If you weren’t watching Matt Forte run and catch all over the Jacksonville Jaguars yesterday, you might have missed the stat pop up in which Forte, the Bears rookie running back that everyone except Peter King fawns over, broke the Bears’ single season rookie record for total yards from scrimmage. This record was  previously held by Gale Sayers. Which obviously means Forte is better than Sayers. Duh.

And the better news? By the transitive property, Forte is better than Reggie Bush! That doesn’t mean a whole helluva lot, unless you really like slamming Bush, which I do to the nth degree.

Most inspiring about the accomplishment? He was humble about it.

“That’s a blessing and a great accomplishment. I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it. I never looked at anybody’s stats. I just go out and play every weekend. I really worry about the win column.”

Now, it’s clearly too early to say Forte is better than Sayers. But the reality is, that in the context of total yards accumulated by a rookie Bears running back, Forte is the all-time best (so far). When you think about the way he has impacted this team, both with his attitude in the locker room and the play on the field, it’s kind of tough to think that he might not have a legitimate shot at winning ROY.

Keep reading →

As Will just ran through, the Bears lost in epic fashion yesterday. They went from the top of the mountain to bottom in oh, about 11 seconds. Or was it more than 11 seconds and the clock keeper decided to start the clock a tad late on Matt Ryan’s drop back on his last throw of the game? Should there have actually been no time remaining after the toss to Michael Jenkins and the Bears should have been victors?

DUN DUN DUN:

First: I hope you did not miss Kyle Orton’s fantastic celebration moves. Second: it appears the Falcons might have gotten an extra second (or two), and this perhaps helped them escape with a victory. (Though, I’m willing to bet there was something like 6.9 seconds left on the clock, and that’s why it appears to take forever for it to tick down from :06 to :05.)

In any event, the Bears still lost. And in the end, that’s all that really matters.

(Video via Blog Down, Chicago Bears.)

When your team gets roughly 45 chances to grab a gift-wrapped game and walk off the field and yet you still somehow lose, well, you deserve it. That was the fate of the Chicago Bears in Week 6 of the NFL season as they lost to the Atlanta Falcons in what amounted to, for lack of a better description, insanity.

First of all, if I told you there was a goal-line stand occurring in the latter stages of a Bears - Falcons game, you would assume that Michael Turner got stuffed, Brian Urlacher did some fist pump and the Bears cheered. Right? Yeah, wrong. It was Matt Forte who got snuffed out on fourth-and-one at the end zone, forcing the Bears — who had two chances to move the ball one yard — to turn the ball over on downs and not decrease their 19-10 deficit.

But wait … there’s less. The Bears then held the Falcons to a three and out, marched down the field and got a Robbie Gould field goal. A Jason Elam 33-yard shank later and suddenly Chicago had new life, invigorated despite previous failures. A gritty 77-yard, two-and-a-half minute drive followed and Kyle Orton hit Rashied Davis on a miracle 17-yard touchdown pass to take the lead with 11 second left in the game.

Vic-tor-eeeeee. Or not.

Keep reading →