Chicago traveled to face Oakland with neither side starting the quarterback they opened the season with. While both changes were forced on them by injury, the two teams filled the holes via very different methods.
The Bears stuck with young backup Caleb Hanie while Oakland went all Oakland about things and threw a slew of high draft picks at Cincinnati for the rights to ‘retired’ Carson Palmer.
Palmer has had a chance to get warm under center for the Raiders but Hanie was seeing his first significant game time since filling in for Cutler in last year's NFC Championship game. Let’s see how they – and others of note – fared, getting started with stellar defensive display.
Chicago – Three Performances of Note
Peppers Had An ‘On’ Day
When Julius Peppers turns up to play you wonder how he can ever be held in check. He is one of the more fearsome athletes in the NFL and can simply overwhelm opponents at times. This game he decided to take Jared Veldheer to task. Veldheer had been enjoying a pretty good season and had held some pretty good players in check, but he couldn’t deal with Peppers at all. The Bears’ defensive end notched a +7.7 grade for the day on the back of a pair of sacks and six more pressures. Both of the sacks came from extremely quick pressure and he drew a holding penalty on the Raiders’ left tackle on another similarly speedy burst. When Peppers is in form there may not be a better defensive end in football, and games like this remind you of that.
O-line Improving, In Most Spots
Some of the players on the Bears’ O-line are definitely playing better as the season wears on, but you can’t say that for center Roberto Garza. Garza’s -4.8 grade was the low mark of the line by some distance, splitting almost exactly between run blocking and pass protection. He coughed up three pressures on the day, but also found himself unable to deal with Oakland's linebackers in the run game. Chicago wasn’t able to run the ball as effectively as they would have liked with a new quarterback at the helm, and Garza was a major reason why. The pressure he gave up to Richard Seymour with 12:28 to go in the second quarter, being driven back to the goal line by the big defensive tackle from the line of scrimmage at the 7-yard-line, encapsulates a bad day at the office all around.
How was Hanie?
We couldn’t end this without talking about Caleb Hanie who had something of a mixed day, culminating with one of the stranger endings I’ve ever seen to a football game. Hanie scored a -1.9 overall, but actually graded positively for his scrambles and moving the chains with a QB sneak. He was spooked from the pocket more readily than I can remember from any quarterback, moving even when there was no pressure to speak of. He finished the game charged with a pair of sacks, two hits and another pressure, meaning he was responsible for nearly a quarter of the total pressure given up by the Bears in the game. He did, however, connect on one of the best throws I’ve seen all season, dropping a deep bomb perfectly into the hands of Johnny Knox on 3rd-and-16 late in the game to keep the Bears’ chances alive. Then, on the final drive and to end the game, he was flagged for intentional grounding on a spike after he hesitated for a split second while he thought about throwing the fake-spike pass.
Oakland – Three Performances of Note
Worth the Picks?
The Bears went with their own in-house solution, but the Raiders spent big on Carson Palmer. He has looked good at times since starting, but this game was not one of those times (-1.4). To be fair, he was without his best two wide receivers and any time you’re trying to get things done throwing to Darrius Heyward-Bey (-0.3) and Louis Murphy your job is going to look tougher. That still doesn’t excuse some of the throws Palmer made. He may have only had one pass intercepted on an ugly forced throw, but he had one more dropped by Bears corner Tim Jennings on a throw that should never have been made. Jennings was reading Palmer’s eyes and actually ran the route ahead of his intended receiver, yet Palmer threw the ball right to him and was lucky to escape with just an incompletion. He also relied on his receivers breaking up at least two more passes that were dangerously flirting with being picked off by Bears defenders. Raiders fans will be hoping Palmer looks back to his best with his top two targets back in the fold.
Aaron Curry Flashing the Talent
This might be the first game where I came away understanding why Aaron Curry was once seen as a can’t miss NFL prospect. I’ve seen him make a few plays here and there in the past, but never put together a complete game like this. Curry is usually pretty capable at setting the edge in the run game, but +2.9 of his +3.2 overall grade in this game came in coverage or against the pass. He was a force on screen plays, and set up Wimbley’s long interception return with a fantastic early read and break on the ball. On that play, the Bears faked everything to the right before coming back to the screen to the left hand side. By the time the ball was being thrown, Curry had already read the receiver peeling off into space and was breaking to undercut the route. He should have picked it off himself, but his deflection fell into Wimbley's waiting arms who set off rumbling down the sideline on the return. This is the Curry the Raiders want to see in the future.
Good or Bad to Close?
I could heap praise on a few players here. Rolando McClain (+3.9) played well before he was forced to the sideline with an injury and Kamerion Wimbley (+4.9) was impressive as well. I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t point out that the entire Raiders O-line managed to grade negatively. None of the starting five managed a grade better than -1.2 (Carlisle) and the low mark was reached rather predictably by Veldheer (-5.2) who surrendered a pair of sacks, four pressures, and a holding penalty as he struggled to live with Peppers. Palmer didn’t have the best of days, and much of it was on him, but he was hardly helped out by the pass protection.
Game Notes
– Michael Bush saw 68 of Oakland’s 71 snaps on offense, being spelled for just three snaps and a single run by Rock Cartwright.
– Marion Barber III saw 15 snaps. All but two of them were runs. When he’s in the game you can load up in the box.
– Raiders punter Shane Lechler nailed an 80-yard punt in this game. 80 yards gross, 60-yards net (touchback), and it traveled 80-yards in the air from the point of leaving his boot to landing past the outstretched arms of Devin Hester, who was sprinting back to catch it at his own 10. Whoa.
PFF Game Ball
Julius Peppers: He may have lost the game but Peppers was the best player on the field in this game, and was as big a reason as any that it was even close.
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