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When Bruce Paine thinks about Colts football, he looks like a more masculine version of this.
In the Sunday night offering the Bears will come down to Indy to peel the protective blue cellophane off of Lucas Oil. Unfortunately they are going to find the Colts inside, and the Colts are going to kick the monkeynuts out of them. That said, come inside to find out how and why and when.
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The Contender: Chicago Bears 
Key Players: Kyle Orton
The Ex-Champ: Indianapolis Colts
Key Players: Dwight Freeney, Gary Brackett
Where: Lucas Oil Stadium, NBC @ 8:15 p.m.
Keys to Watch: Bears run game in the middle. Bears 3rd down conversions. Colts pass rush.
They Bears are dinged up in the fronts and trying to rediscover some identity. It shouldn't be hard. Its the Bears. They should run like a train and convert short third downs and be fast and mean on defense. That is the Bears identity, but something is missing, and this team may not have the tools to reclaim that. They don't have the locomotive back, though Forte shows promise. They don't have a clear leader on offense. They don't have the dominate line needed for such a job. The defense is a little green in the secondary. They haven't played smart defense or tackled well, yet.
They can be better, clearly, and a strong outing by the defense, regardless of the offenses performance, would be a good sign. They aren't going to play a team as tough as the Colts every week so if the defense can show up it may give the offense time to get some things figured out under fire. Kyle Orton can help if he keeps the Bears on the field. He can do that by doing something he is very capable of doing, being confident. In his junior and senior seasons at Purdue he was a very confident and focused player. A tough loss to Wisconsin his senior season seemed to ruin that. He is capable of playing well, though, and must be willing to make judgment calls to help his team. He must convert third downs. To do that he must make a few key decisions and a two kinds of throws.
Initially, Orton has to be willing to trust his eyes and audible to the run. The Colts will probably show him 8 men in the box fairly often, with Bob "Is this your spleen?" Sanders sneaking up to help. Orton has to be willing to audible to the pass, call for the deep route, and make long throws against single coverage. These throws will either be a deep ball against the sideline or the corner route behind the cornerback and in front of the safety against a retreating defense that has shifted into a cover 2 in reaction to the audible. In other situations, the Bears must be willing to run inside on long yardage on second down. They will see a lot of 8 man fronts on first, I believe, and must take the invitation to pass. They must then run on second down up the middle. The Colts' corners tackle to well to run wide, and running off tackle may be inviting but the bigger yardage will be against the lack of depth in the middle. ( Kenyunta Dawson is a guy who must deliver this season) If the Bears can get Kreutz  against Colts' middle linebacker Gary Brackett, they will have opened the middle completely. The Colts simply don't have depth or personnel at tackle to make an impact. It is the weakest point of the Colts defense and must be attacked. This is the most consequential component to the Bears list of tactics. They will be throwing against a very good, exceptionally fast secondary. The throwing part will not come easy. The running part may just come very easy, so they must commit to it. Block the corners, find Bob Sanders, get the center or a guard to Brackett and run like your spine's on fire. It sounds like the Bears have to be perfect, run well and convert third downs, but it is more than that. They don't have to convert every third down through the air and they don't have to make every run in the middle big, they just have to execute enough of them to stay on the field. They don't have the weapons to beat the Colts big, at least not on paper, so they have to do enough to get in rhythm and keep moving forward. It would be very easy for this team to get jumpy and for a seasoned and disciplined Colts team that likes the smell of blood in the water to take over from the defensive side. You may not remember but many of the early wins the Colts had last year came at the hands of the defense's performance, not the offense.
We haven't seen much of the Colts. The starters have seen minimal playing time in the preseason, as is usual for the Colts. Saturday is out (though he has decided against surgery and will be back sooner than later) but the offensive line will do the job. Manning won't take unnecessary hits and will get rid of the ball knowing that one throw, good or bad, will not decide the game as a whole. The line, though patched together, will be disciplined and so will the team as a whole. The Bears are going to commit more penalties than the Colts. The Colts just have to keep moving the ball. The Bears cannot afford to give up the deep ball because they would never catch up. Given that the Colts must be their usual, patient self and take the underneath stuff and execute. Unfortunately for the Colts, rust related mistakes like dropped balls or balls thrown behind the receivers can affect this game. Manning must not be perfect or surgically precise, but he must be decisive and smooth. Addai must be a one cut and go runner, which is good because that is how he runs. A sidestepper or a guy that likes to spin and hop and dance for yards gets eaten alive by Bears. So he must simply stay in character and read the stretch right. He must stay outside the pulling blocker so that they have a chance to seal. The center will be new, so it will be tough for him to get to the second level and engage somebody as swift and canny as Urlacher, best leave that to a veteran. They can't pretty up the offense or things could misfire. All they need to do, though, is run their slams and drags and the Bears will be forced to give up the underneath.
Colts win this one by a decisive but oddly slim margin given the rust of the offensive starters. Bears are valiant but don't have the guns to mess with the big dogs quite yet.
Colts 24 - Bears 13.
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