Chicago Bears vs. Pittsburgh Steelers: NFL Week 3 Pre-Party Livestream and Open Thread

Good morning, and welcome to week 3 in the NFL.

The Bears are coming in off, well, whatever that was against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers as they were steamrolled en route to their second loss of the season. But that’s okay because this week, they draw a team that hasn’t beaten the Bears since 2005 and last beat them in Chicago in 1995.

Of course, the dangers with that stat? 1995 was just five matchups ago. For a reference point, the last matchup between these two teams was on September 22, 2013, when the Bears put up 40 on the Steelers, arguably the peak of the Marc Trestman era.

As if that didn’t feel like forever and a day ago. Obviously today, the fortunes of the teams couldn’t be very different. The Steelers have that dynamic offensive trio of the still-going Ben Roethlisberger, Antonio Brown, and possibly-now-post-holdout-form Le’Veon Bell. They’re coming off of three consecutive playoff appearances and haven’t finished a season lower than 8-8 since Bill Cowher’s 2003 season (6-10). Meanwhile, the Navy and Orange haven’t exceeded 8 wins since 2012 and haven’t made the playoffs since 2010.

But it’s only 2 games into the 2017 season, and if the Navy and Orange are going to do the unlikely and turn things around, starting today would be a good thing. Maybe the Bears’ defense picks up their second takeaway of the season. Maybe Markus Wheaton comes in strong and provides the Bears’ a receiving weapon they haven’t had through two games.

Only one way to find out.

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POTIONS AND PHOENIX DOWNS: Bears Injury Report | OL Injuries Giving Cody Whitehair DMS? (Link) | The Return of Timu Time

BEARS VS. STEELERS PREVIEWS

• Game Time, Previews, Odds, Miscellany, Etc (Les)
• What to Watch For (Link)
• Game Preview (Sam)
• WCG Radio Ep 12 - Bears Looking for Upset of Steelers (Zerg)
• Five Questions With: Bears Side (Jeff) | Steelers Side (Jeff Hartman, Behind the Steel Curtain)
• Jack Silverstein’s Favorite and Least Favorite Bears/Steelers Games

JOHN FOX ON THE HOT SEAT - A SERIES

• Part One - Fox Out?
• Part Two - Who’s In?
• Part Three - Call Your Shot

TRUBISKY AND GENTRY-WATCH

• Kris Bryant is All Aboard the Trubisky Train
• Gentry Returns to Practice Squad

BLITZBALL AND TRIPLE TRIAD

• My Apology to the Bears (Josh)
• An Interview with Akiem Hicks (Jacob)

A reminder of the procedures here for gameday. Noon is the time of the game, and the count of the gametime shall be noon (central time). So the first quarter thread shall pop at noon, with subsequent threads appearing as the game goes forward. At the conclusion of the game, we’ll have our instant recap followed by the threads for the late slates of games. In the morning we’ll have all our detailed breakdowns and all that fun stuff.

So with all the propers out of the way... Bear Down.

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Of course, your Bears-laden NFL Sunday isn’t complete without some dope playing Madden badly and some really good Bears’ conversation, so to that end, we have the WCG Sunday Livestream for your enjoyment.

So from 9:30 AM CT until about 11:20 AM CT (yes, slightly shorter today), we’ll be breaking down what happened last week against the Buccaneers and the state of the Bears going forward.

Of course, if you want to get your thoughts in, feel free to use any of these avenues to get a hold of us:

• By commenting in the comment sections of the commentary that is this comment-driven website. If you haven’t noticed, we love your comments. Down there.
• Over on the Twitch side, over here.
• Over on our Twitters. We like taking your Tweets as questions and comments (and occasional technical support... don’t ask...). I’m at @SJS_illini. Sam’s at @SamHouseholder.

We’ll be live at 9:30 AM CT. See you then...