But in the interim, the Bears looked like what they are, a team playing with 18 new starters trying to find their way together.
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After leaving early Sunday with a knee injury against the Chicago Bears, it has been determined that he has a torn MCL, per Ian Rapoport of NFL Media.
While Houston defensive end J.J. Watt was ready to go for this opener (his 81st consecutive start), you got the sense that the three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year just wasn’t his usual self.
Houston did what a number of Bears opponents did last season, that being to show nickel personnel to get the Bears out of their base 3-4 defense and into nickel with two linemen and two linebackers, then running the football.
I thought the Texans game-planned and attacked the Bears in a way that the Bears should have attacked the Texans. The best thing the Bears could do to strengthen their offensive line at this point is to move Long back out to right tackle, and use the combination of Josh Sitton, Larsen and Whitehair in the middle of the line. It was just getting us in the right play, flipping it out there about six or seven yards. We practiced against all kinds of stuff all week.
Fox’s teams in Carolina and Denver made big jumps in his second season, and the Bears would love to see that pattern continue in Chicago.
If Massie doesn’t raise his game a level Monday night versus the Eagles, the Bears will have to think about benching him.
“You can’t change what happened”, White said.
Osweiler’s day started with a hiccup when he threw an interception on the first drive, but soon got going and looked comfortable after that. But the defense failed to produce more big plays like that and gave up 12 third-down conversions. They were shut out in the second half and managed 71 yards of offense after halftime. In 15 games that year, Royal caught 91 passes for 980 yards with five touchdowns. Kevin White had a hard debut, finishing with three catches for 34 yards. He shook off a awful drop towards the end of the first half with a couple of impressive plays: a 20 yard catch in traffic that set the Texans up inside the Bears 10 (no touchdown though, more on that later), his 27 yard catch and run touchdown on a screen, and a 7 yard catch that he stretched to 35 yards with a broken tackle and a nice juke. After his wrong route that led to the interception, Cutler didn’t target him again until the perfunctory final drive of the game. I can’t even recall the last time Jay Cutler went on a quarterback duel.
“Usually, you want to build in to these, and then week four and five, when you’ve gotten used to it, take a few shots then”. None of that’s happening anymore and I’ll walk off the field and I’m looking forward to the next practice, the next workout and not worrying about my recovery so much or how my body is going to respond because I know how it is now. “The Bears have issues at tackle – seriously, why did they pass on Laremy Tunsil? – but their defense is terrific, and Jay Cutler is not almost as bad as people want to make him out to be”.
“It’s going to take time and experience”, Cutler said.
But it’s fair to wonder what the plan was for White in his first game.
Just four days after defensive coordinator Vic Fangio called Floyd’s preseason “choppy” and questioned the rookie’s conditioning level, the Bears not only started Floyd, but played him more than any other outside linebacker. “There was nothing up front or on the back end or anything defensively that we weren’t prepared for”.
Bears receiver Kevin White, the seventh overall pick in the 2015 draft, made his debut on Sunday after missing all of last season with a stress fracture in his left shin.
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The offensive unit for Chicago was not able to get back on track for the rest of the game due to the pressure put on by the Texans defensive unit, and Houston added a field goal by Novak with 6:04 left in the game, giving the Texans a 23-14 lead.
