Football

Pre-Season Week 2 Preview – Bears @ Giants: Wonder who Kyle Long fights tonight…

By Wes French 981 0

vs.

RECORDS: CHI 0-1 NYG 1-0, not that it matters

KICKOFF: 6:30 pm

TV: Fox 32

RADIO: WBBM 780 AM/105.9 FM

NEWARK ISN’T NEW YORK: Big Blue View

This week the fake slate takes the Bears out to somewhere in New Jersey to play the New York FOOTBALL Giants. Let’s check in on how everything is going for the NFC East’s fail sons this week:

Yeah…sounds about right for the team that traded away Olivier Vernon and Odell Beckham on purpose for a bunch of picks and Jabrill Peppers, which they’ll use to replace All-Pro Safety Landon Collins. Oh, and he ended up with division rival Washington in an effort to destroy his old organization.

The aforementioned Daniel Jones was the big “prize” of the Giants many first round picks, and his debut last week was literally perfect for one single series, and it sounds like his head coach is ready to give him a lot more to chew on. The Bears will probably still get a decent amount of somehow still relevant Eli Manning to start, and for no real good reason Saquon Barkley. Given the amount of injuries at skill positions/pass catchers, I’d think Pat Shurmur would rather not risk what he’s got left, but if that tweet is to be believed John Mara might be making these kinds of decisions. Praying for Evan Engram‘s safety, folks.

The Giants defense is very thin basically everywhere, and the secondary made Sam Darnold look very, very good last week in an especially disastrous display. Cornerback Deandre Baker is likely out, along with Linebacker Alec Ogletree, so the results could very well be the same this week. Sean Chandler is a name that the Giants beat seems to think pretty highly of, so maybe watch for him to try and make a play or two on the back end.

The Bears spent most of the week fighting each other, puking, and trying to control the narrative around Mitchell Trubisky and his development (or lack thereof).  There was also a lot of love, and rightfully so, for rookie RB David Montgomery. Honestly, this was a pretty slow week with the team moving back up to Halas Hall from Bourbonnais, but Matt Nagy may be outsmarting himself this pre-season. His “mock game” where he held a 60-minute controlled, padded practice between his top units led to an injury to Cody Whitehair and Kyle Long beating Jalen Dalton with his own helmet. Long boasts this as his second fight of the week, and this one ended as he went to the sideline and immediately vomited before leaving practice. Nothing to see here.

The main things to watch tonight, unfortunately, are still the kickers. One of the better options from the outside (Vedvik) was snapped up by the Vikings of all teams, so Ryan Pace will likely have to spend some draft capital of his own on a new PK if Fry and Pineiro keep failing to impress. Nagy went out of his way to praise Trubs’ development in reading the defense thus far, so his performance is actually pretty important as well. Pick apart a shaky secondary and I’ll be a believer, but if he struggles with his footwork and accuracy while missing reads in his limited role he and his coach will have some splainin’ to do; especially after the multiple melees and Long’s attitude issues this week.

I guess that’s at least partially predicated on either Mitch or Long even playing, as Nagy is still acting coy on whether or not Mitch throws one pass in the entirety of the preseason. I don’t think a whole lot will be learned once this one ends (especially if we get another three hand-offs and out for Mitch), but they’re gonna play it regardless and I’m gonna watch it because that’s what we do, friends. Enjoy the show. Maybe Long gets a few snaps to scrap with someone not on his team.