The Chicago Bears fly west to take on the Oakland Raiders pitting two teams struggling for playoff position right now. The Raiders are in first place in the weak AFC West, holding a one game lead over the Denver Broncos and two games on the rest of the division, while the Bears are duking it out with Detroit for second place in the NFC North.
Both teams will be leaning heavily on solid running games, and both teams will be playing different quarterbacks than who they started the season with.
Chicago will be without quarterback Jay Cutler, who had surgery on his thumb this week and is likely out for the rest of the season. Caleb Hanie gets the start for the Bears. Hanie’s last significant playing time was in the second half of the NFC Championship game last season against the Packers, when Cutler went out with a knee injury. Hanie was 13 of 20 for 153 yards with 1 TD and 2 INTs in that game.
Hanie’s job will be to manage the offense and get the ball to Matt Forte. Forte is having an All Pro year, with 926 yards rushing and 465 yards receiving through 10 games, and he is on pace for 2,226 yards from scrimmage this season.
Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz believes Hanie is ready. “In my mind he’s a starter in the league; he’s just waiting for this opportunity,” Martz said.
“The biggest issue for good quarterbacks is that when things are going bad, you’ve got to be at your best. That’s where he is right now. Where I would point is to the NFC Championship Game. He throws an interception and comes back and we go get a touchdown. That was a huge statement for me. That’s the resilience and the toughness that you’re looking for in a starter.”
The Bears are riding a five game winning streak, and have been scoring over 32 points per game during the streak, but Cutler was playing extremely well over that period. It’s hard to imaging they haven’t lost a bit of the offense with him out.
The Raiders lost their quarterback, Jason Campbell, and made a bold trade to bring in Carson Palmer from Cincinnati. Palmer has shaken the rust off, after throwing for 6 interceptions in his first 6 quarters on the field, and has since then led the Raiders to back-to-back victories over the Chargers and Vikings. In the last two games, Palmer is 31 of 43 (72 percent) for 463 yards with 3 TDs and 1 INT. It looks like Palmer is back to the QB Oakland traded for.
The Raiders also have a solid running game, and even with RB Darren McFadden out (since Week 7), the Raiders still have the third best running game in the NFL, averaging 157 yards per game. Chicago is 14th best at 117.
“When you talk about the NFC North, it’s a cold weather, running style, running football division in the past,” said Palmer. “For as long as these guys on this team have been in the league, when you think of the NFC North, you think of a physical, running football game. These guys can run the ball as good as anybody. They have one of the best backs in the game. They can stop the run. So we know we have our work cut out for us and we’re used to – that’s one of the things we use going into games is our physical nature, our physical style of play. It’s going to be physical versus physical and we expect to come out with a win.”
Oakland has a solid defense, but they have been giving up a lot of points lately, and the Bears defense seems to have been rejuvenated in recent weeks. Give the offensive advantage to the Raiders, but the defensive edge to the Bears. It’s a tough game to pick, but we’ll take the Bears tough defense, and the X-Factor of Devin Hester on special teams to pull out the victory.
