Urlacher loss should not be repeat of 2004

By Edward Kensik  |   Saturday, September 19, 2009  |  Comments( 0 )

Chicago Bears
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There is one thing that will definitely hurt the Chicago Bears with the loss of Brian Urlacher to a wrist injury this season, eye balls on the screen and tickets sold. Many point to when Urlacher was lost to an injury in 2004 for seven games that the Bears did not win a game, but the Urlacher of 2009 while still a very good linebacker is not at the level of '04. Until 2009 that was the only year that Urlacher missed a regular season game. Many scream about how overrated Urlacher is, but at the least he has been dependable and durable over the years. In 2004 Hunter Hillenmeyer took over for Urlacher and that is the case again this season. In 2004 it was only Hillenmeyer’s second season in the NFL and this season he is much more seasoned to make it so that the Bears will not miss Urlacher as much as expected.

Urlacher is still a very good linebacker, but what will hurt the most are tickets sold and television ratings. There is no doubt that Urlacher is a star and one of the most appealing players in the entire NFL. While it did hurt the Bears in the loss to the Packers, it was not the main reason for the defeat.The main reason was the offensive line play and also the wide receivers. The Bears were stubborn in not picking up a veteran wide receiver so they stuck with their draft picks and Earl Bennett who never had caught a pass until Sunday night.

The Bears might find out that you can't trade for caviar and mix it with Burger King or McDonald's with the group of wide receivers that they put together. With the likes of Hank Baskett on the market, the team opted to bypass him and is pretty much stuck with the likes of Johnny Knox, Juaquin Iglesias and Bennett. In the preseason, defenses were just running their routine plays and not specifically defending Cutler so the wide outs were able to run their routes. The team felt reassured about the group of wide receivers after the play of the wide outs against the Giants in the exhibition season. But this inexperienced group except for Hester is still a work in progress in working with Cutler. Even when Cutler hit some of the wide outs, he was forcing it through the Packers defenders. So Dom Capers, the Packers defensive coordinator just pretty much had to take Greg Olsen and Matt Forte out of the picture in catching passes. The Pack were blitzing all day because the young receivers had basically never played a game during the regular season.

In addition for some reason Ron Turner opted to have Garret Wolfe doing some of the blocking. All the Green Bay defenders had to do was jump over him to get to Cutler. Despite the team being totally out of sync in the season opener, it was most promising that the Bears were only one half decent drive in the fourth quarter away of leaving Lambeau Field with a win. The Bears might not beat the Steelers, but fans and the team should watch how well Cutler is communicating with Hester, Bennett, Knox and all when the final seconds tick off the clock on Sunday.
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