Eagles at Bears

[CGI_Ram]

https://athlonsports.com/nfl/nfc-wi...cks-philadelphia-eagles-vs-chicago-bears-2019

NFC Wild Card: Philadelphia Eagles vs. Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles took very different paths to Sunday’s NFC Wild Card game. But they share one common thread that binds them together: Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid.

It’s two Reid disciples — Matt Nagy and Doug Pederson — who square off this Sunday in a game that features two of the conference’s hottest teams. As a first-year head coach, Nagy produced a worst-to-first turnaround for the Bears in the NFC North. The former Chiefs offensive coordinator did it with defense, his team allowing a league-best 17.7 points per game while winning nine of their last 10 contests. A 12-4 record earned them their first division title (and playoff berth) in eight years.

The reigning Super Bowl champion Eagles, led by Pederson, Reid's former assistant in both Philadelphia and later Kansas City, enter the postseason scorching hot. They’ve won five of six and three in a row behind the steady play of backup quarterback Nick Foles, seeking a second straight season of magic. The Super Bowl LII MVP has led an offensive surge since the team’s only loss in this stretch, to the Cowboys left them at 6-7 and put an NFC East division title out of reach. But Foles came in and has helped the team produced 28.7 points per game in matchups that included two playoff teams (Rams and Texans) to get the Eagles’ season turned around.

Both coaches know each other well, the type of relationship in which you might say Nagy was almost a Pederson disciple himself. When Pederson was the offensive coordinator for Andy Reid’s Chiefs, Nagy was the Quality Control coach. The duo followed that pattern from the beginning of their careers, Nagy always sliding into the role Pederson left behind in Reid’s system.

“He got that Super Bowl,” Nagy said earlier this week. “I’m trying to follow his lead here.”

Can the Bears, a trendy Super Bowl pick, ride the exact same wave the Eagles did last year to an NFL championship? Or will Pederson still hold the upper hand in this coaching connection?

NFC Wild Card Playoff: Philadelphia at Chicago

Kickoff: Sunday, Jan. 6 at 4:40 p.m. ET
TV: NBC
Spread: Bears -6

Three Things To Watch

1. Nick Foles' health

Foles left the Washington Redskins game early last Sunday with pain in his ribs. At the time, the game was well in hand, leaving Nate Sudfeld to throw his first career NFL touchdown pass in a 24-0 shutout win. But Sudfeld against the Bears, in any capacity? It’s hard to see the Eagles coming out on top.

The diagnosis for Foles was bruised ribs, not a break, leaving him in position to play Sunday. But pressure now mounts for the Eagles’ offensive line, a group that suffered through a season of inconsistency. Despite Sunday’s dominant performance by the team they still allowed three sacks to a Redskins defense with little to play for.

The Bears, whose defense produced an NFC-leading 50 sacks this year present a more serious challenge. Pro Bowl linebacker Khalil Mack is perhaps the best outside edge rusher in the NFL, leading the team in sacks (12.5), QB Hits (18) and forced fumbles (six).

“One on one, you’re not going to slow him down,” Philadelphia head coach Doug Pederson said earlier this week. “It’s going to [force] you to do different things with tight ends, do different things with running backs. It can force you to change your thinking.”

Two tackles, 36-year-old Pro Bowler Jason Peters and Lane Johnson, will be tasked with keeping Mack at bay. Peters is one of the all-time greats but has shown his age at times this season, battling a myriad of injuries. Johnson has had a weird year, a yo-yo between a 9 out of 10 and a 2 on the performance scale depending on the week.

He’ll need to be a 10 for the Eagles to pull this one out. Foles can’t produce another miracle playoff run if he’s not capable of making it through four quarters of play. But if the Eagles protect, opportunities exist. The Bears ranked eighth in the NFL pass defense, a slight weakness (if you could call it that) and Foles has thrown for an average of 320 yards the past three weeks. The Eagles will drive down the field and score points.

2. The Bears' run vs. the Eagles' rush

The Eagles’ run defense took a hit in the second half of the season. Last year’s top-ranked unit slipped to seventh this season and struggled against marquee running backs. Division rivals Saquon Barkley (Giants), Ezekiel Elliott (Cowboys) and Adrian Peterson (Redskins) all had big games against their front line.

That bodes well for the Bears and their 1-2 punch of Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen. The duo ran roughshod over the Vikings in the season finale, piling up 133 yards between them on the ground in a game that ironically opened the door for the Eagles to make the playoffs. The Bears overall have rushed for 100-plus yards in five of the past six games.

But the last week against the Redskins was also the Eagles’ best defensive effort of the year. They allowed just 89 net yards of total offense and held the ‘Skins to 21 yards rushing, a measly 1.8 yards per carry. Peterson could never get going and finished with exactly zero yards on four carries, just one month after torching the Eagles with a 90-yard touchdown run.

This battle on the front lines will be crucial early on as the Bears hope to build a lead, limiting the pressure on young quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Defensive stalwarts Fletcher Cox, Brandon Graham and Jordan Hicks have to come together and make big plays early and often.

3. Mitchell Trubisky's postseason debut

Trubisky, in just his second year in the league, will prepare to make his home playoff debut after an up-and-down regular season under center. Missing time with a shoulder injury in November, he’s had a history of struggling against top-tier opponents.

The Bears played three playoff teams this season: Seattle, New England and the Los Angeles Rams. Trubisky threw for 300-plus yards in just one of those games (New England) while throwing five touchdowns and seven interceptions. The Bears did hold on to win two of those games, utilizing their defense that produced a league-best 36 turnovers. But you’re less likely to have that type of margin of error in a playoff game, even with Foles averaging one turnover himself per contest.

Can Trubisky lead a game-winning drive when it matters? Your answer to that question should decide which way you swing in what’s bound to be the most competitive game on Wild Card Weekend.

X-Factor: Special Teams

Former Eagles kicker Cody Parkey was a bit shaky down the stretch with the Bears. He missed four of his last six kicks and never hit one longer than 50 yards this season. Jake Elliott, meanwhile, hit 14 of his final 15 after the Eagles’ bye week. He’s hit from 56 yards this season and has shown some range far beyond that, as evidenced by his franchise-record 61-yarder to win against the Giants last year.

That gives a slight edge to the Eagles on what’s supposed to be a cold, blustery day at Soldier Field. Winds are forecast out of the East at 10-15 miles an hour with stronger gusts. In a close game, particularly a defensive battle, Elliott could make a difference down the stretch.

Final Analysis

The Bears have the edge heading in with both momentum and talent. But the Eagles have what’s become this unshakable faith in Nick Foles. The backup Super Bowl MVP (how often has that sentence been written in NFL history) sits at 6-0 in must-win games with Carson Wentz on the sidelines. If he could beat the Rams on the road, a team the Bears also disposed of down the stretch, this one also feels winnable.

The key is for him to stay on the field for all four quarters. But if the Bears' defense can be kept at bay just enough, forcing Mitchell Trubisky to win the game for them the edge should go to the experience of last year’s Super Bowl champs.

Prediction: Eagles 20, Bears 17

 

[CGI_Ram]

http://www.sportingnews.com/ca/nfl/...-card-games/wywf071q4l731j21e1zxe9x7q/slide/4

Eagles at Bears: Sunday, 4:40 p.m. ET, NBC

Vinnie Iyer: The feel-good playoff story of Nick Foles will end with a thud in this game. Foles will fight through his battered ribs to hang in there as a gunslinger early in the game, but eventually, Khalil Mack and the Bears’ pass rush will rattle him from all angles. What will be particularly difficult for Foles is Chicago stopping the run and rendering Philadelphia one-dimensional to get to tee-off mode early. On the other side, Mitchell Trubisky will get more help from his backs, Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen, and coach Matt Nagy will dial up the aggressiveness with timely, big pass plays to put the game away. Pick: Bears, 27-10

David Steele: The Bears' defense could be the unit that ends up dominating the playoffs, a remarkable development in this offense-heavy season. They have to prove it right out of the box, though, because they, their players and their coach are postseason novices compared to their opponent. The Eagles are riding their Super Bowl win of last year and the momentum of their late-season charge this year to slip back into the playoffs. It would take a group led by Mack and smothering opposing offenses to counteract what Foles and the Eagles have been able to do. The Bears haven’t sneaked up on anybody for weeks, or flown under the radar. They don’t need to, though, to get through this round. Pick: Bears, 24-19

Tadd Haislop: An NFL world in which Foles enters the Eagles' playoff opener as the more experienced postseason quarterback against a first-round pick is a strange one, but here we are. The play of Trubisky is the real wild card in this wild-card game, especially against a vulnerable Philadelphia pass defense. His coach, meanwhile, is part of the best matchup in this game: Nagy vs. Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz. For all of the Bears' edge-rush pop with Mack, the Eagles are stacked on both lines of scrimmage. And that aforementioned experience matters more than it should. Pick: Eagles, 30-20

 

[CGI_Ram]

RamsOnDemand SportsBook Here;

https://ramsondemand.com/sportsbook/2018-week-18-philadelphia-eagles-chicago-bears.2579/

 

[Prime Time]

https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/01/06/m...-lamar-jackson-leonard-fournette-roquan-smith

By GARY GRAMLING

Playoff experience is probably overrated. There was a time when Tom Brady had never played in a postseason game, and then he won his first 10 including three Super Bowls. Peyton Manning lost his first three playoff games then won two Super Bowls. Dak Prescott’s team won and Russell Wilson’s team lost on Saturday night.

So the stark contrast between Nick Foles, unflappable Super Bowl hero, and Mitchell Trubisky, wide-eyed playoff newbie, is probably overblown. Still, Trubisky’s playoff debut will be fascinating.

Despite what you might have surmised based on your fantasy league scoreboard or whatever “Total QBR” is vomiting out (he was better than Brady and Rivers and Luck and Roethlisberger!), Trubisky—to put it kindly—struggled throwing the ball in 2018. He was fantastic with his legs, creative and dangerous as a scrambler. But during the regular season, any time Trubisky couldn’t hit his back foot and throw to his first read at the short or intermediate levels, there was trouble.

His mechanics crumble and he seems to struggle mapping the field as he goes deeper into his progressions. He was dreadfully inaccurate hitting moving targets at the deep and deep-intermediate levels, a tragedy considering how often Matt Nagy’s system schemed receivers wide open this year.

And as good as he was as a runner, when he extended plays and then threw, he seemed to get into even more trouble. There were multiple times this season when the only thing that saved an unforgivable late-in-the-down throw from being intercepted was that it came off Trubisky’s hand with an exaggerated wobble that the defender couldn’t corral it.

Trubisky still has plenty of time to develop and improve, but let’s focus on the now because of the fact that the Bears are in the playoffs. The ultra-conservative approach Nagy turned to over the final three games of the regular season is a pretty good indication of what the coach thinks of his quarterback at the moment. And the Bears were somewhat successful piecing together long, clock-eating drives that effectively complement the defense—Trubisky even made a couple of really nice third-down throws in Minnesota.

But the Bears were top 10 in the league in passing plays of 25-plus yards through the first 13 games of the season, with 29 (2.2 per game). They were bottom 10 over the last three weeks, with four (1.3). Chicago won six of their final seven, but the offense accounted for 19.6 points per game during that span.

The question is whether the scaled-back passing game is going to get it done in January, especially for a team coached by one of the sharpest young minds in coaching, and especially for a quarterback with a No. 2 overall draft pick pedigree.

A year ago, we watched Foles carve up the Vikings and Patriots on the way to a championship. It’s easy to forget how poorly Foles was playing going into last year’s postseason (which is why the Eagles were underdogs and talked about dogs and wore dog masks and ate dog food throughout their playoff run).

Doug Pederson and that Eagles staff rolled out an RPO-heavy offense early in the postseason and Foles ended up playing spectacularly late in the down as he lit it up in the conference championship and superest of bowls. If Nagy has something up his sleeve that his young quarterback can handle, Sunday, against a shaky Eagles secondary, is the time to break it out. At some point in January, you’re probably going to need some points.

The Bears are the only team playing this weekend with two defensive players capable of rendering everything happening around them moot. The Eagles’ offense matches up well with the Bears’ zone approach on the back end, but none of that matters if Khalil Mack and Akiem Hicks wreck this game. The Eagles will score somewhere in the range of 0 to 13 points, and that should be enough for Chicago to advance.

My podcast partner Andy Benoit and I had an interesting conversation before our show the other day, about the difference between fumbles and interceptions. Not the literal difference, the fact that an interception often involves the field flipping to some extent, whereas the defense tends to fall on fumbles around the line of scrimmage.

When I was looking into the Bears defense’s league-high 36 takeaways, I was surprised to see that they had only nine fumble recoveries—surprising because I figured they’d have a bunch of Khalil Mack strip-sacks while protecting a lead. It’s also encouraging, since fumble recoveries tend to be somewhat fluky (Chicago was actually 7-1 in games when they didn’t take a fumble away from the opponent).

But any “bad luck” involved in Chicago’s relative lack of fumble takeaways is canceled out by the eight returns of 20-plus yards on their 27 interceptions this year, as well as the six defensive touchdowns. Three of those defensive TDs were by Eddie Jackson, a game-time decision for Sunday afternoon because of an ankle injury. Pressure creates the chaos that leads to turnovers, but Jackson is the best on the Bears’ back end at capitalizing on those turnovers. If he can’t go, or isn’t playing at 100%, they’ll miss him on Sunday.

Nick Foles is 9-1 as a starter in meaningful games over the past two years, the lone loss coming to Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Bucs. Drew Brees has won 13 of his past 14 starts at the Superdome, the lone loss coming to Ryan Fitzpatrick’s Bucs. If the NFC title game ends up Eagles at Saints, it seems only fair that Roger Goodell intervenes and declares the Bucs NFC champions. Or at least replaces the celebratory confetti with Ryan Fitzpatrick beard clippings.

 

[OldSchool]

Reschedule please We want to find out who we play earlier than this kthx.

 

[den-the-coach]

Reschedule please We want to find out who we play earlier than this kthx.

Rams will play the Chicago Bears.

 

[OldSchool]

Rams will play the Chicago Bears.

If they win, otherwise we play the Cowboys.

 

[BonifayRam]

If they win, otherwise we play the Cowboys.

I would prefer the Cowboys.

Offensively if Goff is on he can shred the Cowboys secondary deep & often even under some pressure from that DL 4 man front. Rams rested veteran OL & with the last resort protection of Goff by TG II & CJ, it's very doable.


Defensively Wade would only need to center mostly in on one Cowboy RB & a running Dak. Its time for our well paid DL to earn their mega $$$ paychecks.

 

[Ramer]

Reschedule please We want to find out who we play earlier than this kthx.

 

[Ram65]

Here in Eagleland most think they have a very good chance to beat the Bears. The Bears had the easiest schedule in the NFL. It's going to be physical. Haven't made my final decision on who wins.

 

[Angry Ram]

Go Bears.

 

[Prime Time]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/01/06/can-nick-foles-solve-vic-fangios-defense/

Can Nick Foles solve Vic Fangio’s defense?
Posted by Mike Florio on January 6, 2019

Broadly, it’s Eagles vs. Bears on Sunday. More narrowly, it’s Nick vs. Vic.

Foles vs. Fangio. Quarterback vs. defensive coordinator. And they have a history.

Twice before, Foles has faced a Fangio defense. Both times, it didn’t go well for the quarterback.

The first meeting came in 2014, with Foles quarterbacking the Eagles and Fangio running the 49ers defense. The final score, 26-21, suggests that Foles and company were able to score some point. But the three touchdowns came from a blocked punt recovered in the end zone, an interception return for a touchdown, and a punt return for a touchdown.

Foles in that game completed 21 of 43 passes (48.8 percent) for 195 yards (4.53 yards per attempt), no touchdowns, and two interceptions. Passer rating: 42.3.

The next year, with Foles on the Rams and Fangio running the Chicago defense, the Bears won 37-13. Foles completed 17 of 36 (47.2 percent) for 200 yards (5.55 yards per attempt), no touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 53.0.

It’s round three later today, with Foles back in Philly and Fangio still in Chicago. As Chris Simms explained earlier this week on PFT Live, Fangio’s defense will smother the underneath crossing routes that the Eagles may use in order to allow Foles to get rid of the ball quickly. Foles will therefore need to find a way to hold the ball a little longer, find a guy a little more open, and hope for the best.

Yes, the other 21 players on the field will be factors in the outcome. Fundamentally, however, the quarterback will be trying to figure out what the defense is throwing at him.

Foles has figured it out consistently in the playoffs last year and late in the 2018 regular season. But this could be his biggest test yet, especially since Foles has failed twice before when facing Fangio.

 

[ScotsRam]

I do not want to see that Bears D again. Let a go eagles. Cowboys will be a much easier out.

 

[den-the-coach]

If they win, otherwise we play the Cowboys.

You wanted to know who the Rams would play early today & I provided you that info

 

[PhillyRam]

I would prefer the Cowboys.

Offensively if Goff is on he can shred the Cowboys secondary deep & often even under some pressure from that DL 4 man front. Rams rested veteran OL & with the last resort protection of Goff by TG II & CJ, it's very doable.


Defensively Wade would only need to center mostly in on one Cowboy RB & a running Dak. Its time for our well paid DL to earn their mega $$$ paychecks.

I kind of want the Bears.

The revenge factor I think is huge and seeing that D a second time at home as opposed to away in 20 degree weather will make a difference. And I don't fear the Bears offense as much as I would with Elliot and even Prescott, who can make a play here and there.

The Bears will also have a short turnaround playing Sunday and then next Saturday. By comparison the Cowboys going from Saturday to next Sunday against the Saints get a full 7 off days between games whereas the Bears against the Rams only get 5 off days between games.

So I like that from the respect of Dallas getting 2 extra days to prepare for the Saints and the Bears having a short week and then traveling out west to face the Rams.

 

[SteezyEndo]

Hope Bears tank...

 

[RamWoodie]

Rams will play the Chicago Bears.

I picked the Bears to win...but the team I think has the offense to beat them is the Eagles.

I WANT THE RAMS TO TAKE REVENGE ON THE BEARS THOUGH!!!

 

[den-the-coach]

I picked the Bears to win...but the team I think has the offense to beat them is the Eagles.

I truly don't believe this game will be close, but it's the playoffs and anything can happen.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Don't trust Trubisky in a playoff game but defense has ruled the day once again in these playoffs and Chicago is home. Sticking with my pick. Bears.
I'm 2 for 3 so far and i almost flipped to the Colts the night before. Shoulda went with my gut.

Plus i want that Alpha male chest out path to the title. Bears>Saints>Patriots>Trophy

 

[TexasRam]

i originally took the eagles but have decided the Bears will win due to Foles rib, i think one sack and he’s going to be wrecked physically.

i now have 20 bucks on the Bears
vs a coworker. No spread.