People have already tagged some good stuff at the end of the game thread but there's a few random things i havent seen mentioned yet so im putting them here. As always sorry for the essay blah blah blah. - I think very few Bears fans out there actually expected Nagy to pull Trubisky when he did, i certainly didn't. I've ripped Nagy some huge ones over the years when he deserved it so its only right he gets plaudits when he earns the hell out of em. Nagy's move yesterday is worthy of a thread in its own right. Lets not brush over this, that was not an easy call. It looked it to us, but it wasn't. It was ballsy and it was done at the perfect time. If he waits any longer there prob isn't time to come back. It would've been so easy to just let that game play out then make Foles the starter afterwards and give him a week of prep. If Foles had come out and stunk Nagy would've got roasted too for making the decision he did. Foles is what everyone's talking about and yes he played great. But if it wasnt for Nagy's decision they would've lost that game. Thats prob the most HC ive seen him look. - So, Foles.... I'm happy he got the gig, i wanted it to happen. But going back to his Eagles days there's always been something "hot-hand-at-the-craps-table" about him imo. Hot hands at the craps table always go cold eventually, because they're playing against the odds. And i know i know, he won a SB, so he saw it thru..... But i watch him throw and sometimes i think he's either charmed or he's very lucky. He floats these balls downfield and on tv they look like they're begging to be picked to me....and they don't get picked. The weird double fumble play to Graham for example. Isaiah Oliver is a bad football player, ask any Falcons fan. Foles was an Isaiah Oliver away from being picked on that play, ive no idea how that ball wasn't picked. Am i being too harsh? Maybe. Do i want to see Foles out there? Absolutely. I guess we'll see how it plays out. - I know Cohen annoys us all plenty at times, but i feel so bad for the kid. Getting your season smoked on a fair catch of all things, thats horrible. Im a huge Monty fan, and it stands to reason that Cohen going down should lead to more carries for Monty, which is what needs to happen. But i still feel bad for the kid. - Dline already touched on this, but do we need to start worrying about EJax? I wrote a lot off to Clinton-Dix's presence last season. Maybe too much. The way he got smoked on Atl's first play of the game was ugly. - Want to end with a personal play of the game award. This again, is from the pass to Jimmy G-double fumble that i mentioned earlier. Its about 9.19 on the video vvvvvv Look who's next to Miller on the ground as they're fighting for that ball after the second fumble. Its James Daniels! I had to rewind/rewatch to appreciate what happened here. When the ball leaves Foles' hand, Daniels is 5yards behind the LOS in pass protection. Besides the 2 fumblers he's the only other Bears player near the ball. The guy somehow hauls his ass 40yards downfield, in the 4thQ of a game, to get there in time to try and fight off a guy trying to rip the ball out from Miller on the ground. That is ridiculous! Now, i think Miller prob would've been given possession anyway, but Daniels doesn't know that. In fact the guy had no reason at all to be down there, no one else was! That is effort/desire that you can't teach. That will show up nowhere on the stat sheet but i hope like hell Nagy flags that for the team meeting during the week. A+ effort by James Daniels!
I was about to start one myself, BWW used to start the day after thought thread, slacking this year with Mongo out. I wasn't on the game thread, and Mitch was playing poorly (the lack of deep ball threat most notably) and then he was picked off.....it's just one pick. How many times, as a Bears fan, have you sat through garbage games so much worse than Mitch had, or multiple int games, and no change was made. I had no idea his leash was this short, but as Ev says here, KUDOS to Nagy for having the balls to do it. I was shocked. I agree, and he had an overthrow or two himself. But there were three things that stood out to me: 1. He was playing with *confidence*. It was so clear he was in charge and knew what he was doing it was refreshing. 2. The post game presser where he talks about the winning TD throw. That's the kind of thing, a "2 way play" as he called it, that Mitch flat out can't do. 3. Overall his mechanics just seem better. AND WE DIDN'T EVEN GET THE CALL. They didn't show a replay but if the defender was pushed into Cohen, how was it not a block in the back then? Some more random thoughts: I don't like bitching about the refs, but the Cohen injury play being called back, and the "offsetting penalties" both on the Bears, and the absolute joke of "roughing" the QB when he was tackled. That last one might be by the letter of the rule, but fucking hell people. That said, I will be a bit contrarian to most here I think and say *both* overturned TDs were the right call. In real time, I thought it was obvious that A-rob just didn't hang on, AGAIN to the ball. And on replay, technically he might be tied at the time his shoulder hits, but then what about that "process of the catch" nonsense? No way he can complete the catch with the other guy ending up taking it away. Nor do I think A-rob has clear possession of the ball yet, it's a tie at best. The other one it seems pretty clear that the ball hit the ground and even turns on Miller. I don't blame Foles for either of those, any more than I would have Mitch. Our WRs need to do better, and they did to redeem themselves later, but this has happened in this game and past games too much. What the fuck is up with the run game defense? It seemed like every run up the left gap went for 16 yards. I'd love someone to break down one of these plays, maybe the tape never lies guy will do it. We are so fortunate Dan Quinn and Dirk Koetter are absolute morons. Why in god's name would you abandon the run up 2 scores? Even after the TD the missed 2pt meant it was still 2 scores. And they panicked so badly it was fucking shocking. That's Lions levels of incompetence. I get it, you've got Matt Ryan, but you're down two WRs and the clock needs to wind. I honestly don't know what to think now about this Offense. I hadn't expected to start thinking about this team with Foles under center yet. I am blown away by this turn of events. I still worry about the Defense when we meet a good team. Better test this week in the Colts, and then the Bucs (how good are they really) - we're going to know a lot more about this team in the next two weeks.
Oh, and one more thing, how do you all feel about this team after this win? Even though it was a comeback win like the Lions, I feel SO MUCH better about this team after this one. There are warts to this team no doubt, but it just felt....GOOD. As good as it was, like it's not even the ceiling for the offense if things start to click since we somewhat abandoned the run late.
Ev watch this play from the Saints Packers game a block by Saints center McCoy that springs Kamara for a TD at exactly the same time on the replay in that game as the Daniels play in the Bears game replay. Twilight Zone shit right there. 9:19
It was his worst throw of the day. The decision was fine though. It should have been higher to a point where only Graham could have gone up and got it. But after the dropped TDs, I'll take it. Same.
Still not completely confident in this team for all the reasons we've discussed. But yesterday was the best I've felt all season.
Saw this too and thought it was awesome. Thought EJax was amazing in Week 2. He was everywhere. Didn't have a good game at all in Atlanta. Part of this was Matt Ryan. He played games with the safeties all day. When they would be cheating up he was killing plays into passes and attacking and when he saw them back pedaling he was killing into runs. He was one step ahead of the Bears defense for most of the day.
On the simplest of levels, you got an 'Andy Reid' QB to finally run the 'Andy Reid' offense. And it worked. The next step is being able to drop 30 on a team, which I feel more confident in Foles to do. Don't get me wrong, I like the offense, but Nagy should have been knee-capped for flanking out Ryan Nall. A couple of mentions of Foles 'floating' the ball, which I saw too. The two big plays I want to note most were the Allen Robinson 37 yard TD catch and the Miller TD catch for the W. Was I the only one that saw a motivated Allen Robinson on the 37 yarder? Two defenders in the area, and Foles floated it and the dude came back, fought and caught it before making a move then splitting the stupid falcon defenders. Plenty in the 1st half and last week (that some of y'all noted) that he looked like his effort wasn't there. Sad, but Foles is the best QB in this dude's career. Also--fucking pay him. The Miller TD catch, I think the float was over analyzed. Foles said after the game in the huddle, he told Miller to cross "on the 'L' in the endzone." Two guys knew where that ball was supposed to go and the rest was execution. Now Miller was the talent you had to forfeit picks to move up to get, and he made the play. All's well. Cordarrelle Patterson is a very nice 'change-of-pace' guy with size and speed, and with Cohen out I understand his role as a RB may get bigger. But...he's wired like a WR. Against the Giants and Falcons he had runs trying to bounce outside unsuccessfully when if he punches ahead he gets 3+ yards then goes down. Who's your 3rd down back now? Spencer Ware is still available... I want to note that Akeim Hicks had a stellar day. He hit Matt Ryan 6 times (talked in the pre-game thread that Ryan takes hits but delivers). Not too soon either. THe Colts this Sunday have a decent rookie RB and the best OLinemen in football (Quentin Nelson), and as we've all seen/mentioned, the bears run D has some problems. The ILBs and secondary did not do so hot as already pointed out. Some of this is attributed to Pagano playing soft because he just fucking called the game that way. The other part--as BWW mentions, was that Ryan was attacking the secondary (with success) while the ILBs were let off the hook. The good news for the secondary, is old man/turnover prone Phillip Rivers comes to town next week, in case they were looking for a bounce back. Can we get a new kicker yet? Jerome Boeger and his crew were fucking awful. I'm curious to see the injury report tomorrow. Brad Biggs tweeted that the Bears brought in a slew of defensive linemen and ILBs for workouts yesterday and today. THey signed an undrafted kid from Tampa Bay named Terry Beckner Jr. 6'4, 300 lb 5 tech I'm going to assume. Easy? No. Smart? Very. I saw a lot of parallels with Atlanta's D as the game last year the first with Minny, where Chase Daniel came in and the Vikes didn't know what to do on defense. Before their disrupting DT Jarrett went down, the first half Atlanta's defense looked like it was a real NFL defense here and there. Don't get me wrong, Mitch wasn't bested by a brilliant defensive minded gameplan--he just plain cant play at this level. Beat me to saying this...
