Brian Griese has a great opportunity to look like a great quarterback this weekend. The Lions have given up 8.6 yards a padding attempt this season. Last week the Eagles shredded the Lions defense. Brian Griese is not Donovan McNabb, and Cedric Benson certainly isn’t Brian Westbrook, but the Bears do have some talent on offense. Hopefully this week they’ll be able to rally behind their new quarterback.

The Lions on offense have been a little banged up as well. Calvin Johnson, the Lions first round pick, has a bruised back and is not sure if he’ll be playing on Sunday. The Lions have been electric on offense. They’ve averaged 6 yards a play this season. They may get Kevin Jones back this week too.

The Lions offense will go up against a Bears defense that is really banged up. Tommie Harris (knee), Adam Archuleta (hand), Lance Briggs (hamstring), Alex Brown (ankle), Tommie Harris (knee), Adewale Ogunleye (hip), Charles Tillman (ankle), Brian Urlacher (back), Nathan Vasher (groin), and Darwin Walker (knee) are all listed on the injury report this week. That’s 10 people. That is pretty much the Bears entire defense. Obviously all of these players won’t miss the game on Sunday, but they all will have some effect of their injuries. The Bears have relied on their defense to win games for them this season. They will now have to rely on their offense to help out their dinged up defense.

The Bears offense is not exempt from injuries. Adrian Peterson and Olin Kruetz both are on the injury report as well. We all know that Olin will play. He’s one of the toughest players in the NFL.

What can we expect from Brian Greise and the Bears offense?

• A limit on their mistakes. Griese should be able to protect the ball better than Rex did.
• This week the Bears running game gets healthy. Cedric Benson needs to run for at least 80 yards and score a touchdown.
• Mushin Muhammed has one more healthy week. He needs to start playing like the number 1 receiver on this team.
• Greg Olsen got into the gameplan last week against the Cowboys. Expect Griese to find Olsen over the middle of the porous Lions defense

Final score: Bears 17 - Lions 13

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 7:45 am and is filed under Chicago Bears, Football, NFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.