How Bout Dem Bears?

thomond2006 wrote: »

It was a great performance from the Bears. The defence was immense, Bradford couldn't get anything going until garbage time with pressure constantly in his face. Once he settled Cutler threw some darts to Miller and Jeffery. He's pretty much playing for his job now as the Bears can cut him after the season. He'll need to continue in this vein of form. The protection he got was great (despite Long and Sitton being absent) and I'm sure the running threat from Howard helped too.

Many moments did go the Bears' way however. In the first half Cutler had a few passes into traffic that could have been intercepted, I remember one in particular to Jeffery who needed to slap it down to prevent a catch by the defensive back. Stefon Diggs couldn't catch a long pass which was a TD if caught. The Vikings had no running game so Bradford was forced to dropback a lot and the O-Line were incapable of compensating for that. I saw the Vikings OC has resigned, that's not a major surprise!

I had great seats on the Media Deck for about half the face value price. I was at the back but the view was still excellent. Above us they had TVs and scoreboards which made it easy to follow proceedings

Looking at the schedule, the next four games aren't the worst after the Bye Week. Perhaps the Bears can at least match the 6-10 record last year. I assume they will look to draft a QB. Would Cutler be willing to take a pay cut to stay on? His cap hit is $16m next year, I don't see any team taking that contract through a trade or offering that kind of money through free agency.

Did you make it to Wabash tap??

My opinion on Cutler is that we should keep him on. Especially if he keeps playing at the level he did Monday. I think we are going to be drafting a QB next draft but I think if you drop Cutty and the pick is a bust, you're screwed. If he isn't a bust he can sit behind a decent QB until he's ready, and your best case scenario is a Dak Prescott situation, worst case scenario is he busts and you still have your good veteran. Pace has gotten rid of talent before finding a replacement before and it hasn't panned out. QB is too important a position, and I don't want us to be like the Browns, Jets or Jags, drafting a QB every year and having the whole franchise hinging on it. Keeping Cutty around costs, but not much for a QB, we have cap space. We can draft a QB every year til we get it right, with Cutler on the roster until we get our guy.

But I really like Cutler, many don't!

thomond2006 wrote: »

I was at a bar, not sure where!

Cutler's contract is a lot of cap room next year. Hopefully they can get negotiate a pay cut which would help to keep Jeffery.

We currently have almost 50 million in cap space. Aside from Jeffery, the only pending free agent that looks quite expensive is probably Sam Acho (I think Willie Young will be gone, too many injuries). Cutler will cost 14 million against the cap (plus 2 million in dead money) which isn't huge by the standards of mid-range veteran QBs, and definitely leaves enough money to pay Jeffery. I definitely want them to keep Jeffery but I don't think they need Cutler to take a cut for that (and I doubt he'd be too amenable to it anyway, I can see teams willing to pay that amount for his services for a year). Now, maybe he might take a cut if it meant not just keeping his favourite receiver, but also another big FA signing on the o-line to replace Massie who has been terrible...doing that would mean we could invest a high draft pick in a QB and not have to worry about him getting killed if he has to go out and play in the (very likely) event of a Cutler injury.

What I wouldn't want to do is cut Cutler because he won't take a pay cut, and then be left in a situation where we HAVE to draft a QB and he HAS to work out for us. That's Jets/Browns/Jags territory.

Well Cutler did his best to make people like me who defend him look as stupid as possible Sunday. One game after he had played one of his strongest games ever for us, he served up a turkey two weeks early. Not the only one to blame. Loggains, who also gave a masterclass against the Vikes, was terrible. He had Howard cutting them up and they had no answer, so his response? Take Howard out, and when you're not doing empty backfield sets where my 11 month old daughter could see Cutler was going to hoof it to Jeffery, you put in Langford and Carey who weren't remotely effective. Later claim that Howard had an ankle injury, but nobody seems to have told Howard that.

Long leaves for the season, which mightn't be such a bad thing, and if they can put Kush in I'd be happy enough, thought he was actually more effective than Long who has been playing hurt all year. Jeffery makes a fool of himself with a PED ban.

The D were OK but couldn't keep going all day with the Offense forcing them back onto the field every five seconds. If they could have caught Winston for that safety, instead of him breaking loose and getting that massive first down, I think the game's momentum would have went the other way (they had dominated us but hadn't put any distance at all between the teams, it was a pivotal moment psychologically), but that play really crushed us. If my aunt had balls...

It's a massive disaster, all in all, once again, only a couple of years after this group was brought in to save us from the last disaster. There is a difference, in that the current GM seems to be good at drafting, and our young players continue to show promise. But now he has to hit big on a QB this coming year. Because Cutler will almost certainly have to go. I also think that this year is a huge setback for the rebuild because it seems less likely that any top free agents are going to want to come here, looking at how those like Sitton, Trevathan, Freeman, are sitting in a bath full of ****e right now.

Is it time to fire Fox? Maybe. I wanted us to hold on for dear life to Adam Gase last year, even if it meant promising him the HC job for the following year. Looking at how he's turning around the Dolphins while our O goes down the jacks, you start to get down a bit alright. But if you fire Fox, who will come along to replace him? We've been hiring and firing HCs far too quickly, it's how you end up in Browns type situation (or a Bears type situation) where the chicken of bad coaching and the egg of constant staff turnover become hard to put in order. If I were a top coaching candidate a few years ago I'd have loved to take on the Bears (hence Bruce Arians dying to take it on only to be shown the door to make way for Trestman). And two years ago, as well, we had attractive choices. But what top level guy would want us now? So I think we'll have to stick with Fox both to ensure some kind of stability and credibility.

But Loggains? He is really gameplanning for his job at this point, I am all for patience in letting him find his feet but the incompetence on Sunday was shocking, especially coming off a great game against the Vikings and a BYE WEEK!

As an aside, why on earth did they give the players a week off for the bye? They had TWO WINS all season and they got a week off? Was anyone surprised, under those circumstances, when the team looked underprepared?

SameOleJay wrote: »

Yeah Fox needs to go. Keeping Fangio is critical, let the new coach decide on Loggains.
I'm actually happy enough with Pace so far. Secondary is a disaster but happy with the talent acquisition elsewhere for the most part. How he navigates the qb quandary will determine his fate, and that won't be easy.

I wouldn't even mind too much if they made Fangio the HC, now that I think of it, twould be one sure way of keeping him!

Agree about the secondary but it takes a few years of drafting, we were never going to get everything sorted too quickly. He's been doing well developing the trenches IMO. Would like to see a really, really top quality safety in the draft this year, like Peppers. And obviously a QB as well, but the ones expected to go where we're drafting look iffy, at best, to me (Kizer and Watson).

Unless we win big on the QB dice roll in the draft I think we'll be poor again next year. Saw a list of the pending FA qbs in the league. Kirk Cousins is by far the best of them, followed probably by Hoyer, and it gets worse from there...

Is Jim Harbaugh a goer lads? I know he's on massive money in college football but still.

Christ we're being decimated by injuries today.

vs Titans
vs 49ers
@ Lions
vs Packers
vs Redskins
@ Vikings

The 49ers is the only 'easy' game there. 3-13 finish?

thomond2006 wrote: »

vs Titans
vs 49ers
@ Lions
vs Packers
vs Redskins
@ Vikings

The 49ers is the only 'easy' game there. 3-13 finish?

I presume the 9ers are looking at their schedule saying the same thing. On the other hand we've already beaten two of those teams this year. But yeah, one, two wins left, tops. As always, would love to see us beat the Packers (and that really isn't as far fetched as we might have thought), but other than that we badly need a high draft pick so I wouldn't be devastated if we lose out the remainder of the season.. Can't even enjoy watching the young players now, we have way too many injuries. The Floyd one, aside from being very scary and serious looking, was also heartbreaking, it's like the football gods are determined that any little hint of optimism about the Bears present or future has to be snuffed out as quickly as possible.

gufc21 wrote: »

Cutler undergoing scans on a shoulder injury.


Ffs. Hopefully we're done with Cutler this year. A good game every now and then has somehow gotten some huge support with fan base. The man is always injured and the odd geame he is fit he just throws picks. The team doesn't appear to like him which is shown by the fact they always seem to perform better when the backup comes in.

Dunno about that last assertion, other than a few games with McCown, I never remember one of Cutler's backups doing anything other than suck.

But yeah, the time to move on is clearly upon us. I just hope they don't go and do something stupid like take Romo, who is basically just an older, more expensive, more banged up version of Cutler with a nicer personality.

Anyway, this is entirely inkeeping with the way things have been going the past couple of weeks, and it all but guarantees us the number 2 pick now (can't see us beating the 49ers with Matt Barkeley or whoever else they can find lying around...Pickles is a FA...). So there's that.

Who would people like to see us draft? I'm not too knowledgeable about college ball really. I like Kizer but I'm biased. Talk is Pace likes the Miami QB Brad Kaaya, who I did watch play against ND and think he'd be good value in the 2nd round. Would be happy if we got Peppers and Kaaya.

So Jay is gone will Ashlon go as well? I don't totally understand the money in the NFL so will we be able to trade/buy well this year?

thomond2006 wrote: »

They may as well put Cutler on IR and give Barkley the rest of the season to see if he's worth persisting with.

I suppose we're about to find out!

This could get awfully ugly. He looked shocking the last time he was in. We will be rolling out with him and David Fales, our QB4 and QB5 for the year, for the rest of the season. No Long, Sitton, Alshon or White, Howard can't catch passes, no Zach Miller.

I'm probably going to watch the Director's Cut of Blade Runner on Sunday. What about yourselves?

If we keep it in any way respectable I'd be happy heli, and I don't expect that. Our fourth string qb, with a second string o line, throwing to second string receivers. A D missing virtually anyone worth remembering. We have fourteen players on injured reserve now. And we weren't great to begin with. Im watching to see what kind of depth we have for the future, for the result I'd be delighted with a fourteen point deficit. Mariota is going to great fun with our secondary.

First play on defense at we get 3 and out very early i know.Fully fit D next year will be very good

Then they score a td just to make me look a prick (not difficult). Can't see what's happening, but go bears, that alone is unexpected.

D keeping us competitive, very interesting off season ahead