How Bout Dem Bears?

aaronm13

Bears were far from impressive but fantastic spirit to keep it together and make the touchdown in the end. Defence needs work but great to start the season 2-0

Realt Dearg Sec

Had meant to come on earlier. Must say there was a lot to like Sunday. On offense, the one sack aside, it was just heart-warming to see how much time Cutler had in the pocket. The O-line is light-years ahead of last year, and can only improve as the year goes on. I think Kyle Long is going to pan out pretty well as a 1st round pick (of which I was critical, but so was everyone else). Elsewhere on the offense it's just very reassuring that there are more options this year, in particular Martellus Bennett. I read he has only sat out two offensive snaps in the two games this year. Works very well in the kind of offense Trestman is building. Marshall is still the Beast, but it says a lot that he was left in single coverage at the end: clearly the Vikings realised there are other threats now (and the use of Forte throughout was great to see after he was wasted last year). Far from flawless performance (Cutler still a bit too Cutler at times...)

Defense was a bit mixed as well but again there was more positive than negative. Still, Ponder is awful so maybe not worth reading much into it.

On another note: Hester was great, looked completely fired up and focused. Took a lot of (largely deserved but far too venomous) abuse last year, but quite clearly still has the instincts to do what he does. More importantly he did it at a moment (just after the opening TD) when it would have been very easy to bottle it and give the Vikings another little boost.

I dunno about ye but I'm happy with the start. Dunno how much longer we'll remain underrated by everyone else though.

padraig_f

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

On another note: Hester was great, looked completely fired up and focused. Took a lot of (largely deserved but far too venomous) abuse last year, but quite clearly still has the instincts to do what he does. More importantly he did it at a moment (just after the opening TD) when it would have been very easy to bottle it and give the Vikings another little boost.

I dunno about ye but I'm happy with the start. Dunno how much longer we'll remain underrated by everyone else though.

Yeah Hester was great, he seemed to take that TD return from the rookie Patterson personally. I read afterwards that he set a franchise record for return yards in a game. I was wondering why they kept kicking to him, and not out the back of the end zone, but I wasn't really complaining.

You could find fault with a number of things in the performance, but it'd probably be petty to point them out after that last drive. Lot of things going against them for that....the rain, the ball deflecting off the ref, the holding penalty, and still they punched it in.

I was playing around with capturing video from Gamepass, and put up the final drive on YouTube. My video-editing skills aren't great, but here it is if you want to see it again:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1WXr9LEYdI

Realt Dearg Sec

Bah, the video is blocked already...

padraig_f

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Bah, the video is blocked already...

Feck, I guess I can still view it cos I uploaded it, knew it wasn't gonna last long. Was just the drive pretty much ripped from Gamepass, so you can watch the same thing there if you have that.

Watching it again...some great catches on the drive from Jeffery, Marshall and Bennett. And as Brian Billick pointed out in the commentary, a great back-shoulder throw from Cutler for the TD pass.

Realt Dearg Sec

padraig_f wrote: »

Feck, I guess I can still view it cos I uploaded it, knew it wasn't gonna last long. Was just the drive pretty much ripped from Gamepass, so you can watch the same thing there if you have that.

Watching it again...some great catches on the drive from Jeffery, Marshall and Bennett. And as Brian Billick pointed out in the commentary, a great back-shoulder throw from Cutler for the TD pass.

Yeah it kind of summed up what's most optimistic about the Offense in general this year: multi-dimensional, exciting, not really conservative and cagey, up-tempo, using Cutler's arm, and most of all they showed some serious heart on the drive. None of these things were true last year. It's not always going to go as well as that drive (hell there were some terrible moments in the game too) but it shows what's possible.

I wonder if the Bears fanbase will be patient with all of this, or will it be all Superbowl talk again?

padraig_f

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Yeah it kind of summed up what's most optimistic about the Offense in general this year: multi-dimensional, exciting, not really conservative and cagey, up-tempo, using Cutler's arm, and most of all they showed some serious heart on the drive. None of these things were true last year. It's not always going to go as well as that drive (hell there were some terrible moments in the game too) but it shows what's possible.

I wonder if the Bears fanbase will be patient with all of this, or will it be all Superbowl talk again?

Yeah that's it, there was significant flaws in the performance, but the last drive was probably not something that could've been done last year.

Actually I see they have an analysis of it up on NFL.com:
Drive of the Week: Jay Cutler does it again

Not sure about Bears fans in general, my guess is, while there will be optimism, people won't be getting carried away, just because the NFC is so tough right now.

baddebt

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

Yeah it kind of summed up what's most optimistic about the Offense in general this year: multi-dimensional, exciting, not really conservative and cagey, up-tempo, using Cutler's arm, and most of all they showed some serious heart on the drive. None of these things were true last year. It's not always going to go as well as that drive (hell there were some terrible moments in the game too) but it shows what's possible.

I wonder if the Bears fanbase will be patient with all of this, or will it be all Superbowl talk again?

I don't know too many Bears fans talk about superbowls,
personally speaking , sunday was an ugly win , but a win is a win .
roll on Sunday night

Realt Dearg Sec

baddebt wrote: »

I don't know too many Bears fans talk about superbowls,
personally speaking , sunday was an ugly win , but a win is a win .
roll on Sunday night

It's just that reading bears discussion forums (like dabears.com or whatever) there is a tendency to talk about winning the superbowl, to the point where some of the posters don't regard anything less as a successful year. More generally, I think Bears fans (by which I mean people actually from Chicago, rather than the rest of us) are highly impatient and venomous towards their own players and coaches when things are going wrong (Devin Hester is a prime example, but Cutler and Lovie Smith spring to mind too - the latter being somewhat more justified but it was remarkable to me how negative people were last year about him coming up to the second Packers game). Nothing wrong with criticism, it's just that often there is more expectation than realism around the Bears.

baddebt

yep the locals demand victory ( and well we've been starved of it for so long , yeh can understand) ,
its the same in new york with the Giants.

anyway , I must say i'd be happy to get to the playoffs , see can we kick on from there for next season an season after

kennyb3

I love watching games back play by play trying to learn about defensive and offensive plays etc. It’s so hard to not just watch the ball and quarter back in real time. I’m not fully technically proficient having only got into the game seriously a couple of years ago so it’s a great way to learn. Anyway I got to watch the first quarter of our game back last night – hopefully get the rest in over the weekend.

Anyway here’s some stuff I noticed from this quarter – mainly regards the DL and OL;

The DL;

What was said about Peppers being ill is true and not just an excuse, in the first quarter he only took the first 3 plays or so (about 9 snaps) and didn’t return. McClellin played right DE for most of the first quarter.

McClellin still relies entirely on his speed, seems to want to beat his man without getting a finger laid on him. Still he got two decent pressures this way. But it seems if he gets held up he has no push and he was being run/pushed by the pocket on a regular basis. Kalil was pushing him back easily in the run game. He seems to look good or awful on plays not much in between.

Melton was being double teamed on nearly every play and so was finding it hard to collapse the pocket. He did well a few times though.

Wooton looked good against the run, they seemed to run a lot to his side in this quarter for some reason. I didn’t watch him enough pass rush wise but it was evident that Wooton and McClellin weren’t getting much pressure so this makes it easier to leave the tackles 1 on 1 and double team the defensive tackles.

Briggs was brilliant against the run and came up quickly twice to stuff two runs early.

The OL;

Mills was generally brilliant in pass protection – he uses his arms and size brilliantly against the bull rush. He can knocked back a bit put usually holds off the DE comfortably. He only got beat once the whole quarter and that was when he got locked up early, forgot to finish the block (mental error) and the end went again and beat him.

Mills and Long we’re given TE blocking help when required. Long looked good – really strong but made a couple of mental errors.

Bushrod was left 1 on 1 against Allen for every play – Allen is a beast and Bushrod did well to only give two pressures – no sacks.

Garza, Slauson and Long did well to hold the pocket. Their DT’s couldn’t get much of a push at all and at times the guards and Centre were completely dominant.

Cutler had time on most plays (80/90%) and on 15-20% of these he literally had all day.

Hester aside with the first return our special teams had a nightmare Q1 – allowing a kick off return and then having 12 men on the filed for a punt which caused an automatic 1st down and could have been another costly touch down. Trestman seems like a details guy so this was surprising.

As I said I hope to watch more but not sure I’ll get time to post on it.

Hopefully be back posting about a win on Monday morning!

kennyb3

Melton confirmed out for the season with an ACL tear - wafer thin on the dline now.

Rough for him especially as a tagged player.

kennyb3

Also on last nights game, few points of note;

- The blocking for Forte's big run before the 2nd down was a thing of beauty. Mills and Long picked up the blitz perfectly and used it against the Steelers. fote is having a great season so far.

- Loving the fact that Trestman plays each team on it's merits, working on blitzes all week. Getting Cutler comfortable dumping off the ball early in the game. Watching tape and working on the opposition really pays off.

- Loved that a 1st year head coach, who just lost a challenge and watched his team unable to run it in on 2 attempts before goes for it on 4th.

- I think Peppers is being used inside too much, with Tucker trying to get McClellin on the field. I'm not sold on Tucker yet to be honest. The blitzes were picked up second half and still we were persisted leaving man coverage down field rather than playing nickel - it got too close at one stage. Yet the defence keeps getting turnovers so it's a hard one to guage.

mayordenis

just on that point about the challenge, I think the bears really scored 3 times on those 4 downs.

padraig_f

Tough one today, first time the Bears are underdogs this season. Had a look at Lions-Redskins last week on condensed view.

My impressions of them:
They seem to be spreading the ball round more this year. Similar to the Bears and Brandon Marshall, they're apparently trying to be a more balanced offense and not be over-dependent on Calvin Johnson. Reggie Bush was out last week, but looked very good when I saw him before. He'll be back today, and will be a challenge for the linebackers.

Defensively, their strength is in the pass-rush, with Suh & Fairley. I don't think the linebackers and secondary are great. The Redskins were able to move the ball whenever they used it quickly....running the ball, quick slants, short throws underneath. Whenever RG3 held onto the ball, he was in trouble.

The Bears like to get it out quick anyway, but the execution needs to be good, and I think Forte will be an important player. If you find yourself in 3rd-and-long situations, it's gonna be difficult.

Will be a 50-50 game. I don't have a great feeling about it, with the loss of Melton and Tillman being questionable (confirmed playing), just a few possible holes there. Will need to play better than last week to win.

kennyb3

Not much to say about last night - basically got beaten up. The late scores gave the scorline some credibility but it was junk time really if we're honest. Cutler - brilliant or awful who knows what you'll get one week to the next.

The defensive weaknesses were there to be seen the last 3 weeks - plenty of points given up to the Vikes and Steelers - hardly superbowl contenders and the Bengals hardly covered themselves in glory last night either. As i said in a few posts above i'm not sold on Tucker, tho losing Melton was a big blow. Our run D looks awful.

I so wanted Shea to push on this season but he looks like a first round bust. Got man handled again last night. Just watched the Pats Atlanta game and it really hurts watching chandler Jones getting pressure on nearly every play - looking like a beast.

I'm dreading what Brees will do to us next week. Hopefully Trestman will figure it out and Cutler gets back to something approaching a top 10 QB.

Badabing

After watching New Orleans on Setanta today i'm not very hopefull for the Bears but you never know, we have a very tough run of games coming up tho the Giants don't look great this year.

kennyb3

Badabing wrote: »

After watching New Orleans on Setanta today i'm not very hopefull for the Bears

Agree, very worried about us getting cut apart

Realt Dearg Sec

We'll, first up I suppose we have to look at what really went wrong last week, and it was more than just Cutler. The o line was cut up, as bad as last year. I dunno if they're likely to be as bad again, and hopefully they'll have learned a bit. Probably should keep in mind it was their first road game so it was a big challenge.

The d line is a serious worry too and would be very worried for them if they can't start getting the pressure on. Meltons absence is a headache that will require some rethinking of things.

Then there's Cutler, but everyone has bad days and junk time or not, he nearly had is back in it. Ordinarily, according to the bears website, Cutler follows virtually any game in which he throws three ints with a big win. But that kind of wild variation is kind of the problem and the jury is still out, it seems, on whether trestman can work his magic.

But there were some really good points too. Forte is still playing great, and the run game is still strong. I also thought Jeffrey was excellent. On defense Calvin Johnson was pretty well held (for the most part).

Can we win at the weekend? Yeah, I don't see why not. We'll, I see exactly why not, but I'm not reading too much into one performance and we definitely have the weapons to challenge the saints d.

Read somewhere we're the second highest scoring team in the league...which is...kind of surprising.

kennyb3

It was the second road game (Pittsburgh last week were they did good) and I thought the Oline did okay given the Dline they faced and the fact that once we got behind cutler had to look for more time for longer passes - which is tough on the line. At the end of the day there are 2 rookies on the line and it hasn't turned into a superstar line all of a sudden.

The D is the big problem - still generating turnovers yes, blitzing well yes, everything else is not much short of awful. No pass rush, horrible against the run, giving up yards and touchdowns for fun. Cohen played some snaps off the street FFS. We've 6 sacks in 4 games, most of them from blitzing linebackers. Only the Giants and Steelers have less - and look how they are doing. Most teams have 11-13 sacks. We've the 8th most points given up.

Peppers has looked average - very far from the superstar his salary suggests. McClellin - awful, just awful. Whitney Mercilus and Chandler Jones have more career sacks than this guy has tackles - 1 solo tackle in 4 games and half a sack - give me a break. We may as well be playing with 3 line men so. If you can't get to the quarterback your going to get cut apart regardless of your cornerbacks or safties.

If we don't sort the pass rush out we won't be going to the playoffs - end of. The question is given our cap space issue, do we trade and get a decent DT to generate pressure up the middle allowing Wotton and Pepper to get to the QB. (please god bench McClellin or keep him to passing downs as a stunter/stand up rover). Thoughts on trading?

Looking ahead to the weekend game and people are saying we should cut up the saints D - well their D has 12 sacks and the 4th fewest points given up. I think we'll get thonked - I hope i'm wrong.

padraig_f

kennyb3 wrote: »

It was the second road game (Pittsburgh last week were they did good) and I thought the Oline did okay given the Dline they faced and the fact that once we got behind cutler had to look for more time for longer passes - which is tough on the line. At the end of the day there are 2 rookies on the line and it hasn't turned into a superstar line all of a sudden.

The D is the big problem - still generating turnovers yes, blitzing well yes, everything else is not much short of awful. No pass rush, horrible against the run, giving up yards and touchdowns for fun. Cohen played some snaps off the street FFS. We've 6 sacks in 4 games, most of them from blitzing linebackers. Only the Giants and Steelers have less - and look how they are doing. Most teams have 11-13 sacks. We've the 8th most points given up.

Peppers has looked average - very far from the superstar his salary suggests. McClellin - awful, just awful. Whitney Mercilus and Chandler Jones have more career sacks than this guy has tackles - 1 solo tackle in 4 games and half a sack - give me a break. We may as well be playing with 3 line men so. If you can't get to the quarterback your going to get cut apart regardless of your cornerbacks or safties.

If we don't sort the pass rush out we won't be going to the playoffs - end of. The question is given our cap space issue, do we trade and get a decent DT to generate pressure up the middle allowing Wotton and Pepper to get to the QB. (please god bench McClellin or keep him to passing downs as a stunter/stand up rover). Thoughts on trading?

Looking ahead to the weekend game and people are saying we should cut up the saints D - well their D has 12 sacks and the 4th fewest points given up. I think we'll get thonked - I hope i'm wrong.

Good stuff, I agree the defense is the main problem. Looking at the defensive stats through 4 games...29th in yards-per-pass-attempt allowed, 30th in sacks...bottom of the league stuff. Takeaways are overrated, they're more a function of the offense screwing up than anything the defense can really control.

And yeah, laying the blame for the loss at Cutler was misplaced. One positive stat I noticed is the team is 3rd overall in sacks allowed. But it's not because it's the 3rd best o-line, they're obviously working on getting it out quicker, and that has its down-sides in terms of more interceptions. They're chasing the game from the start, so he's slinging it a bit, and he knows he can't hold onto the ball too long. Maybe there's a balance to be struck there, and taking the odd sack when the pass isn't there, wouldn't be the worst option.

The Saints offense will be a scary prospect, but I do think the defense can be got at. I keep some numbers on this stuff, here are the Saints defensive numbers:

Yards-per-play allowed: 5.75 (18th) (adjusted for strength of opponent: 22nd)
Yards-per-pass-attempt allowed: 5.92 (6th)
Yards-per-rushing-attempt allowed: 5.48 (32nd)

Below-average defense overall.
Very unusual split there between the pass-defense, which is 6th overall, and the rush-defense, which is league-worst. Almost giving up as much per-rush as per pass-attempt!

Not hard to work out what the general gameplan should be, at least on the offensive side.

Guffy

Isn't the whole bears d philosophy that they will give you the underneath yardage in order create the turnover. What I mean is they allow teams to throw on them between the red zones so that they can attack the ball which is why they have the High turnover rate.

I'm on the phone so can't check the stats but would be interested to see how those stats corralate to what percentage of drives the opposition score a td from.

kennyb3

padraig_f wrote: »

And yeah, laying the blame for the loss at Cutler was misplaced. One positive stat I noticed is the team is 3rd overall in sacks allowed. But it's not because it's the 3rd best o-line, they're obviously working on getting it out quicker, and that has its down-sides in terms of more interceptions. They're chasing the game from the start, so he's slinging it a bit, and he knows he can't hold onto the ball too long. Maybe there's a balance to be struck there, and taking the odd sack when the pass isn't there, wouldn't be the worst option.

Thanks for the Saints D stats, absolutely no doubt we should be running the ball all day long- If we don't use Bush ($14/4yrs and just 16 snaps this year) in this game we never will.

I wouldn't be giving Cutler a pass on that game - the 3 interceptions and fumble clearly don't help our defence but overall no doubt he has been much improved this year. Even showing the heart to nearly come back is a step forward. But yeah you're dead right he was slinging it and as we've both said the Oline can't stand up to a top quality pass rush if Cutler has to hold onto the ball.

As you say either take the sack (with 2 hands on the ball) or throw it away. I'd really like to see him throw the ball away more tbh. He's not Russell Wilson - so shouldn't be running around one hand on the ball.

kennyb3

gufc21 wrote: »

Isn't the whole bears d philosophy that they will give you the underneath yardage in order create the turnover. What I mean is they allow teams to throw on them between the red zones so that they can attack the ball which is why they have the High turnover rate.

I'm on the phone so can't check the stats but would be interested to see how those stats corralate to what percentage of drives the opposition score a td from.

Well as a start they need to defend the run - Bush ran 112yards on 11 carries - over 10yards per carry. Crazy.

And my understanding is the D (Tampa 2) is set up to not give away the big plays - yet they've given up 20 yards or more on 21 plays this year. Again crazy!

kennyb3

Just to add letting Idonije go is now looking pretty dumb given his 7.5 sacks and 40 tackles from DT last season.

Realt Dearg Sec

I read where the lions vice chairman Bill Ford called the bears a bunch of thugs. Jim Schwartz meanwhile is bitching about bostic. I would have thought any team that tolerates the antics of a tinker like ndamokong suh would keep their heads down on that sort of subject.

kennyb3

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

I read where the lions vice chairman Bill Ford called the bears a bunch of thugs. Jim Schwartz meanwhile is bitching about bostic. I would have thought any team that tolerates the antics of a tinker like ndamokong suh would keep their heads down on that sort of subject.

Yeah the irony is palpable

kennyb3

Thought i'd put this here;

According to PFF:

"Shea McClellin has just five combined sacks, hits, and hurries on 107 pass rushes which is the lowest Pass Rushing Productivity score (3.8) of any edge rusher. That is marginally better than the 3.8 of Nick Perry who has got to do more to help out Clay Matthews."

padraig_f

Disappointing to lose two in a row, but had a look at the game again today and think it was a decent performance overall. The defense was improved, the Saints are just a tough cover. They're very good the way they use the running-backs in combination with Jimmy Graham, it's run, screen-passes to the running backs, and then when you come up to do defend the run, they'll do play-action and throw to Jimmy Graham who's a matchup nightmare. It's just tough to cover them all, but I thought the coverage was generally good and the pass-rush was improved today.

The offense dug a hole early. They just seemed to have trouble picking up the blitzes early, the first fumble came from an unblocked blitzer. I think they did set out to run the ball, but didn't get any push up the middle. Looked like they recognised this and started pitching it to Forte more for runs on the outside, which worked better.

The offense improved as the game went on but just stalled at some key points. 3rd quarter drive to 1st-and-goal from the Saints 4-yard line. Penalty on Long, 1st-and-goal from the 9. 3 shotgun passes, 3 incompletions. Would've liked to see them run here on at least one of the downs, or take a leaf out of the Saints book and do some play-action.

4th quarter, 8 mins left, down 23-10. 3rd-and-2 on the Saints 25. Incomplete pass. 4th-and-2, go for it, and Bennett dropped a really easy catch.

Apart from the Bennett drop, didn't really like the play-calling there. If you know you're using all four downs, I just prefer to run it with Bush on 3rd-and-2. Give Bush two chances to make 2 yards, that has to be a really high percentage. But Bennett really should've made the catch.

Briggs made a bad blunder at the end to commit a neutral-zone infraction when the Saints tried to draw them offside. Just a bad mistake because no way were the Saints running a play there. Up 23-10, inside their own half on 4th down. The defense effectively has one job here: don't commit a pre-snap penalty, and that's what they did. Briggs was probably the best player on the defense up to then, so unfortunate to see him make that mistake.


In general though I'm not unhappy. The Saints are a good team, and there were some fairly small margins that decided the game. Actually I thought it was an improved performance in some ways over the previous two weeks.

Fortunate enough to win some of the earlier games (e.g. Bengals, Vikings), so I think 3-2 is a fair record right now for where the team is at.

Bad news the following day about Nate Collins, already thin at that position.

Might have a look at the Giants before the game on Thursday. I hear their o-line is where all the problems are, but I suspect they're not as bad as their record suggests.

Realt Dearg Sec

Great summary. Only saw the first half at the time, but was surprised how long it took to start throwing to forte given how well he's worked out before now.

Who'd have thought coming into the year that the d line would be a bigger problem than the rookie filled o line? Collins dropping out is very bad news given that Melton is already gone.
Still we have to be beating the giants on that front, and I fancy us to do it. Haven't watched them all year but looking at how their offense is struggling injuries are no excuse. But yeah, we're doing better than I was expecting at this stage and it would be nice to push on while the packers are still struggling with injuries.