(The real) Thursday Night recap

Ok, ok, time to do a proper recap of the Thursday Night game: Chicago Bears 16 @ Miami Dolphins 0: Hopefully -- right about now -- a lot of people are feeling about the Bears what I felt last year about the Saints. Hopefully they now understand exactly what I was going through each week, desperately shouting at the TV trying to explain that the Saints were not as good as the record showed. Near enough every week the Saints came up smelling of roses thanks in large part to their opposition. An average team somehow lucked its way through the season, all the way to the big game. Now the Bears are doing the same thing. And yet I wake up and find people talking about the Bears as "serious contenders" now. How? Where they watching the same game yesterday? As much maligned as Tyler Thigpen has been since throwing 17/29, 187 yards and an INT, surely people have to have seen the same O-line performance that I did? The Dolphins couldn't run. They couldn't pass protect. They just couldn't block, flat out. Tyler Thigpen spent most of the game running away from salivating defensive players who couldn't believe their luck. So how did the Bears offense get on? 16 points. Three field goals and a 2-yard TD run. Cutler was 16/25 for 156 yards and 1 INT. The surprise of the night was Matt Forte taking 25 carries for 97 yards and a TD (the fact that he even got 25 carries was surprising enough). From the perspective of the Bears offense we realise that this could have easily swung the other way. Despite the defense producing an interception and six sacks (three alone for Julius Peppers), they failed to capitalise sufficiently. Don't expect some of the main playoff contenders in the NFC to be so generous come January. But then, if I learnt anything from watching the Saints last year and the Cardinals the year before, some teams just seem to have an almost magical ability to coax the worst out of their opponents. Anyway, I'll be back either later today or probably tomorrow with the rest of my picks for week 11. Till then, Have a great day everyone.