Why did the favored Chicago Bears lose to the lowly Buffalo Bills at home Sunday? They gave up 193 yards rushing and 5.3 yards per rush to the AFC East’s perennial cellar dweller. These numbers are even worse than last year, when the Bears defense was historically bad.
Deion Sanders addressed this issue on NFL Network Gameday Final. Seeing this statement on the program, and also noticing that the Bills were getting a first down with every two carries, I brought this up yesterday.
CBS Sports and NFL Network hosted a Thursday Night Football conference call with Sean McManus, Chairman, CBS Sports, and Executive Producer of THE NFL ON CBS, Brian Rolapp, EVP of Media, NFL, the Thursday Night Football announce team of Jim Nantz and Phil Simms, and studio analysts Deion Sanders and Bill Cowher.
I asked Deion Sanders if Buffalo’s running game was that good, or if the Bears run defense was that bad.
“I think the Bears are picking up right where they left off a year ago. Buffalo has a wonderful running game, but we didn’t think they would dominate the Bears in that fashion,” said Sanders.
“The defense is a mirror of what it once was.”
“The defense is a problem, I think they’re old, they have issues at safety, the run defense especially,” said Bill Cowher.
“It’s going to put pressure on their quarterback and he’s a quarterback who hasn’t performed when pressure has arrived.”
Here’s the Deion Sanders and Bill Cowher podcast:
Here’s NFL Hall of Famer, Super Bowl XX MVP, Bears legend and Guest Analyst on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL” Richard Dent telling it like it is on the Bears run defense:
Here’s what we learned about the Bears on opening day:
Paul M. Banks owns and manages The Sports Bank.net, in partnership with Fox Sports and Yahoo. Read his feature stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)