[Sluss]

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Pressure is clearly on for the offense to produce in playoffs like last night vs. Rams. If they do, I'll be expecting a Super Bowl berth. Then I'll take my chances vs. SD or Balt (yikes).

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Funny enough I was trying to figure some of these match-ups when doing my NFL rankings this morning. I was trying to figure how the Bears would fair vs. the top level of the AFC.

I'm not real thrilled about the match-up with the Chargers. The Bears would obviously have all kinds of problems against LT, but who wouldn't. The Bears secondary should fair pretty well against Rivers and the wideouts.

My biggest concern would be the Bears offense vs. SD's defense. The Chargers secondary is their biggest weakness, but their front seven is real good. They are tough against the run and they bring alot of pressure. They are good against short passes. So basically for the Bears to be successful offensively they would have to force the ball down the field. Anyone else concerned about this?

Baltimore is a real even match-up and I think the o/u would be 10. The Ravens have the same wide recievers as the Bears. A veteran who makes all the catches. A young guy who gets deep, but has been good all year. While the national media continues to talk about how much of genius Billick is because he is "commited" to the run. Jamal Lewis and Musa Smith have not been good. Lewis has been unable to capture his old form and the line has done a poor job blocking. The Ravens offense stalls for most of the game and breaks off one or two drives a game and they have to hope that is enough. Todd Heap is a good tight end, but he disapears for long stretches in their offense.

Their defense is good, but they are not as good in the secondary as the names may say. Ed Reed is still a ball hawk, which could make a huge difference as Rex will not be able to make bad mistakes. However, most of the guys are too interested in jumping routes and making plays, thus they have been getting burned by play action and double moves.

I think the Bears match-up great with the Colts. The Bears will be able to run the ball and complete some short slants and skinny posts. The defense is made to stop a passing attack like the Colts. Without Stokely the Colts don't have the ablity to get the Bears into a nickle to run the ball efffectively.

They already played the Patriots to a draw.