You have to get to the passer.
In all the NFL openers, the Bears had the biggest disparity between sacks and sacks allowed. They got zero and gave up five against the 49ers. Coincidentally, the Bears’ 42-point loss was the worst.
Even the St. Louis Rams, who watched helplessly as Kurt Warner held on to the ball for six sacks, got two themselves in their loss to the Giants.
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In the 16 opening-weekend games, only four winners allowed more sacks than they got. Only Washington (gave up four, got one against the Jets) had a disparity of more than one.
The failure of the Bears to pursue free-agent pass rusher Simeon Rice in 2001 is looking like as big a mistake as drafting Curtis Enis or Cade McNown. Former personnel chief Mark Hatley believed Rice was one-dimensional. But pass rushing is the dimension most glaringly missing from the Bears’ defense.
The Bears will have a tough time Sunday night against Minnesota’s huge line. Left tackle Bryant McKinnie outweighed Packers pass rusher Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila by 100 pounds last week (approximately 350 to 250). Still, Gbaja-Biamila was able to get around McKinnie once for a sack of Daunte Culpepper.
Mobile quarterbacks like Culpepper are tougher to contain, but the quick Tampa Bay Bucs, led by Rice and Warren Sapp, had Philadelphia’s Donovan McNabb befuddled Monday night.
Kordell Stewart is mobile, too, much more than Warner. So is the 49ers’ Jeff Garcia. That Garcia was never sacked and Stewart was sacked five times is a bad sign.
Rice, a Chicagoan, wanted to play for the Bears. Instead, Hatley pursued big free-agent tackles Ted Washington and Keith Traylor. It worked as the Bears finished 13-3. Now things have changed.
General manager Jerry Angelo, who was with the Bucs when they signed Rice, got rid of Washington in part because teams are passing so much that big tackles are playing only one down.
Until young pass rushers Alex Brown and Michael Haynes develop, the Bears will struggle.
Quick payoff: The Chiefs had the worst defense in the league last year. They signed free-agent defensive end Vonnie Holliday from the Packers. His three sacks in the first half against San Diego gave him one more than his predecessor at the position, Duane Clemons, recorded all of last season.
Holliday credited the deafening crowd noise at Arrowhead Stadium for helping him get the jump on beleaguered Chargers tackle Damion McIntosh. The noise is not unlike the noise the Bears will have to overcome in the Metrodome.
“I’ve been anticipating this,” Holliday said. “You hear all the talk about Arrowhead, how loud it is, the sea of red, the smoke over the parking lots because of the tailgaters.
“Coming from Green Bay, I didn’t think that could be true. But the fans in Green Bay just don’t know. They haven’t experienced Arrowhead. Everything they said about Arrowhead was true.”
Brees all right: Despite the loss, Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer said quarterback Drew Brees “was absolutely outstanding. The anticipation was excellent, the velocity on his throws was excellent. . . . The way he played [Sunday], we’ll win a world championship with the guy. He was outstanding.”
Brees was 18-for-33 passing for 202 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions, one of which came after the ball bounced off the shoulder of receiver Reche Caldwell.
Where are the fans? Tennessee at Indianapolis is the game of the week, yet it will be blacked out in Indy because it wasn’t sold out by Thursday. There were 2,900 tickets left. The Colts have a string of 33 sellouts and still hope to sell this one out, but it’s too late to show on TV.
Colts President Bill Polian was upset in 1999 when Titans fans got hold of enough tickets for a playoff game in the RCA Dome that the Colts’ offense had to go to a silent count in the first quarter. The Titans won.
Two games in 2002 were blacked out in Indy, where it isn’t even basketball season yet. The RCA Dome is the smallest stadium in the league, with 56,000 seats.
A preseason crowd of 26,000, smallest ever in the dome, was labeled “embarrassing” by quarterback Peyton Manning.
Big man’s game: Based on opening-day rosters, there were 321 players who weighed at least 300 pounds, including 231 offensive linemen. Oakland has the heaviest offensive line, with an average of 322.8. Only three teams averaged fewer than 300 pounds–Broncos (295.8), Bucs (299.3) and Falcons (299.6). The Eagles led, with nine 300-pounders.
Hard feelings: Ray Lewis, league poster child for mayhem, made no friends in Pittsburgh last week by getting into a pregame confrontation with Steelers linebacker Joey Porter, who was wounded in a drive-by shooting in Denver and is recovering from a bullet wound in his thigh.
According to Porter, Baltimore’s linebacker made fun of Porter’s signature leg kick celebration, “the boot.”
“He did the boot and said, `I don’t care about this, this is my house,'” Porter said.
He then told Lewis: “`When you had your shoulder hurt, remember when I came over after the game and shook your hand? I didn’t do your little dance when you were hurt or when you were going through your murder charge. All I did was wish the best for you. You’re going to take a shot at me when I’m down?’
“I lost all respect for him.”
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Porter also decided after the Steelers’ victory that Lewis wasn’t as good a football player as Porter once believed.
“I put the spy camera on him,” Porter said. “He didn’t do [anything]. He had one tackle and he’s missing all kinds of tackles. All he did was jump on the pile after someone else made a tackle, acting like he did it.
How you look at it: Stewart’s 21.9 passer efficiency rating last week was horrible, but it was better than the 21.7 put up by Denver’s Jake Plummer. Yet the Broncos beat Cincinnati 30-10.
“He will be good,” coach Mike Shanahan said of Plummer. “He will be good in the offense. Quarterbacks have those days and that’s a setback. I’m disappointed for him because of all the scrutiny he’s going to get, but that’s the nature of the position.”
Youth isn’t served: For the third year in a row the Lions are the oldest team in the NFC North. Their average age of 27.45 years is a full year more than the Packers (26.45), followed by the Vikings (26.0) and the Bears (25.72). In a curious rebuilding plan, Lions President Matt Millen increased the number of 30-or-older players on his 53-man roster from 16 to 17. Green Bay and Minnesota are next with eight.
On the other hand, the Bears trimmed their number of thirtysomethings from eight to six and became substantially younger by keeping 12 rookies and two first-year players. Their total of 14 rookies and players in their first year who don’t count as rookies is the most by a division team in the last nine years except for the ’99 Packers, who kept 16 under coach Ray Rhodes.
Detroit’s 22 starters are the oldest at 27.9 years, followed by Green Bay’s at 27.4 and Minnesota’s and the Bears’, each at 26.6.