Bears hit early snags against Raiders

If you only managed to catch the first quarter or so of Saturday night's preseason game, you saw some pretty fugly football from Lovie Smith's Bears.  The offense was mediocre, the defense was bad and the special teams were awful. It's still a preseason game and therefore meaningless, but here's what I took from the Bears' 32-17 loss to the Oakland Raiders.

it was another slow start for a Bears first-team defense that gave up countless first-drive scores last season. Brian Urlacher left the game after only a few plays with a calf injury that's not believed to be serious. The pass rush struggled and the coverage downfield was nonexistent on a drive that ended with a Jason Campbell QB sneak for a touchdown. Corners were out of position and linebackers were missing their assignments. It was a less than stellar effort. Julius Peppers showed up on a few goal line plays late in the drive, but it was too late to jump-start the defense by then.

On the Bears following possession, the offensive line did its best to counter the defense's futility. After a short Forte run, linemen Chris Williams and Lance Louis were beaten by their rushers to allow two consecutive sacks of Jay Cutler, of which there were five in the first half. (Four by new Raider Kamerion Wimbley, who most often beat Chris Williams in one-on-one match-ups.) It was an ugly start. The offensive line improved over the first half, opening a hole for Forte on an 89-yard TD run, but their protection needs considerable work. Mike Tice should start earning his paycheck.

Out of the skill positions, Matt Forte showed the speed burst he was missing all of last season. If he can stay healthy, he's still the lead back on my squad. No wide receiver really made themselves known on Saturday night, but a Cutler scramble and pass to Johnny Knox in the back of the endzone made for another good highlight of what Jay can do when he's not on his butt.

Normally a strength of this Bears team, the play of the special teams has been abysmal the past two weeks. I don't care if scrubs are in or not, these mistakes shouldn't happen. Saturday the Bears allowed another blocked punt and had a heap of bad snaps in kicking situations. Long-snapper Patrick Mannelly did not practice all week so tight Desmond Clark stepped in as his back-up to horrible results. Ditka help this team if Mannelly goes down in the regular season during a game. If Mannelly was out all week, why wasn't Clark better prepared by the coaching staff? 

Other quick notes:

-Dan LeFevour still floats too many passes. This ain't Central Michigan and the MAC anymore buddy.

-Good to see Charles Tillman get an interception at his new slot. He should continue to improve at his positioning.

-Peppers showed a slight glimpse of what he adds to this team when he strip-sacked Jason Campbell. Drool.

-That chop-block on Tommie Harris didn't look pretty. Remember, his knees are always giving him problems even without lineman diving at them. It remains to be seen if he'll miss any time, but I wouldn't be surprised if he sat out of practice a couple days this week.

Thanks for reading everyone! Bear down and Happy Jay Cutler Day!