Why Lovie Smith Win Looks Unlikely
It was back in training camp and Bears coach Matt Eberflus had several wide receivers go down with soft tissue injuries at the same time.
“You’re always concerned about that,” Eberflus said. “You know, during camp when you have this 90-man roster and guys go down with a soft-tissue stuff or whatever it might be, you put workloads on other guys.”
A weak position for the Bears became weaker then.
The comfort of the 90-man roster vanished after cutdowns and injuries hit the Bears at several positions hard this week, especially defensive starters. They could be forced to start rookies at five positions on defense Sunday, although if they’re fortunate they might get by with just three.
The hip injury to Roquan Smith, the hamstring injury to Jaylon Johnson, and the knee injury to Matthew Adams have cost them Adams already and could result in Smith and Johnson missing, as well.
The Bears could be counting on Jack Sanborn, Sterling Weatherford, Jaylon Jones and some other relative neophytes.
Eberflus said he has never had a problem using younger players. It’s a good thing because he’s going to need to do exactly that.
The fact they’re playing a team so mired in losing over the last three years makes it about the best time to have injuries on the Bears schedule.
Will the Real Bears Please Stand Up?
There is the tendency in the NFL to overemphasize the last game, especially early in the season so it's easy to discount what happened to the Bears in Green Bay. They've gone to Green Bay with better teams in the past and came out with more convincing defeats. It said little more than the Week 1 win in rain said.
The schedule actually said more about the Texans so far than the Bears, as they didn't play the same level of opponent the Bears did in either of the first two games and they are winless.
So after the rain game and Green Bay, we’re still hoping to see the real Bears of Matt Eberflus.
This could be the week, depending on whether the sod at Soldier Field came through the last mess well enough to make for a competitive game and not a complete joke.
Lovie Smith's Years of Losing
Even with the injuries, it is difficult to look at the Bears in a home game during September, after a miserable night in Green Bay, then see Davis Mills as Texans quarterback and Lovie Smith as the coach and think Houston is going to get its first win of the season.
Smith’s last winning season as a head coach or coordinator came when he coached most of his games at Soldier Field. Somehow he talked Texans ownership into giving him one last crack at the NFL after he bombed out in Tampa, then went to Illinois and took a bad program lower.
Players tended to become attached to Smith quickly with the Bears because he was a real players coach. Years of losing have made him a losing players coach.
The Bears are a rebuilding team with a second-year quarterback and they use the Tampa-2 defense. The Texans are a rebuilding team with a second-year quarterback and they use a Tampa-2 defense.
The similarities are too great for one side to beat the other convincingly.
This one looks more likely to be a game decided by someone with real athletic ability, making plays and not team football efficiency because there just won't be enough of it on either side due to their current states of development.
It looks like a good week for the real Justin Fields to stand up.
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Prediction: Bears 19, Texans 16
