More running comments on Peterson, Benson
Q. What are the drawbacks to giving Adrian Peterson half the carries this week?
A. He's not a pounder like Cedric is. The way Adrian concludes runs isn't going to take the toll on defenses like Cedric's runs will. All you guys are so caught up in stats. Last week (Seahawks quarterback) Matt Hasselbeck threw the ball 40 times, and the running back (Maurice Morris) had 28 carries for 86 yards, and everybody's saying what a nice complement to a nice passing game. But because Cedric has 28 carries for 72 yards, it's not a good effort, even though they win the game.
Q. How could the Bears' running game be any worse? The only way you can afford to get just 72 yards from 28 carries is when your defense is holding the other team to 6 points.
A. Have you broken down the offensive line?
Q. No, and I'm not saying it's all Benson's fault because the offensive line is also to blame. But would Adrian Peterson average less than 2.6 yards a carry against one of the league's worst run defenses?
A. You're going to put Adrian behind the same offensive line? I don't know what the solution is here.
Q. Lovie Smith said there's a problem with the running game. At this stage of the season, what can they do to improve it besides giving Peterson more carries?
A. They can block better.
Q. After nine games of not blocking well enough, they're all of a sudden going to start blocking better?
A. Hopefully Cedric is in the continuous development stage of how to read defenses and anticipate where the hole is most likely going to be. No one should show up here (at Halas Hall) Monday morning to ask questions without looking at the tape play by play, angle by angle, block by block. You guys want to constantly blame it on Cedric, but it's unfair. Does he get tripped up in the open field at times when you'd like to see him go 60 yards? Yeah, but football's not a 100-yards-at-a-time game. If you're only evaluating talent based on who can go 80 yards every time they touch the ball, that's not realistic football.
Q. But Benson hasn't been able to go more than 16 yards with any of his 177 carries, and he couldn't get more than 9 yards on any of his 28 carries last week.
A. Go back in time, and if you can give me a back that averages 4.0 yards a carry, averages 3.8 yards a carry, I'll win you a Super Bowl with that running back.
Q. Agreed, but Benson's nowhere near that.
A. Right, but go back and look at the plays and tell me how many time he has contact 2½ yards beyond the line of scrimmage or does he have contact at the line of scrimmage?
Q. On a related topic, how did Terrence Metcalf do in his first start of the season filling in for Ruben Brown at left guard?
A. He did a solid job. Are you going to be able to become more aggressive the more comfortable you feel in there? That should be the case. But I think Terry doesn't have a big window of waiting for him to develop. He's been around here five years now. It's not like he's going to be a completely different lineman in two weeks than he was this past week. He did well, but he's got to play better.
Q. Is it an indictment of him that he couldn't play ahead of a one-armed, 35-year-old Ruben Brown until the team shut him down because of his shoulder injury?
A. Yeah, but that goes two years deep. With all due respect to Ruben Brown, who has the credentials to be a future Hall of Famer, but if you're a young guy who's drafted within the first four rounds (Metcalf was taken in the third), and you can't beat out a veteran who has been limited by an injury, then you better be looking to upgrade as a team. Terry should have owned this position two years ago.
Q. What does Rex Grossman have to do in whatever chances he has left to have a future with the Bears?
A. First of all, you want to see a mistake-free game, but that's pretty tough to ask for going into the most opponent-unfriendly stadium in the league. You need to see a serious limit on mistakes, and you really hope that you don't see throws into double coverage or triple coverage. Maybe you want to see Rex scramble the ball upfield a little bit, too.