Game 7: Bears 20, Texans 19

Joel Meyers and Spencer Tillman will bring us the first half on Houston's behalf.

Devin Hester NOT returning kicks for the Bears; it's Danieal Manning, who barely gets the opening kick across the 20. Rex Grossman actually gets off to a decent start, and doesn't feel much heat from Houston until the Bears get to Houston's 35. The drive dies in part due to a Fred Miller false start. Where've I seen that before? Robbie Gould can't convert from 52 and we're still scoreless.

On 3rd-and-7, Matt Schaub does a nice job to get the pass off to beat a blitz, but Ken Walter can't hold on to it. Houston punts.

Huh, Hester is returning punts. Texans screen him off from making a fair catch, though, and the punt rolls another 20 yards.

Cedric Benson opens the next possession with an 11-yard run that was nearly a lot more. Grossman goes Ankiel on a screen pass and slightly overthrows Rashied Davis to lead to a Bears punt. Jacoby Jones returns the punt 23 yards for Houston.

Schaub hits Andre Johnson to move Houston across midfield. Drive stalls out, though, and Houston settles for a Kris Brown FG to take a 3-0 lead.

With about 1:30 left in the 1st, Brian Griese is in at QB and Adrian Peterson (the Northwestern version) enter the Bear backfield. Griese's first pass is horrible and Von Hutchins picks it off to put Houston in great shape.

Sage Rosenfels taking over at QB for Houston, as the game enters the 2nd quarter. They work all the way down to the Chicago 4, then gain nothing on three tries up the middle for Ron Dayne. Highly disappointing, uncreative offense there. A second Brown FG puts Houston up 6-0.

Devin Hester has come in to play WR. Griese hits him nicely for 12. Two plays later, as awful as Griese's INT was a minute ago, his pass down the sideline to Mark Bradley is a very pretty play. It gets Chicago to the Houston 4, and Obefemi Ayanbadejo scores a TD from Griese the next play. 7-6 Chicago.

Jerome Mathis nearly returns the ensuing kickoff all the way. His offense, though, follows that big play with a disgusting sequence, 3 straight incompletions. Houston's biggest offensive weapon so far, Kris Brown, comes in to put another 3 points on the board. Houston 9, Chicago 7.

3-and-out for the Bears. They come up short on 3rd-and-3 with a 2-yard pass to Rashied Davis.

Rosenfels runs his incompletions streak to five before finally completing one well short of the first down. I believe that makes them 0-for-5 on third down. The good news is, this leads to a Matt Turk sighting, and his punt covers 58 yards. Good thing for Rams Nation that Donnie Jones had a good game last night.

After Chicago 3-and-outs again, Houston finally strings together some plays. They're still unable to convert a 3rd down, so Samkon Gado converts a 4th down at the Bear 27. Gado gets two more passes once Houston enters the red zone, and on 3rd-and-1 from the 11, they're passing again, but no dice, and they settle for Brown's fourth FG to push their lead to 5. 12-7, Houston.

Halftime, and we switch to Chicago's announcers Mike Patrick and Mike Ditka.

Nothing happening for Houston after halftime, either. Rosenfels misses an open Jacoby Jones on 3rd down with a pass that nosedives short of him.

Kyle Orton is the new Bears QB. He hits John Gilmore for 13 and a first down, but on the ensuing 3rd-and-2, a bomb for Mike Hass is out of bounds and not catchable. Another Chicago punt.

Houston starts off the next drive with an impressive sideline catch by Jones. That seems to inspire them into putting a drive together, as they cross midfield and then convert their FIRST third down of the night with a pass to the fullback. A Rosenfels scramble gets them inside the 10, and he hits Jeb Putzier two plays later to stake Houston to a 19-7 lead. Nicely drawn-up and executed play, with Rosenfels naked bootlegging right off a fake run left.

The Bears turn in another 3-and-out, with Gilmore coming up just short on 3rd-and-9.

Bradlee Van Pelt is now Houston's QB. Wali Lundy fumbles the handoff on 2nd down, and Israel Idonije recovers for Chicago.

As the third quarter expires, Orton slings one to Brandon Rideau for 17 just before he gets clocked by a rusher. Add a roughing penalty and the ball's at the Houston 3. From there, they liked Houston's rollout pass on the last TD so much, they run it themselves, with similar success. Orton's toss to Fontel Mines makes it a 19-14 game.

Houston has returned kicks well all night and do it again here with a 33-yard return. Van Pelt leads them inside the Bears 35 with a draw play on 3rd-and-9 before the drive falls apart. He badly underthrows the TE on first down, gets sacked on 2nd down (the first sack tonight by either team), and badly overthrows the TE on third down. The ball ends up in safety Kevin Payne's hands but he drops it. Turk pins Chicago at the 11 with an ugly-looking punt.

A stupid penalty keeps Chicago's final drive alive. Earl Cochrane runs into the punter just before the 2:00 warning. That gives them a 4th-and-1 at midfield that they convert with a Josh Allen run. After taking a sack, Orton hits David Ball, the New Hampshire record-setting receiver, with a big 20-yard sideline pass. A couple of plays later, Allen fumbles, but the Bears recover, and Gould hits a 47-yard FG to put them ahead 20-19.

Too little time for Houston to mount a last comeback, even with Van Pelt completing a pass to himself via a deflection. Bears win 20-19.

Chicago's main questions for me are on offense. The two guys they're relying heaviest on, Grossman and Benson, both had good games. Orton also stepped up, completing 12 in a row at one point.

Houston's still doing too much of what bad teams do. They didn't convert third downs, they bogged down in the red zone, they didn't make the most of their opponent's mistakes, they committed bad penalties at crucial moments. The play-calling in the red zone was especially questionable. Best thing for them tonight is that Jacoby Jones seems to be stepping forward as their best option opposite Andre Johnson.

7 down, 58 to go. Up next: I'm not completely sure. Either Chiefs-Browns, or Bills-Saints from Friday night.