Nice post.
I agree that getting pressure up the middle is paramount against Brees. If we can't, I think Brees will have a field day against our Safties. We obviously have good corners in Tillman and Jennings, but they will need help against Brees because of how accurate he is. If we allow Brees to sit in the pocket with no one in this face, we're dead. If we can get pressure up the middle, Sproles will have a big day, but that won't win the game for ya'll imo, which is the best we can hope for. Its gonna take a very disciplined game on our part to keep your Offense from blowing us out.
If our D can stay in Brees' face, and Jay has a decent game, I think it'll be close. Jay must play close to a mistake free game, its okay to have gas, but if he farts and a lil dookie comes out, its over and we'll lose by 3 TD's.
You guys already know you have a good team, for us, this game will be a nice measuring stick to find out where we're at, and if we can hang with the big boys.
I agree that getting pressure on Drew will be very important. The thing is, up until last week, Drew was seeing a ton of pressure anyway and was playing pretty good. The game against the Dolphins is what happens when you get very little pressure on him - naturally he had his best game of the year.
You guys have a few things going for you this game:
- Drew can get trigger happy (though Payton has reeled him in a bit). I always say, he's elite 99.9% of the time, but every once in a while, he'll make a throw that'll leave you wonder what the heck he was thinking. Against you guys, he can't do that because you take advantage of those opportunities on defense. I'm guessing he takes fewer chances this week due to who and where he's playing. I know Payton has been preaching "protect the ball" all week.
- Our lack of a run game. We haven't run it well this year. We've play some good run defenses and we've seen some of the old 46 Bear fronts, but regardless of any of that, we have been pretty terrible in this aspect of the game. The last thing you guys should do is let our running game get going. That would be the one glaring weakness we have at the moment.
- That crappy field of yours. I don't know why the NFL lets teams get away with stuff like this but it's a very clear advantage that can't be taken lightly. In my opinion, football (and any other sport) is best when the best athletes are able to be athletic and enforce their physical will on the player across from them - bad field conditions contradict this. Now that my rant is over, I'd say this is a huge factor coming into the game and I'll be monitoring how it affects our route running and the overall flow of our offense.
For you guys, I'd say get the ball to Forte as much as you possibly can, I've seen us free the RB out of the backfield more than I would like. Our edge pressure is better than it's been in over a decade so any scenario where our guys can pin their ears back against your OTs (who seem to be struggling in pass pro) would probably make things difficult for your offense.
