Grossman, Bears win second in a row

The Bears defeated the Washington Redskins this past Sunday 27-24 in what was one of the Bears best efforts this season.

Rookie quarterback Rex Grossman won his second game in two starts and the Bears, with a win needed next Sunday in Kansas City, will complete a .500 season.

Grossman completed 19 out of 32 passes for 249 yards and two touchdowns. He also threw his first career interception, and had two fumbles, both of which he recovered, and was sacked twice, but the sacks came as a result of a breakdown in pass protection.

Grossman's pass to Marty Booker was a perfectly timed pass, in which hit Booker in stride down the right sideline for a 59-yard completion and the Bears first touchdown score of the day. His other touchdown pass, an 11-yarder to Justin Gage, wasn't pretty, but it was effective nonetheless.

Grossman, once again, showed confidence, poise, an instinct to avoid mistakes and strong improvement over his first game as a starter just a week ago.

Anthony Thomas had 141 yards on 32 carries and scored one touchdown. He also had two catches for 11 yards.

Thomas had only 34 yards in the first half of the game on just eight carries, but he broke it wide open in the second half, rushing for 107 yards on 24 carries.

He showed a lot of speed and quickness running through the hole and proved once again that he is a very powerful and durable running back.

Stanley Pritchett had a pretty solid day as well, rushing for 33 yards on five carries including one for 18 yards. He also caught two passes for 20 yards.

Pritchett exhibited some fantastic speed and began to establish himself as a reliable receiver out of the backfield and should have been used more often this season.

A couple of receivers also had a hand in the rushing game, as Dez White rushed for 12 yards and Bobby Wade ran for five yards.

Overall, the Bears rushed for 191 yards on the day.

In addition to his 59-yard TD pass reception, Booker totaled also had three other receptions for 80 yards on the day.

Gage also had a touchdown, along with 42 yards on four catches. He also had a fumble on the Bears first possession of the game, which was recovered by the Redskins.

White caught two passes for 20 yards, while Wade had two catches for 16 yards and Ahmad Merritt had one catch for 25 yards.

Overall, the receivers had a pretty good game catching the ball, but their best came on the run after the catch, especially on Booker's touchdown catch and run.

The offensive line suffered some injuries during the game that further weakened it, including Quasim Mitchell, who broke his leg and will be out for the rest of the season.

Overall, the unit did an outstanding job blocking for the pass and the run in allowing the Bears offense to gain 429 total yards on the day.

One bad play came when Aaron Gibson had an illegal formation called on him that cost the Bears a touchdown run by Thomas, but they did manage to score three plays later.

The defensive line did an outstanding job against the Redskins' running game, holding them to 44 yards on 18 carries.

Brian Robinson had the only sack of the game for the Bears, and led the defensive line with four tackles.

The only weakness the defensive line showed was that it couldn't apply pass pressure, so the Redskins were able to complete a lot of passes on the day.

Tim Hasselback, who had had one of the worst games a quarterback could have the week before against Dallas, completed 16 of 29 attempts for 209 yards and two touchdowns.

The Redskins' also had another touchdown pass thrown by a wide receiver.

The linebackers had a solid day as well, containing the run and not allowing Redskins' runners to get into the secondary.

As usual, Brian Urlacher led the team in tackles. The rest of the linebackers could have helped out a little more in applying pass pressure, but they were concentrating on containing the run, while letting the secondary provide blanket coverage on the receivers to prevent long pass plays.

Despite allowing three TD catches, the Bears secondary did a good job of coverage on the day.

Charles Tillman had a quiet game because the Redskins did not throw the ball in his direction, which is a true testament to his abilities at cornerback.

He did have two tackles on the afternoon, while Mike Brown had four.

Special teams had its ups and downs.

A penalty on Joe Tafoya cost them good field position on a punt return by R.W. McQuarters.

Jerry Azumah had a decent day returning kickoffs. He was injured on one play, but did come back to play.

Paul Edinger's kickoffs were short once again. In addition, he missed two field goals, which would have taken the Bears out of the situation they were put in at the end of the game when Edinger had to kick that 45 yard field goal into the wind. However, he made that kick to win the game.

The coaching staff seemed to allow Grossman to air it out and allow the receivers to run patterns that would allow them to catch the ball on the run instead of coming back around to stop and catch the pass.

A perfect example of this strategy was seen on Booker's 59-yard touchdown catch and run.

The coaches called a pretty good game and they seem to have a lot more confidence in Grossman than they did in Kordell Stewart or Chris Chandler.

Could the resent upsurge in the offense be what is needed to keep Dick Jauron and his staff in place for one more year?

Player of the Game

In all, two players deserve to be the player of this game.

First is Grossman. Despite a couple of fumbles and an interception, Grossman kept the game under control and didn't allow the game to get out of hand like his predecessors have in the past. He will have many successful years in Chicago.

Second is Edinger because of his 45-yard field goal -- into the wind. It was not only the game winner, but a great play. You have to give him credit for making that kick at that distance and in those conditions with the game on the line.