“Hey Jay, go win this one for us”

For all the stories about Jay Cutler’s interception problem and his apparent deficiency in night games, this is his game to win. Without a great game from the Bears’ QB, it’s hard to make up ways the Bears can win this game. The Eagles are simply not a good match-up for the Bears: they have a handful of receivers who can stretch the field, a quarterback who won’t miss them, they have a good pass rush … I can go on if you’d like me to.

The Eagles have so many weapons, and they’re pretty close to must-win territory if they’re going to make the playoffs. Because of the Eagle’s weapons and the Bears’ issues, it’s hard to find good match-ups for the Bears to exploit. Though the Eagles lost to Raiders earlier this season, so never say never.

When the Bears have the ball

It’s difficult to predict what the Bears are going to see when they have the ball because of their own deficiencies as an offense. The Eagles want to get pressure, I mean a lot of pressure and they’ll do about anything to get. They’ll show a blitz while the quarterback is pointing, hollering, trying to figure out who’s coming and who’s not. Then when the QB thinks he has it figured out, they’ll send a completely different group of guys. It has been an Eagles’ specialty for years and this season is no exception – the Eagles are second in the NFL in sacks.

But the Eagles don’t have to blitz Cutler. They can get big men in position to knock Cutler around without sending more than the standard four rushers. Hell, there have been times when a three-man rush has done the trick. And things aren’t going to be any easier if Olin Kreutz is at all hindered by his injury.

Though all the film says the Eagles don’t have to blitz, the Bears still need to be aware of a variety of blitz packages because it’s what the Eagles do. Since the blitz removes potential targets for Cutler’s interceptions, the Bears might be better off with a blitz heavy game plan – as long as Cutler gets rid of the ball quickly. If Cutler makes the right read against the blitz and gets rid of quickly, he’ll be going up against a patchwork Eagles secondary. Asante Samuel is on one side, and he’ll shutdown Devin Hester regardless of what the Eagles do up front. The patchwork comes on the other side of the field. The Eagles are two corners down (Sheldon Brown and Joselio Hanson are out); meanwhile, no one has anything nice to say about either of their replacements. ESPN’s KC Joyner says, “Losing two top-line cornerbacks is bad enough, but Patterson and Robinson are both, truth be told, less than adequate backups.” Well OK then. Should the Eagles blitz – and the Bears’ O-line give Cutler more than a nanosecond in the pocket – the Bears may have their victims.

Unfortunately, the Eagles and their defensive coordinator aren’t idiots; they’re more than capable of adjusting to screens and quick throws, and they’re more than capable of getting to the QB with a four-man rush. Three weeks ago, against the Giants, the Eagles’ plan was to send an assortment of blitz packages at Eli Manning.. At least the blitz packages were the initial plan. After the game, defensive coordinator Sean McDermott estimated his defense blitzed only 30% of the time and defensive end Darren Howard said, “our game plan called for a lot of blitzes, but we didn’t end up calling a lot. We got enough pressure from our four-man rush.”

Whatever the Bears are going to see up front, short passes are pretty much the only option. Occasionally, I’d like to see extra protection or Cutler rolling out so he can wing it down field – I wanted this last week too, and didn’t get it – but the offense’s production is going to come from short passes.

When the Eagles have the ball

Over the past few weeks, the anti-Lovie and anti-Tampa-2 people have used the team’s recent failure as evidence for the need to remove them. They have made the Tampa-2 out to be some horrible scheme and Lovie Smith a coach too integrated with the defense to adjust. In reality, the scheme has made little more than a cameo since the game in Cincinnati. Whether the defense was placed in Lovie’s back pocket because of the abuse it took against the Bengals; because of specific match-ups; because they lack the personnel to continue running it; because Lovie needs to use other methods to blitz and generate pressure; or a combination of everything above, who knows outside of Halas Hall. But with the Eagles in town, the Bears need to go back to the Tampa-2 with hat in hand.

The Eagles are dangerous on the outside. DeSean Jackson has been a problem for defensive backs since Week 1 and Jeremy Maclin has settled in quite nicely since the Eagles’ bye week in Week 4. Larry Fitzgerald is the best receiver the Bears have faced this season, they rarely felt the need to place a safety over the top against him. While Tillman – who covered Fitzgerald predominantly one-on-one – could have used all the help he could get, Fitzgerald never was a threat down the field. He never demanded help over the top; Jackson and Maclin do. They’ve only been in the league a combined three years, they have slightly smaller frames then some NFL WRs and they don’t run precise routes like Fitzgerald, but they’ll run past man-to-man. It’s good to see you Tampa-2. Hope there are no hard feelings.

Tampa-2 means help with Maclin and Jackson on the outside, but it doesn’t solve every problem. If the four-man rush doesn’t get to Donovan McNabb, tight end Brent Celek is another issue. Celek leads the Eagles in receptions; he’s a favorite target of McNabb no matter where they are on the field. So it’s going to be up to Hunter Hillenmeyer to do his best Brian Urlacher impersonation taking away the deep middle, because that’s where McNabb and Celek can do damage – seven of Celek’s 46 receptions have gone for 20+ yards.

Like the Bears, the Eagles’ running game isn’t all that important. Les Bowen of philly.com wrote after the Eagles’ lost to the Chargers:

“I thought it was revealing that McCoy, promising and precocious as he is, did not touch the ball Sunday until Westbrook came to the sideline … McCoy tends to dance into the hole when it looks less than promising, hoping to break outside or at least make a tackler miss, instead of sticking his nose in and taking a yard or 2.”

Though I don’t know if any of this matters if the Eagles give McNabb time to throw. If McNabb has time, the Eagles will score a lot of points because of all the different ways they can attack the Bears through the air. So go ahead Jay, “go win this one for us.”