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Beat the New England Patriots is hard enough. It's impossible to defeat the New England Patriots after conceding two touchdowns on special teams. Just ask the Chicago Bears, who surprised the Patriots with a miraculous comeback after allowing two special teams to put touches earlier in the game.
On Sunday, the Bears welcomed the Patriots and took a 10-point lead in the first half before succumbing to an inevitable winning machine. The Patriots quickly erased this deficit by capitalizing on the mistakes of the Bears, including allowing two touchdowns and two interceptions on the territory of the Patriots. What began as an entertaining and back-and-forth affair turned into a familiar eruption for the Patriots before finally giving way to a slim 38-31 win.
Just as it looked like the Patriots were moving away, the Bears, 14 points behind midway through the fourth quarter, managed to restore an unlikely comeback one meter from the end.
After eliminating Tom Brady, scored a touchdown to reduce the deficit to seven points and forced another stop at the last minute of the match, the Bears had to travel 80 meters without being late to force extra time. The Bears started making just enough yards to get into the Hail Mary area with two seconds on the screen.
In the final part of the game, Mitchell Trubisky raised a prayer at the back of the pitch. Kevin White answered his prayer. He took a leap forward on the one yard line, back to the end zone. He tried to turn his body and pass the ball over the goal line, but a horde of Patriots gave him enough resistance to push him back at the last moment. And that's how the Patriots won a crazy game full of mistakes.
If doubts remain as to the state of the Patriots, their last two victories should erase these doubts. In their last two games, the Patriots beat the previously undefeated Chiefs and a strong but imperfect Bears team in Chicago. They made far too many mistakes – the kind of mistakes that could be damaging them in January – but they are a pretty good team to overcome them. Even in the absence of Rob Gronkowski, absent from the club, the Patriots won a draw against the league's best defense by DVOA.
Tom Brady was his usual efficient, completing 25 of his 36 passes for 277 yards, three touchdowns, one interception and a passer rating of 108.2. Josh Gordon broke out with 100 yards. James White fueled the attack with 97 yards and two touchdowns. And Chris Hogan was finally involved with six catches and 63 yards.
At 5-2, the 1-2 start of the Patriots is only an insignificant memory.
Bears make too many mistakes
At 3-3, the Bears 3-1 start is nothing more than a meaningless memory. The Bears have now lost two consecutive games. In both games, they looked like a young football team prone to mistakes, which was not ready to make the leap from a promise to a good one. In other words, they look more like what we expected at the beginning of the season.
Let's talk about special teams first. In the second quarter, the Bears allowed a 95-yard touchdown a few minutes after taking a 10-point lead. In the third quarter, the Bears allowed a touchdown on a blocked kick, which turned a draw into a seven-point lead of the Patriots. This is the kind of mistakes that teams can not commit against the Patriots and expect to win.
The second problem was Trubisky. In his previous two games, Trubisky finally played as a good quarterback, winning 670 yards and nine touchdowns. On Sunday, he returned to the quarter we saw in the first few weeks of the season.
For most of the match, he was terrible as a smuggler. His final stretch suffered a tremendous shock due to the last minutes of the fourth quarter, but despite these last two orders and that completed by Hail Mary, he finished only 26 out of 50 for 333 yards (6.7 YPA), two touchdowns and two choices. and a pass mark of 69.8. Apart from these last two discs, Trubisky could not touch the side of a barn.
Trubisky was lucky that the Patriots escaped two interceptions in the end zone, but he still managed to make two choices in the Patriots' territory.
It was not really his fault. Josh Bellamy, who could not win a contested take, was more involved than Trubisky, who had little to lose by throwing a high-risk pass in third. The second choice of Trubisky was created as a result of an incredible hand held by Jonathan Jones, but do not let the quality of the capture make you forget the quality of the throw. If Trubisky had put more air under the ball and had not spilled his target, it would have been a touchdown.
The biggest problem the Bears have so far has been their quarter. It seems that Trubisky has no middle ground between the bad and the good. Either he deposits an incredible penny, or he misses his target several meters. He looks unstoppable or incompetent. This is not Matt Nagy, who continues to organize open shots for his quarter. This on Trubisky for not providing any kind of consistency to a team that only needs a quarterback capable of throwing open throws.
Trubisky goes wild
Give credit to Trubisky because he has always managed to be the most dangerous weapon of the Bears. He did it running on the Patriots.
He gave the Bears a 10-7 lead in the first quarter running 77 yards on what was an eight-yard touchdown.
At the start of the third quarter, Trubisky gave the Bears the opportunity to regain the lead when he built 39 yards – again with his legs. When he had the impression of leaving the game at the 20-meter line, he cut the inside and did not fall until he was one meter from the end zone. . The Bears would score a few games later.
Trubisky finished with 81 yards rushing. He was fantastic as a runner and deserves credit for that.
Josh Gordon bursts
Hi, Josh Gordon. Welcome to the Patriotes.
Gordon, who landed in New England in mid-September, finally broke out and presented his best performance with the Patriots. He caught four passes for 100 yards, including an incredible conversion to fourth downhill and another capture and a colossal run that helped the Patriots score.
After the match, Patriots receiver Julian Edelman thanked the Browns for sending Gordon to them.
We understand why it took Gordon a month to finally reach cruising speed after changing teams mid-season. Now that it has erupted, it is scary to imagine what this offense of the Patriots will look like.
Sony Michel leaves with a knee injury
But the Patriots might not reach their strength for a moment. While Gronk should come back next week, the Patriots will probably be deprived of the rookie in the first round Sony Michel, left in the first period with a knee injury.
After leaving the field without hindering his leg, he was returned to the locker room. It was initially considered questionable to come back with a knee injury. By the time the second half started, he had been excluded.
When he entered Sunday's game, Michel was in a three-game, 100-meter series. He also had a good start against the Bears. At the moment of his sudden departure, he had accumulated 35 meters in five touches.
James White: Mr. Reliable
It's a good thing that the Patriots still have James White, Brady's most reliable weapon. Without Michel as the spearhead of the game on foot, the Patriots opted for a heavier approach passes. And that meant that White was busy.
He had 97 yards on 19 hits. He also scored twice, which made the Bears defense look very slow on the goal line.
If Michel is running out of time, expect White's workload to only increase.
Patriots unusually neglected
It's not just the Bears that have been neglected. So were the Patriots.
While Cordarrelle Patterson scored a touchdown for a touchdown, he also missed one of his returns in the second quarter, which preceded a touchdown by Bears.
In the next series of Patriots, Michel groped (on the hit that ended his day). This fumble also led to a touchdown.
Twice in the first half, they had to use defensive time defensively when it seemed to them that the Bears had confused them. At the end of the first half, Edelman blocked a punt – the ball bounced off his face mask – but the Bears failed to recover a recoverable ball on the 5-yard line and Edelman jumped on the loose ball to avoid a disaster. After being forced to shoot, the Patriots were called for unsportsmanlike conduct with less than 20 seconds left in the first half, allowing the Bears to score points before the break. The Bears finally came close to the goal range, so they did not come back to hurt the Patriots, but the mistakes multiplied.
At the end of the match, when it looked like the Patriots were putting the finishing touches to a surprising explosion of points that would turn the match into an eruption, Brady threw a ball into a narrow blanket that was deflected and wrapped in the arms of one. bear. .
This interception gave life to the Bears. They turned this turnover into seven points, which resulted in a match to a score. Their return would be much less than one meter, but the Bears should not have had the opportunity to do it.
Do not expect these mistakes to continue. Bill Belichick will probably fix them.
Bears Pass Rush disappears again
A final concern for the Bears: their rush in the pass has disappeared in their last two games. They failed to dismiss Brock Osweiler a week ago. And Sunday, they only shot Brady one time.
Khalil Mack has been invisible and it looks like this ankle injury is bothering him. Leonard Floyd's disappointing season continued. We have barely heard the name of Akiem Hicks on the show. The game plan of defensive coordinator Vic Fangio can also be questioned. He dropped Mack and Floyd in the cover several times, and the Patriots burned them.
The defense of the Bears is based on pressure. That's what makes them super. Without Mack at full power, the Bears defense has gone from being the best in the league to an average unit.
The Dolphins and Patriots have realized that the best way to defeat the Bears is to throw the ball and use short, fast passes, which cancels the passing.
And after?
The Bears tour in AFC East continues. Over the next two weeks, the Bears will play with the Jets and Bills. After defeats against the Dolphins and Patriots, the Bears are 0-2 against AFC East. But if they manage to win their next two games against very hard teams, the Bears should stay alive in a competitive NFC North.
The Patriots, meanwhile, are heading to Buffalo in a match that could be the biggest imbalance of the season. They will then play with the Packers and Titans before the end of their 11th week.
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