How Bout Dem Bears?

padraig_f

On Tucker, I guess they gave him the benefit of the doubt at the end of last season because it was his first season and with all the defensive injuries, but that looks to be a wrong call now. He's probably gone at the end of this season barring a dramatic turnaround, because if he isn't, Emery and Trestman will be putting thier own jobs in jeopardy.

@dabearsblog: "Marc Trestman must prove he's a head coach, not just great OC. Rex Ryan has to prove same on other side of ball. Join forces, boys."

Would be nice, but not gonna be an option til next season.

crunchie44

Quick question here. Speaking to friend at our usual nfl sunday drinks session. Anyone tell me the story with marquess wilson? I remember him getting injured, collarbone i think,but cant find anywhere how long he is out? Was excited at the thought of him lining up with Bennett marshall and jeffrey

Realt Dearg Sec

crunchie44 wrote: »

Quick question here. Speaking to friend at our usual nfl sunday drinks session. Anyone tell me the story with marquess wilson? I remember him getting injured, collarbone i think,but cant find anywhere how long he is out? Was excited at the thought of him lining up with Bennett marshall and jeffrey

He's on short term IR, can't return until Nov 9 at the earliest.

Oat23

Useless call on the return to start. A perfectly legal block to set the corner for Santonio.

Joe D puts the special in special teams.

crunchie44

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

He's on short term IR, can't return until Nov 9 at the earliest.

Thanks. Shocking start here. Penalty on return. 3 negative run calls and now this. Terrible

kennyb3

I give up with this team, it's a non stop comedy of f'ucking errors - you never know what is going to happen next. Joke

Oat23

kennyb3 wrote: »

I give up with this team, it's a non stop comedy of f'ucking errors - you never know what is going to happen next. Joke

Add in the way officials are calling games now and I almost don't want to watch.

Truly horrific viewing. I don't enjoy watching football now.

crunchie44

Oat23 wrote: »

Add in the way officials are calling games now and I almost don't want to watch.

Truly horrific viewing. I don't enjoy watching football now.

Our pass coverage is beyond awful. Every pass we make we have to gun it in as opposition stick tight yet when we defend WR are wide open unless fuller is on them-The rookie is showing them all up.

Unusual to see Forte fumble. Negative play calling cost us. Only once all game did Jay get opportunity to go long and it worked to Jeffrey. Spent rest of game with 5yard passes. Panthers were happy to let that happen. We need to stretch teams

padraig_f

Not even that disappointed, must be starting to check out on the season. Depressing thing is, this isn't a good Panthers team, their offense was very limited with Newton clearly hampered.

I think people who said it may be a bad idea to give Cutler $18m/year have some justification at this point. This was my fear with him in a Trestman offense....if Cutler's main strength is in his strong arm, are you getting $18m of value when you run a short-passing West Coast offense? Couldn't you get a lot of QBs to do that? Definitely haven't got value on that money so far.

The defense played well enough to win today (against admittedly limited offense). This is the kind of game you pay a QB $18m to win, and he threw two picks.

kennyb3

Yeah not to float my own boat but that and I'm pretty sure I predicted the offensive drop off with injuries etc.

Our so called high power offense hasn't topped 30 points in 5 games to date.

The panthers were fairly woeful until we gave them hope. We had loads of turnover and played with short fields and still only put 24 points on them.

It's the chicago circus clowns at present - from ST f'uck ups from minute one to missed field goals in front of the posts to interceptions and fumbles. Dropping dolly catches like Bennett's before that field goal. We should ahve had a TD there and game over. Game is never over with us though.

We just come across as an ill disciplined team that plays for short periods then literally falls asleep.

We've had opportunities to wipe out the Jets & Panthers but have literally stopped playing.

3 points in 2 halfs of football over last 2 weeks says it all really.

I've come to expect a comedy road show - was even explaining that to my father last night watching the game (a non NFL fan)

Passing over McCoy & Arians isn't looking Phil's best decision.

padraig_f

Didn't see this before, quite a nice drive summary from the Tribune:



Look at that offensive effort in the 2nd half. Got two short-field touchdowns in the first half, nothing in the 2nd. So really the only full drive for a TD was that one at the end of the 1st quarter.

SameOleJay

Like others I’ve detached myself from this team. Your heart would be broken if you were fully invested every week. There is nothing we do well consistently and the turning points of the game illustrate this well.

-The ST blunder. Words fail me. Joe, please do us all a favour and go.
- Bennett’s failed block on a surefire TD on Forte’s long run. Embarrassing effort.
- The Gould miss. Unforgivable
- The second intercept. Awful, awful, awful throw.
- Forte. Even he’s been infected.

The offense isn’t firing as well because they aren’t going against scrub defences week after leek like last year. Once Kuechly got going we had no clue what to do. I don’t even know what to say about our pass rush and pass coverage. It’s hard to watch at this stage.

aaronm13

Well what can you say about that game. It was a disaster. Cutler gets progressively worse as the game goes on then it just falls apart in the final quarter. Game should have been out of sight at half time. His contract is looking worse by the week.

Anyway next Sunday I'll be watching the game in a bar somewhere in Chicago so hopefully they'll play better but not holding out much hope. Then the following Sunday I'll be at my first game in Soldier Field so can't wait for that. Looking a the weather forecast and at the minute it looks like it's going to be cold for the game. I'll have to tailgate pretty hard to stay warm.

padraig_f

Here's my new theory on NFL player evaluation: people don't change.

Jay Cutler is still Jay Cutler.

Andy Dalton is still Andy Dalton.

Geno Smith is still Geno Smith.


Just think it's kind of a trap that people fall into, be they coaches, GMs or fans, they project too much. 'We can fix this part', when you can't.

Recent one that bemused me...people criticising the Bills for giving up on EJ Manuel after just over a season (the Bills won yesterday with Orton).




I think the mistake is usually the other way, teams hang on too long -- Jacksonville persisting with Blaine Gabbert, Minnesota persisting with Christian Ponder.

Hard to believe now, but the Browns were mocked when they traded Trent Richardson after two seasons, 'lol Browns'. They realised he wasn't going to improve, got a first-round pick for him, which turned out to be a great move.

Same with coaches...only thing that saved Tucker last year was that it was his first season with the team. It was a totally unacceptable performance, they projected he'd be better with less injuries. They didn't want to be rash firing him after one season, but I think after one season you should know.

Happens the other way too...only bright spot yesterday, Kyle Fuller. When someone's good, you see it straight away, it jumps off the page at you. You don't need to project.

What do you take from this? Evaluation period should be one season tops, if someone isn't delivering at the end of that, you move on. Maybe there are exceptions, but that's the percentage move.

I'm not slating the decision to resign Cutler, I get it, just think there was an arguable alternative. But when they signed him to the big contract, I don't think they envisaged him throwing the picks he did yesterday, and that was probably flawed thinking.

SameOleJay

If the alternative to signing Jay was using our first on a QB then I’m happy with how we went. I’m in love with Fuller already.

kennyb3

They should have franchised Jay - it was clear as day at the time to me.

He played 11 games last year - some half injured, some coming back - so it was only fair to try give him a full season under Trestman. Also to prove his durability.

He showed signs of brilliance (as he always does to suck you back in )and improvement but then the usual. E.g. against the Lions.

So before you give him 5/6 years of $16m+ a year you say - show us you've got it over a full season, in big games and can get us to a play off. You have all the weapons in place offensively and you invest heavily in the D so that a playoff should be realistic.

He literally has no excuses (okay the odd Oline injury and a banged up receiver or two - but that is normal for any team in any given season - show me a team with no injuries) this year, so why they gave him the big contract first I'll never know.

His stats are better (interceptions aside) than before but it's the fact that he's throwing games away (literally) at key times and producing so many bad interceptions (tied jointly with host of others) that's of concern. It's not like the interceptions are cause we are playing a vertical offence - no way he should be throwing that many in a West coast offence - hitting 300lb linemen flat in the stomach for example.

He was outplayed by McCown last year yet they threw $16m per year at him.

I know everybody is terrified of not having at least an average QB but I long for the day where we have to draft one and we can move on from being a 7-9,8-8,9-7 team losing to the Packers.

Worst comes to worst and we suck with a drafted QB - well then we'll get another go at it the following year. There are always trade options too.

We are going nowhere at present.

kennyb3

http://www.chicitysports.com/2014/10/06/hate-2014-bears/

Love it, pretty much encapsulates my emotions and feelings yesterday and I'm sure most of yours too.

setanta74

Anyone in here done the Soldier Field tour?...am in Chicago soon but not on Gameday unfortunately as I would have went and cheered on the bears. Time is limited but I fancied seeing a proper NFL ground with a bit of history..Is it worth a few hours? Im a Chargers fan so its not my mecca but thought it would be a cool thing to see.

padraig_f

Don't think it was intentional, but even Tim Jennings is calling out Tucker now:

Week 5 Rewind: Odd Coverages Lead To Bad Results For Bears

kennyb3

padraig_f wrote: »

Don't think it was intentional, but even Tim Jennings is calling out Tucker now:

Week 5 Rewind: Odd Coverages Lead To Bad Results For Bears

Exact same as against packers, with two receivers wide (Cobb & Nelson) and one cornerback and a LBer in coverage (Bostic trying to cover Nelson) . Meanwhile Fuller is wide left doing sweet f'uck all.

And as always our safties miles miles too deep.

padraig_f

All-22 slideshow, not for the faint-hearted:

http://chicagofootball.com/photos/2014/10/07/49842619/index.xml?view=1


Not a good look for Cutler on the Marshall int. Two better options, Jeffrey (blue) and Holmes (white):

kennyb3

Wow basically looking at double/almost triple coverage based on safties directions - shocking.

SameOleJay

God that read makes me sad.

SameOleJay

Credit where it's due, this is decent stuff.

Oat23

Willie Young was a terrific signing. Leads the league with 7 sacks now after 2 today.

Shoutout to the 3 linebackers today as well. I thought this was a definite loss, but their play along with the excellent Kyle Fuller played a huge part. Sharpton, Christian Jones (looks like he could be the early round pick he was supposed to be before the failed drug test if today is anything to go by) and Greene. Take a bow.

aaronm13

So much better then last week's shambles. Great to watch a game here in Chicago. Great atmosphere here where I watched it. Just hope they can continue it next week.

kennyb3

We seem to be a schizophrenic team - cable of beating anyone but capable of losing to anyone.

I won't get too excited by that till we back it up against the Dolphins.

I still don't really see us going anywhere this year but there is plenty of bright spots for the future.

crunchie44

Big win on the road especially after Packers & Lions both won earlier. My prediction is a loss to Dolphins and win away to patriots as that seems to be our usual way of doing things.

My favourite thing from last night was our response in 2nd half after Falcons scored 10 points to level up. Considering how we tend tend to collapse lately, I was delighted to see instant response from the offence to get us in front again. Good to see Jeffrey go long and Jay find him. Should stretch defence's in next few games to free up space and expose opponent linebackers.

Defence stepped up considering the raft of injuries. Willie Young is a beast. Kyle Fuller once again showed his class.

Looking forward to losing to Dolphins next week lol

Realt Dearg Sec

kennyb3 wrote: »

We seem to be a schizophrenic team - cable of beating anyone but capable of losing to anyone.

I won't get too excited by that till we back it up against the Dolphins.

I still don't really see us going anywhere this year but there is plenty of bright spots for the future.

In fairness yesterday was a fantastic performance, the O line held up well (for the most part) and gave Cutler a lot of protection. Forte was excellent after a bit of a wobble last week, Jeffrey was excellent. Our Defense, though, was just fantastic, given what we have come to expect from them. The pressure they brought, the sacks they got, it really was heartening. And the physicality they brought against the receivers was really excellent.

But, as you say, nobody really doubts that we are capable of playing like that. Until we get a run of games with good Cutler on the field, we can't claim to have gotten away from the problems that were in evidence against the Panthers. Still, a win is a win, if we hadn't gotten it we were in serious trouble with the Lions and Packers getting wins again this week. I was still very nervous of our play all through yesterday because we are capable of blowing up, and have done on several occasions. And in fact we didn't score like we should be doing with the players we have, against what was a pretty poor Falcons D. So, I guess we'll see. I predicted us to win this week and I think we'll win next week as well. But I just don't see a win against the Patriots unless the improvement continues at a rapid pace.

kennyb3

It's a joy to have Young playing end (in rotation with Houston & Allen) after a few years of cringing watching McClellin's attempt's at it.

I really hope Tucker has the balls to leave DJ Williams out if he's fit again next week - he's been plain awful most weeks. Sharpton (& the rest of the LBers last night) was a revelation.