Bear Digest

Numbers Bears Would Rather Not See

After one ugly win and a severe beating, the Bears hardly look polished on both sides of the ball heading into Sunday's game against Lovie Smith's Houston Texans.

Gene Chamberlain

In this story:

One of the more entertaining guys the Bears ever had as a coordinator or coach of any kind was Dick Jauron's defensive coordinator, Greg Blache.

Besides being a real historian who loved comparing football to the Peloponnesian War, he described why he hates statistics.

"Numbers lie," Blache said once. "Numbers are like your brother-in-law, they lie; they need to."

While this doesn't do much for producing family harmony everywhere, the overriding message can be true. Numbers can be twisted.

The Bears need to hope they don't mean a thing after only two weeks and only one week on dry land.

Here are the numbers the Bears need to know will eventually be irrelevant after the sample size is larger.

97

Total plays by the Bears on offense, next to last in the league and better only than Seattle (96).

432

Total yards gained, last in the NFL.

153

Net passing yards, last in the NFL.

28

Total passes, last in the NFL

7.1

Interception percentage for Justin Fields and the Bears with two out of 28 attempts. It's the worst team percentage in the NFL.

379

Yards rushing allowed, worst in the NFL.

3.93

Yards gained per first-down play, 30th in the NFL.

4.5

Yards gained per play, 29th in the NFL. The good news for this week is Houston is last in the NFL at 4.2.

22.9

The average starting yard line for Bears drives after kickoff returns. That's 28th in the NFL. Velus Jones Jr. can't come back fast enough.

3

Touchdowns for four trips inside the red zone, and 75% is seventh in the NFL. The bad news is only three teams have been in the red zone on offense less than three times.

4

The Bears defense has given up touchdowns four times in eight opposing trips inside the red zone. The 50% is tied for 11th best. The problem is only three teams have given up more than eight trips to the red zone.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.

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