Saints 20 Bears 17 Big plays allowed the Saints to emerge victorious from an ugly game between two bad football teams. There's not much point in going into detail about the first two quarters. Suffice it to say that there were 18 possessions in the first half, 14 of which ended with a punt. Two of the others ended with Saints turnovers- one was an interception of a bad Heath Shuler throw, the other was a Mario Bates fumble at the NO 32 that resulted in a Chicago FG (and a spot on the bench for Mario). The other first half possession ended with a 38 yd Doug Brien FG, made possible by a 42 yd catch-and-rumble by John Farquhar. To start the second half, the Bears sat Mirer in favor of Kramer, but another 3 & punt series resulted. The O provided the first excitement of the game with a 3 play drive- the now-out-of-the-doghouse Bates caught a ball for 15, then Randal Hill caught one for 9, then Bates ripped off a 49 yd TD run that was reminiscent of his 74 yd effort against the Lions. In the next possession, Chicago advanced the ball only 6 yds (despite an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Darren Mickell), so the Saints were soon on offense again. The visitors were helped across midfield with a defensive holding call and a 15 yd facemask, then Ray Zellars ran for a 27 yd gain. Brien was true from 48 when the drive stalled. The next four possessions saw the Bears win a field position battle- Chicago punted to the NO 15, the Saints punted to the Bears' 33, Chicago punted to the NO 2, Tyrone Hughes took a punt to the NO 38. A 5 yd hands-to-the-face call on the return gave the Bears even better field position. Penn caught a ball for 14 on the drive's first play, then two plays later Engram took a throw to the 2. Two plays later Kramer sneaked in for the score. The PAT made it 13-10 Saints with 7:44 remaining. On 3rd & 15 from the NO 13, shotgun disaster struck for the second time (in the first quarter a high snap sent the shotgunning Shuler into the endzone to retrieve the ball; only a lucky bounce permitted the QB to salvage an incompletion). This time Shuler appeared unready for the snap and failed to catch the ball. The Bears recovered at the 8 and soon scored on a 1 yd Harris run. Wes Bender's hit-out-of-bounds on the ensuing kickoff put the Saints at their own 11 with less than 6 minutes to go. The team needed a big play and got it. Shuler threw down the sideline for Hill, who snagged the ball away from the defender. The Bear fell down, so Hill easily completed the 89 yd scoring play. The Bears fought back with a 15 yd Proehl catch on 3rd & 5 followed by an E-meter-pegging 10 yd Engram catch on 4th & 9. With Chicago nearing field goal range, Wayne Martin simply beat his man to record a 3rd down sack. A 4th down catch by Engram came up short of the 1st down marker thanks to a Saints-friendly spot. The team ran off most of the remaining 1:21 before a final fruitless Bears play ended it. stats (from my notes, not official) ^^^^^ ..runnin'......./.....throwin' & catchin'........................ 1- (4) heath Shuler 9- 60-1 mario Bates 1- 15 14- 65 ray Zellars 6- 14 Troy davis Randal hill 5-121-1 Andre hastings 1- 8 john Farquhar 2- 51 incomplete 13 intercepted 1 30-135-1 9-23-195-1-1 yardage histogram ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ (players identified by capital letters as in stats above- B=Bates, etc.) T T T T TB BB ZB <--runs ZBBZZ T S ZZBZZZZ Z Z B Z Z B ***************************************************************************** - 1 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 yards gained 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 5 0 <------ ***************************************************************************** R RRR B F R AF (89) <--passes comments ^^^^^^^^ * I guess you could say the O was efficient- almost 2/3 of the yards gained came on four plays, and those plays directly led to all the Saints' points * the win is nice, but there weren't many positive signs ******************************************************************************* Frank Serpas III serpas@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu