents than the Bears have faced to date, but it is
not exactly a gauntlet. So far this season, the Bears
have faced one team with a winning record and only one
top-10 defense, as measured by DVOA. The last eight
games bring only two games against teams that are
currently over .500 and two games against top-10
defenses.

The Bears will likely cruise into the playoffs with
around 12 wins. The problem is whether or not bad Rex
will reappear in the playoffs. The Bears should spend
the next few months finding a way to get Grossman to
provide average production when he is off his game.
They also need to work on dealing with opposition
blitzes, which they will see a lot of each week until
they prove they can handle them.

This team is nowhere near the quality of the 1985
Bears, but they do have the chance to be better than
the 2005 Bears. Minor problems in the run defense do
not mean this is not an excellent overall defense.
They are almost guaranteed to be the first Bears team
in over a decade to post consecutive winning records.
Whether they win their first playoff game since 1994
or make their first Super Bowl since 1985 likely rests
on whether or not Grossman can deliver.

Each Tuesday in Any Given Sunday, Ned Macey looks at
the most surprising result of the previous weekend.
The NFL sells itself on the idea that any team can win
any given game, but we use these surprises as a tool
to explore what trends and subtle aspects of each team
are revealed in a single game. 




 
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