Tuesday Night Week 12 Recap.

Week 12 Predictions heads up: 10-6

Week 12 Predictions against the Spread: 9-7

Record so far: 80-63

Just when you thought Peyton Manning couldn't throw any more interception he proves us all wrong. I think for the most part we all saw the Chargers catching up to everyone in the AFC west and looking to overtake them in the final weeks of the season. The luck of the interim head coach continued as the Vikings eked out an ugly one over the Redskins and the Bears have finally earned my beleaguered kudos in this week’s recap.

The Beasts of the East

Fun Fact: Brian Urlacher ate Donald Duck after this photo

After Watching the Falcons win a great game against the Packers I was ready to declare them the best team in the NFC. Then I saw the Bears beat the Eagles in a 31-26 game that wasn’t actually that close and I have to say the Bears are legit. I’ve been railing against the Bears and their early win’s against nobody for a while but after beating the team I thought was the best in the NFC handily I have to give them their due.  Jay Cutler was absolutely phenomenal throwing a more or less perfect game, 247 yards 4 touchdowns no interceptions. Their defense did an outstanding job shutting down the big plays that fuel the eagles and keeping everything in front of them with their cover 2 defense. They also did a great job of not over pursuing and creating running lanes for Michael Vick they kept him more or less in check for the entire game as far as running the football goes.  He got 44 yards but it came on 9 carries so he was held under 5 yards a carry and I’m sure most teams would take that. Michael Vick still played a pretty outstanding game, outside of one red zone interception he was patient moving down the field and taking what the Bears gave him and he made one of the best passes of the year on his 30 yard touchdown to Brent Celek however it wasn’t enough. Vick’s performance reminded me of Aaron Rodgers performance earlier in the day where he pretty much was all of the Green Bay Packers offense on the road and almost single handedly lead them to victory over a very tough Falcons team, but the Packers special teams undid what should have been an overtime forcing drive. The Green Bay Packers had 418 total yards and Rodgers was responsible for 395 of them. This game confirmed that both of these teams are among the top 3 or 4 of the NFC and if they meet again it could easily be 20-17 the other way around.

Ok fine. I admit it. The Bears are for real

I’ve been trying for weeks and weeks to write off the Bears as a fluky team lead by a defense that isn’t as good as people think and an offense that doesn’t have anyone a single reliable player but that’s simply not true. The Bears area a team lead by a damn good defense and an offense that doesn’t have a single reliable player. The Bears defense is based more around the turnover than it is completely shutting their opponents down. While their pass defense is ranked a mediocre 16^th in the league they have 16 interceptions which ties them for second in the league. The cover two style they play forces quarterbacks to be patient with their throws or force something and possibly end up with an interception and clearly a lot of quarterbacks lack patience which is what the Bears defense capitalize on.  This defense has been lead by the resurgence of Brian Urlacher into the all-pro form he had a few years ago, he’s roaming sideline to sideline playing that 3^rd safety role that the middle linebacker in a cover two has to do so well. Offensively this team won’t particularly wow you with anything they’re 22^nd in points scored and 28^th in total yardage. However as bad as Jay Cutler has looked at times this season and he has looked really really bad, if you told Bears fans Jay Cutler would have 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions with a 90 QB rating they would have taken it.  Part of what makes up for their mediocre offense has been the return of stellar special teams play to the Bears sidelines, Devin Hester is almost back to his old self with two punt returns for touchdown this year the first he’s had since 2008. You combine all 3 things and this bears team has the classic composition of a Chicago football team, a team that’s lead by its defense has a competent but honestly not that good offense and relies on a special teams to generate field position.

Is this the beginning of the end for the Colts?

Seen this a lot more than usual

Part of me wanted to write an article about the Chargers here, but I think I’ve reference the comeback of the Chargers in this blog enough to where you all see where I would go with that. A much more unexpected storyline coming out of that Sunday Night game is that the Colts got absolutely blasted. They lost by 22 points and it should have been 35. I know that by and large the Chargers own the Colts and that Peyton always has bad games against them but the Colts are 6-5 at week 13. When was the last time we were this far into the season and the Colts were a game above .500? The closest I can come up with is the 2008 Colts and they were 7-4 in week 13 before ending the season on a 10 game winning streak. Hey maybe this Colts team will close the season on a 5 game winning streak and end up at 11-5 and we’ll forget that we ever had this conversation but I just can’t shake the fact this Colts team looks incredibly flawed. Normally the Colts can’t run the football, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it this bad. Peyton Manning is on pace to break the all time passes attempted in a season record which is no good for anyone who likes the blue horseshoes. He’s averaging around 45 passing attempts a game and is over 30 attempts ahead of the next closest player.  He’s thrown 7 interceptions in the past two games and it seems as though he’s regressing to his old interception happy days. Many many years ago my brother and I used to call Peyton Manning “intercepto”, we thought of him as a super hero who’s only power was the ability to throw interceptions.  In his rookie season Peyton Manning threw 28 interceptions which is still quite staggering, he followed that up two years later a 23 interception gem. Just to clear up any confusion no I don’t think he’s going back to the days of his early years where he every pass he threw had you worried, but part of me wonders if the days of me thinking Peyton Manning could do no wrong have finally come to an end.