How Bout Dem Bears?

Sitting in work less than two miles from Soldier Field right now. There's a real carnival atmosphere around Chicago today with the day long NFL event in Grant Park.

Hard to predict how it'll go, but I've talked to two different Packers fans today who are normally quite cocky, and they told me they have a bad feeling about this one.

Anyway, looking forward to the pub after work, and Hon' the Bears

Jesus, that was depressing

This was far worse, because the offense have so drastically regressed. Last year was all psychological nonsense ("the bears are back in their place"), this looks more like a fundamental problem with the playcallng and qb play. Just terrible. Not writing them off on one performance, week one is like that, but it would take a stretch of imagination to think it was just bad luck, the patterns were clear there.

@ DEN
@ WSH
vs MIN
@ OAK (London)
Bye Week

The next slate of games before the bye on Week 6 isn't too difficult. That Denver defense under Fangio could be as good as the Packers D last night though.

Oat23 wrote: »

So Mitch is still getting confused in the offense despite everyone from Pace down to teammates saying he was far more comfortable and had it down.

The Pack were playing with 6 DBs most of the game. I'm not sure why Mitch felt passing was the better option almost every time.

Concerning...

https://twitter.com/AdamHoge/status/1170037210139283457

Fairly well dropping Mitch into it there? Even if it was Mitch making those calls you would think he would correct it in private.

Cody Parkey kicks that 5 yards wide and 5 short. Eddy nailed it, the legend.

The final throw from Mitch up the middle to make that kick possible gives me a little hope, as before that it appeared Nagy had zero faith in him with the plays he was calling. Almost everything was safe & easy as if he was calling plays for a rookie. Hopefully they build on that next week.

Realt Dearg Sec wrote: »

You know it's a nervous have any time my wife starts really paying attention, and at the end today she was near a heart attack. That was unbelievable. I'm going to be honest, i didn't really believe with 31 on the clock and a timeout that trubisky would get us in range. But he has, in the past, Shone in pressure situations like that. Once we got the second on the clock with the timeout though, I had full faith in pineiro. What a way to win though, in terms of expunging the memory of the playoff game and Parkey.

I would not say Trubisky shone. Robinson got wide open (dude is a beast) and a decent chunk of the yards came from a questionable penalty.

Trubisky really has not taken a step forward this year. Certainly the play calling has not helped but he still has some terrible throws in his locker.

Next 3 games before the Bye are very winnable.

Drew Brees out for at least 6 weeks and big Ben out for the season for the Steelers.

thomond2006 wrote: »

Pressure on to win tonight. The NFC North rivals went 3-0 yesterday.

Yeah we need to win just to stay in a respectable version of last place in the division.

That being said, if we can't beat the Redskins, we deserve to be in last, and it would be best to face that early in the season. I do think we'll win tonight, but it's a funny game. I don't think we'll be complacent, we're not good enough to take any team for granted, but in a sense it's a no-win situation. Even if we win it doesn't really lift the question marks hanging around this offense, because the Washington D hasn't been at all good. If we still look rusty, if Trubisky is still struggling to read the play at the snap, if the playcalling is still out of whack, we're in trouble. Week 1 you could excuse because it's week 1, the second week the altitude and playing a Fangio defense can be used as excuses. There's no excuses tonight, only realities.

On the other hand, it could be a night to gain serious confidence and get a bit of rhythm going in the offense. If Trubisky gets a little confidence in himself I think we can go far, so this week could be a turning point for the year.

I was a lot more confident about tonight before I heard Eddy Dinero is questionable. That is to say, our main source of scores so far. Probably injured himself carrying around those brass balls of his. Anyway they said he'll play tonight so, fingers crossed.

I'm pretty sure our defense will continue to be dominant, although have you seen Terry McLaurin play? If we don't have a plan for him we could get gashed a few times. He can't make Case Keenum into a good QB, but he could still cause damage. Kyle Fuller needs to have a massive game.

I think we'll still sputter a bit on offense, but hopefully see a better team with a better gameplan, some of the cockiness of the playcalling from last year, especially in the early drives. If we look like crap again you can pretty much write off the year.

I'll go with Bears 20 Skins 14

thomond2006 wrote: »

Much better. The underthrown interception from Trubisky was awful but otherwise he had a decent outing. The defense was fantastic again.

Thanks to Case Keenum for icing the game with that brain freeze play to fumble the ball.

The use of Tarik Cohen continues to bemuse.

Certainly better but I wasn't totally persuaded.

The obvious problem was that the Skins were shockingly bad. That they had something to cheer about going into the last Q should be reason to not get complacent.

Also while we got a decent score a lot of that came directly from the D or from INTs, which are lovely but not indicative of an improving offense obviously. Trubisky definitely played better but that interception he threw...Jeez talk about deflating, it was like all the optimism the drive generated got thrown straight out.

That being said he was definitely better. The running game was also improved but as you say, Cohen is not performing like last year, he looks more like the gadget player I thought he was in 2017, a gadget opponents have figured out. Montgomery is progressing well though, which he gets outside to run, but up the gut he's still not great.

Biggest problem on the O for me is actually not Trubisky right now, it's the O line. Very worrying how badly overmatched Kyle Long has been lately. Not sure if it's the quality of his opponents or if he's just not up to it after all the injuries. Hope it's not that as he remains my favourite player.

I want to say the playcalling was more balanced etc, but to be honest we won't know anything until we've played a good team, which we will this weekend. I expect the D to kick their asses all day long, but what's important is whether the O can replicate what they managed last week, this time against someone competent. A lot of people picking us in the weekly thread, which always makes me nervous in any hard-to-call games.

But then again I picked us as well. I think the D is going to continue to be unstoppable, and I expect them to get more INTs to compete with Haha. I loved hearing Hicks jokingly complaining he was about to get a sack when Mack came out of nowhere and took it. They are back to having fun kicking people's asses like last season. I enjoy every second the D is on the field. But only when they're not in prevent mode, I think we did that too quickly on Monday, and it got edgy. Lots of pressure, blitzes, and general mayhem, and hopefully another few baby steps forward from Mitch, and we will hopefully be 3-1 and out of the cellar.

This situation with Roquan is so strange. Initially it sounded like a family thing like a death, but if it was I don't think they would be so tight-lipped about it and he wouldn't have been on the sideline Sunday either. He would have went home, surely.

Schefter said on the radio that he heard he was deactivated because he had been acting 'strange/erratic' all week. Now his teammates are saying they don't even know what is happening.

Hopefully he's okay mentally/physically and it isn't him considering retirement or something.

https://twitter.com/chisportupdates/status/1178850480354660352

SameOleJay wrote: »

Roquan a full go for practice and says he’ll play Sunday.

Hope everyone who wanted to can make it, I’m hyped.

That's great news! Was really getting kind of disgusted with the Chicago media and their prurience over the Roquan situation. My feeling was that if they say it's personal, just leave it at that. The rumours were unhelpful (the car crash one especially) and the wording of Schefter's bit really opened the floor to idle speculation.

I'm also assuming Daniel will play Sunday. I would expect a team with a week to prep for him to be able to limit him more, but I do really like that he can go through his progressions without staring down a receiver, and he made some very nice throws. Hopefully he can do enough. I have no doubt in my mind that the D will stop (I almost wrote stomp, which, I'm guessing Mack would use that word) the Raiders O, but their D does not look as good as the Vikings by a long chalk. They're a limited team and we should be looking to show more progress, and especially I'd like to see us establish the run more, as I'm so far unconvinced by Cohen, Montgomery or Davis, and feel like letting Howard go was a terrible decision.

But there again, after last week's performance by the back ups it's hard to criticise the GM's personnel decisions.

Hope everyone who's going to it has a great time, and that we're heading into the bye 4-1 at the top of the division (I'll be in Dallas cheering, well, not cheering for the Cowboys exactly, but certainly for a Packers loss)

thomond2006 wrote: »

Kyle Long has been put on IR. That could be it for him as Bear. He's owed big money and can be cut.

Yeah not a surprise, he was either playing through yet another injury, or his body has completely given up on him. He has been a truly great Bear, soldiering on some truly shocking teams in the Trestman years when he was often the only bright light, it's a shame his decline has come after only one year with a decent team. He was drafted pretty old (like 25 or 26 I think) so was always going to have a short career, but I think the time they moved him to tackle was the moment he started to decline. At his best, though, he represented a spirit of gritty determination and a team ethic that's vanishingly rare in the league, and that put him in the company of some of the best to play with the team. And he was a mean motherfcuker too, nobody messed with his QB without dealing with the consequences.

Would love to see him play well again, but he was struggling so badly this year it would be best for him to move on. He has a great personality; can see him doing some broadcasting work.