Albert Breer on Bears’ Big Win Over Pats, Paris Game Concerns and Chiefs vs. Seahawks Preview

Bears now well positioned, and they look like a real Super Bowl contender. All right, welcome to the Bears Report for Friday, October the 23rd, presented by State Farm. And week seven is underway with the Chicago Bears defeating the New England Patriots 30-24 on Thursday night. And we are going to start with my personal plan presented by State Farm. And my personal plan is to look at the young quarterbacks in this matchup. and it's hard to come away from what we saw on Thursday night and not think that these two guys are gonna have a big hand in the next decade of NFL football now I think there's been a group of four quarterbacks and Matthew Stafford separate from this because he's sort of a different generation but I think the big four for this generation has been over the last few years Joe Burrow in Cincinnati, Lamar Jackson in Baltimore, Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City and of course Josh Allen in Buffalo and so if we're looking past 2020 and what's coming to the league since then I think you can make a very good argument that Drake May and Caleb Williams are at the top of the heap Brock Purdy's got an argument CJ Stroud maybe making his way back into that equation Jayden Daniels if he can stay healthy certainly would have a shot to be in that category but if you're talking about who you might take for the next 10 to 15 years and you move those four quarterbacks I just mentioned aside I think a lot of people would tell you it's Williams and May and they did not disappoint on Thursday night Drake May in a losing effort 24 of 31 321 yards two touchdowns a costly interception and we'll get to that um and a 117.8 quarterback rating Meanwhile Caleb Williams 22 of 33 308 yards two touchdowns 116.7 quarterback rating he made some high leverage high difficulty throws from the pocket on critical downs and really to me the big thing was how he operated his offense in the fourth quarter the Chicago Bears had the ball with the lead for 12 21 of the fourth quarter they ran 24 plays in the fourth quarter 23 of those plays came on two monster drives that basically choked the life out of the Patriots the Patriots only ran eight plays in the fourth quarter that is the Bears formula for all the flash for all the motion for all the window dressing for everything that goes into Ben's off Ben Johnson's offense at its core is a physical offense that's built through the line of scrimmage that is meant to win in these situations and ideally for the Bears you'd like to close the game out with the ball in your hands they tried to do that by going for it on fourth down late in the game Caleb Williams takes an unfortunate sack Cairo Santos winds up bailing them out from that situation with a 58-yard field goal to put this one away. And the Chicago Bears looked like a pretty complete team tonight. Defense wasn't perfect, but the defense made plays when it needed to in the fourth quarter. We saw it, again, with their ability to generate pressure on Drake May, who did a fantastic job of handling all of it. So the Bears come out of this one at 5-2. They are now in sole possession of second place in the NFC North, and everyone's going to count in that division. They are now a game behind the Minnesota Vikings, who are 5-0, who are coming off their bye week, who have yet to even play a sixth game, and the Bears have played seven. You've got the Packers at 4-2, and you've got the Lions at 3-2, and they're just coming off their bye week as well. So the Bears now well-positioned, and they look like a real Super Bowl contender in the NFC. Again, the quarterback keeps getting better and better. He was so efficient last week against Atlanta, and he was clutch outside taking that sack. He was clutch against New England. They were without Montez Sweat. This was his two-game PED suspension, these two games in five days. They get out of that stretch with two wins. And now they're set up going forward. It'll be interesting to see if they are a buyer at the trade deadline. You certainly could see a scenario where maybe they would want to add a pressure player on the defensive side of the ball if DeForest Buckner were to become available someone like that might make sense for them um but regardless it's a team in very very good shape and i don't think the patriots come out of this in bad shape either they're now four and three that puts them behind the eight ball a little bit they're gonna come out of week seven in a game and a half behind buffalo buffalo's gonna buy this week buffalo's at five and one um but the Patriots, again, given the way their schedule is set up, given some of the injuries they had coming into this game, I don't feel horrible about where they're at. You can look at the pick that Drake May threw and say that was costly, and it was, throwing that pick where they threw it, an ill-advised throw. Maybe not an ill-advised throw, but not a well-placed throw by Drake May down there in the red zone. But they got it back with a cheap touchdown at the end of the first half. so you know it's kind of there's a little give and take there um again they played pretty well tonight not well enough uh to win the ball game all right our second topic for today is the nfl's paris game and by the time most of you watch this both the steelers and saints will be in paris the saints played against the giants on sunday they went and rested up for a few hours at new new York airport marriott and then they took a red eye on sunday night and landed in paris on monday morning the steelers going much later in the week as the away team they left on thursday night they will arrive have arrived whenever you end up watching this on friday morning in paris so by the time you guys digest this both teams will be on the ground in paris the saints have spent the week not in paris proper but just outside paris in versailles which is not as affected by the protests and that we're going to get to that here in a second so they've been sort of away from what everybody's been talking about which is whether or not the NFL can go forward with this game and i think there are a couple of ways to look at this i think there's a very fair argument to say that maybe an american event shouldn't be taking resources that might be needed to deal with everything that could happen over the weekend. There is expected to be a large-scale protest on Saturday in Paris and how that will affect the teams, how that will affect the resources that have gone to the game. All that stuff, you know, I think is relevant to look at. And as for the game itself, it's not far off from where a lot of this stuff happened. So it's not that far-fetched to think that the teams, The people who are attending the game, people from the states who are visiting there to attend the game could wind up being affected by the protests. It's something the NFL has been very diligent about. I will say that they've been in touch with the French government. Roger Goodell said this week that he is very comfortable with where they're at on all of it. They have, you know, because of circumstances, moved international games back in the past. the Kansas City Rams shootout of 2018, 2019, right in there. They wound up being a snap pick at the Coliseum. That was initially supposed to be played in Mexico City. If you remember, the turf was torn up there. They moved it back to Los Angeles. But that decision was made well enough ahead of time where the teams weren't there. I think with the teams in Paris now, you can see that the overwhelming likelihood is the game will be played there. What it will look like, I don't know. because the contingency would have been to have the game in New Orleans with the Saints as the home team. Obviously, that doesn't look like that's going to happen now. And so, again, what this looks like on Sunday is really anybody's guess. And what Paris looks like after Saturday is an interesting piece of this, too, with the protests scheduled there. It's interesting, too, because the Saints have sunk a lot into developing the French market. there's obviously the tie-in with the french um the french culture in new orleans the the history um in that city is obviously uh very rich and very rich uh they're very rich french heritage in that city and so it's a big reason why the saints have invested in developing a market in France and this is something that's important for the NFL too um look the some of the markets and in Europe have come along faster than others it's always been big in Germany by the time NFL Europe was at the end five of the six teams in that league were in Germany um because of the post-World War II military bases all over the country uh that there are kids that grew up playing there we've we've had guys in the NFL like Sebastian Vollmer who played for the Patriots like Björn Berner who was the first round pick of the of the Colts who are German born um and not just German-born in the way like Michael Strahan was German-born, but were actually of German heritage. And those guys wound up having NFL careers. So Germany has been a developed market. They've developed a market in the UK. They've developed a market in Spain. The French market's been slower to come. So this is seen as an important moment for the NFL when they finally taken the initiative to try to go into Paris knowing we're not quite as popular in Paris as we are in other parts of Europe. So, an important one for the NFL on Sunday, but obviously the scale of it pales in comparison to everything that's going on over there. So, we hope that everybody's going over there safe. We hope the people that are there are safe and we'll see what it looks like on Sunday. Finally, game of the week. Can't wait for this one. The Sunday slate is kind of late until you get to about 8:25 Eastern time, and that's when we will get the Kansas City Chiefs visiting the Seattle Seahawks. A couple of pieces, a couple of things on this game that really interest me that I think are fascinating. The Seahawks have struggled to run the ball. Of course, Jerrion Price is on injured reserve. Zach Charbonnet has missed the early parts of the year. And Seattle's lack of a consistent run game has made it more difficult for them to protect Sam Darnold. And you look of the mistakes that Sam Darnold made in the denver game well in the denver game of course they the the the the the broncos were able to get in more favorable down and distance situations which allowed uh vance joseph to get creative and led to the seahawks knocking or the the broncos knocking sam darnold around quite a bit and that of course winds up leading to the mistakes so against kansas city are they going to be able to get that run game going to a point where all right we can manage down in distance and now we're not in this sort of spot where it's third and nine and steve spagnuolo is throwing the kitchen sink at us so that's one subplot that i think is interesting and that bleeds right into the second subplot which is that part of the reason the seahawks have struggled to run the ball which again has led to sam darnold getting hit is because there's no kenneth walker there anymore kenneth walker of course is in kansas city now and he may be the mvp of the league through six weeks the chiefs are five and oh they've been able to manage patrick mahomes coming back to the end from the injury to a degree because they're able to run the ball that ability to run the ball has protected their rookie left tackle cole benson who of course is in there as an undrafted free agent because josh simmons is injured and now here comes kenneth walker at seattle and what's so fascinating about this is now you have a seattle defense that i think's got a chance to put the brakes on kenneth walker that hasn't happened all year and maybe now test patrick mahomes in a way he hasn't been tested since coming back from the ACL injury so on one side you have a team that struggled to run the ball in Seattle and needs to run the ball better maybe more than anything else to protect their quarterback and then on the other side you've got a team that's running the ball as well as anyone in football and that's allowed them to protect their quarterback coming back off of the ACL but now maybe we get we we see a defense that's ready to put the brakes on that run game and if they can we'll get to see where Patrick Mahomes is coming back off the ACL in an environment or maybe he has to throw the ball a little bit more and the team is relying on him to move the chains a little bit more than it has at least to the first month and a half of the season can't wait for that one um it is going to be fantastic in Seattle on Sunday night appreciate you guys coming out as always you can leave your comments your questions down below here on the YouTube page or you can get to me on my social media that's at Albert Breer on Twitter at Albert Breer on TikTok at Albert underscore Breer on Instagram and at Albert R Breer on Facebook appreciate you guys coming out enjoy week seven we will see you on Monday