Chicago, IL — With the NFL regular season a little over a month away it’s time to take a look at how our favorite gridiron team the Chicago Bears will do for the 2011-12 season. In a two part series I will be looking at the Bears opponents and offering up my humble opinion on how our Bears will do. Below is their 2011 schedule along with my week by week prognosis of where our Bears will end up and why.
Chicago Bears Schedule
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1 |
Sep 11 |
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2 |
Sep 18 |
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3 |
Sep 25 |
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4 |
Oct 02 |
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5 |
Oct 10 |
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6 |
Oct 16 |
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7 |
Oct 23 |
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8 |
Bye |
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9 |
Nov 07 |
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10 |
Nov 13 |
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11 |
Nov 20 |
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12 |
Nov 27 |
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13 |
Dec 04 |
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14 |
Dec 11 |
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15 |
Dec 18 |
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16 |
Dec 25 |
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17 |
Jan 01 |
Now while it is hard to imagine a rougher first week draw than Atlanta we must look on the bright side they could have drawn the New England Patriots we all know what happened the last time the Pats visited Soldier Field, enough said. My point is things could be worse. This game I actually think might be a toss-up given that it is being played in Chicago. The Falcons have improved no doubt from the last time the Bears faced them but so has Chicago. We almost beat them down in the Georgia dome and let us not forget under a Ron Turner offence with no Peppers or Urlacher either on the Defense. I’m giving Atlanta the edge on this one simply because if I’m wrong the Bears record will be even better and because it is early in the season the weather should be good and the grass while not good should be adequate at this stage of the season. Advantage Falcons
Bears at Saints in New Orleans which is one of the hardest places in the NFL to win at puts the Bears at a severe disadvantage. Also remember our old friend Alex Brown, think he is not telling coach Sean Payton all of the Bears defensive weaknesses and how to exploit them. Also it appears Olin Kreutz will be securing their O- line and think a little revenge is not on his mind? He has the book on all of the Bears Offensive shortcomings and how to rattle Jay Cutler and that shaky O line. Advantage Saints
Now game three is again another coin toss of a game. Any time the Packers and Bears get together who knows what will happen and I’m not really sure either teams venue gives either one a significant advantage but the Bears came very close in the post season @ Soldier Field against a much better team with a back up QB at the helm so I will give the nod here to the Bears reluctantly. Advantage Bears
Now if there is another team that I have affection for it is the Carolina Panthers because of coach Ron Rivera and TE Greg Olsen a fan favorite. With that said coach Rivera has his work cut out for him and no one expects the Panthers to do much this year. Hell we do not even know who the starting QB will be Clausen or Newton either way you either have a green second year guy or a rookie and we all know how rookie QB’s fare in the NFL. Carolina’s defense should be solid under Rivera but it will not be enough this year to over come that Offence. Advantage Bears
Now this will be the first time I believe ever that MNF will be in Detroit @ Ford Field – think the players and their fans will not be ready for this game? Also Detroit have vastly improved their team in the draft and through free agency but the key to the Lions will be if QB Stafford can stay vertical. I think the emotional intangibles will be enough to push the Lions just past the Bears in a close one. Advantage Lions
What was once a very scary Vikings team is sort of in the place when one is in a rebound relationship, Post Favre and pre Ponder poor McNabb is the rebound girl one dates before that special someone. Couple that with the loss of Sidney Rice the Vikings will struggle this year on offence. The Defense will be strong with coach Frasier at the helm and his trusty robin to his batman Mike Singletary but this year will be a bridge year for Minny. Advantage Bears
week 7 will see our Bears hit the road but not to Tampa Bay but to London, yes that London. This team surprised everyone last year with 10-6 record in a very tough division of NFC South and just missed the playoffs. The Bucs have a very good QB in Josh Freeman who started all 16 games, throwing for 3,451 yards while completing 61.4% of his throws.[1] He also had the ninth best TD/INT ratio in NFL history, throwing 25 touchdowns to only 6 interceptions. The Bucs at home would have been tough to beat but in London England where the Chicago Bears have a huge following and the Bears travel well will be another story this might even feel like a home game for our Bears. Advantage Bears
Bye week and half way point – now I have the Bears with a slightly above 500 record of 4-3 at this point but the worst part of their schedule is behind them with a few exceptions. All of these predictions are predicated on two very important things a) the Offensive line can actually come together as a unit and gel into a semi cohesive unit and b) there are no significant injuries to major starters. Stay tune for Part II coming shortly.
1 taken from Wikipedia
sportshash 