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Dan Peters
Sports Editor
Suburban
Journals of Chicago
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Sept
24th
Bears defense
shut down the Buccaneers running game but
not Brian Griese Lose in
Overtime 27-24
The Bears blew yet another big point advantage for the second straight
week, turning fan’s cheers to boos in a stunning 27-24 overtime loss to
Tampa before a crowd of 59,937 at Soldier Field.Sunday Former
Bears quarterback Brian Griese was right
at home, even though he wore the enemies Jersey. Griese threw 67
passes—the most ever by a Bears opponent.
“A loss is a loss, but it does hurt when you have control of the
football game,” said coach Lovie Smith, whose team fell to 1-2.
“If you were never in a football game and you lose, you’ve been
miserable the entire football game. But that wasn’t the case. We had
control.
“In those situations, you just have to have the killer instinct at the
end to make a couple plays. Normally you’re just one play from
all things being OK.”
Pure Brian Griese….
All throughout his career, Griese has always been a clutch player, able
to run the two-minute offense with the best in the business, and it
showed again Sunday.
Griese was the spark, with his new team. Down with a 24-14 deficit, he
guided the Bucs with 10 points in the fourth quarter, then moving the
ball to set up Matt Bryant’s 21-yard field goal
with 4:21 left in overtime. Game over, again.
Griese completed 38 passes for 407 yards, the third most by a Bears
opponent behind Vince Ferragamo’s 509 yards in 1982
and Tommy Kramer’s 436 yards in 1985.
The defense held the Bucs vaunted running game in check, but didn’t
fare quite as well when it came to tackling Brian Griese.
“We blitzed at times and got a little bit of pressure,” said coach
Lovie Smith. “But if you let him throw that many times, normally guys
will get tired after a while. You have to keep them off the
field a little bit more.”
The Bears run defense permitted just 47 yards on 17 carries, including
19 yards on 11 attempts prior to overtime. But the inability to get to
Griese ultimately proved costly.
“He was getting rid of the ball so quick,” said defensive tackle Dusty
Dvoracek. “Hats off to him. He did a great job. [But] if
he had 67 attempts and we didn’t get any sacks, we’ve got to do
a better job up front. That’s on us.”
“We had some guys come clean on pressures and they were able
to get rid of it,” said defensive coordinator Bob Babich. “But they did
a good job. I give them a lot of credit. They kept hammering away and
they ended up with a lot of yards in the passing game.”
Good Choices, Bad
choices….
The Right
choice….
Gould’s 28-yard field goal on the final play of the first half was
set up by a trick play on special teams. Setting up to punt on
fourth-and-one at the Chicago 44, Garrett Wolfe took a direct
snap and dashed 38 yards to the Tampa Bay 18. It was Wolfe’s first
carry of the season and the longest rush of his two-year NFL career.
The Wrong choice…
After the Tampa tied the game with :07 remaining, a 15-yard penalty
against Tampa Bay on the ensuing kickoff gave the Bears one untimed
down from their 28. When quarterback Kyle Orton took a knee, the
Soldier Field crowd erupted in boos, and they
had the right to. What were the Bears thinking?
“To me, only something bad could have happened,” Smith said. “We wanted
to get into overtime and go from there. Ten out of
10 times we’ll do that.”
“I think in that situation you can do bad more than you can good,”
Orton said. “We were confident going into overtime and we thought we
would just take it into overtime.”
Even more troubling was the offense’s failure to pick up a first down
after the Buccaneers had closed to within 24-17 on Matt Bryant’s
35-yard field goal with 3:11 left in the fourth quarter.
“As an offense, you get the ball and you want to close the game
out with the ball and get in the victory offense,” Orton said. “But we
weren’t able to do it.”
Key Play for the
Bears in Overtime…
On the Bears’ only possession in overtime, Orton hit Brandon Lloyd for
a 24-yard gain on third-and-four to the Chicago 44. Three plays later,
Rashied Davis dropped a well-thrown pass
over the middle on third-and-seven, leading to a punt.
“That would have been a big play, but we had numerous other
opportunities to close it out,” Orton said. “We made too many mistakes
in the first half. I made too many mistakes in the first
half. When you lose a game like this, you can only look at
yourself. I’ve got room to improve and I’m going to come back
to work next week and work as hard as I can to get better.”
It won’t be easy, Donovan McNabb and the high powered Eagles land in
Soldier field Sunday night for a prime time shootout.
© Oak Park Journal photo
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