Bears RedZone Woes Lead To 21-14 Loss To Falcons
The Chicago Bears came into Sunday nights game on a 3 game win streak, with a quarterback who had maintained a 100+ passer rating and a receiving corp who had largely surprised many NFL analysts. Then they met the redzone and everything came crumbling down.
Jay Cutler threw an interception at the 9 yard line of the red zone and Matt Forte fumbled twice along the goal line, situations that Atlanta was able to take advantage of for a 7 point win.
Forte was also held to a miserable 23 yards rushing on the night and the Bears blew their last chance at a comeback when Orlando Pace went offside on the five yard line with less than 30 seconds left on the clock and a fourth and one situation.
In the post game press conference Lovie Smith supposed up the teams lost “We had a lot of opportunities to win this football game…You can’t make those kind of mistakes. When you get the ball in the red zone, you need to get points.”
While the Bears lost there was some promise shown in young receiver Johnny Knox who once again showed his incredible speed by scoring on a 23 yard touchdown pass from Cutler in the second quarter. Unfortunately for the Bears Atlanta responded when Matt Ryan threw a 40 yard touchdown pass to Roddy White to tie the game at 7 a piece. Ryan then took the lead with a second half TD to Tony Gonzalez with only four seconds left in the 2nd quarter.
After the half Cutler connected with Greg Olsen for a 2 yard touchdown bass to tie the game at 14 with 6:14 remaining in the game. Unfortunately for the Bears Michael Turner turned a 5 yard touchdown run into the game winner, giving the Falcons a 4-1 start on the season, their best start since the 2004 season.
Cutler managed a season high 300 yards passing, unfortunately he also threw two interceptions, while also struggling the entire night in the red zone.
The Bears defense actually held their own with only 253 total yards allowed and only 68 of those on the ground. It definitely appears that the difference came from missed opportunities on the side of the Chicago Bears.
