- Reality Check your table is ready. After 3 bum opponents the Bears faced a real team sunday and it went as feared. The scoreline made it look closer than it was. The Colts had control of this game from the get go. - That felt very much like a 2019 game to me, right across the board, but particularly on Offense. - The Colts D was very good yesterday it should be noted. No way are they the best D in the league, but barring injuries they look a lock to finish the year top10 imo. Very solid at every level and very disciplined. They make you play well to beat them. They remind me a little of Lovie's D's. - That said, the Offense was a total train wreck. ARob has a good game, and Monty didnt actually do much wrong he just had nothing to work with. Everyone else was garbage. The OL got straight up owned. Massie was maaayybe ok? Whitehair & Ifedi took repeated bitchslaps to the face in the run game, and that blubber of lard at LT got bitchslapped in everything. Has Whitehair cut weight? He seems to get eye-catchingly overpowered a lot this season. - Foles was crap its true. He was v inaccurate. Not Trubisky sail it 10yards inaccurate, but frequently off target to the point where it was either a tough catch or incomplete off the fingers or gave the DB the chance to make the breakup. I didnt really expect him to light it up, but i thought the fails would be pushing the ball downfield where he shouldn't, not staple bread & butter misses and not on 3rd down which happened time after time. Sure you can talk about lack of chemistry, but that excuse only buys you so much time. Note: I had the INT on Foles in the game thread, blang said Miller. Watched again and i agree its Miller's mostly. Its not a great pass, Miller's at full stretch, but it goes thru his hands. Miller pretty bad again yesterday. - In times gone by this next point would've had its own thread and 50replies but hey ho; what does Foles being in now mean for the Offensive philosophy & Nagy's play calling? Yes its always tough for a playcaller when your players are losing battles, but that felt like Nagy's worst game of the year. It felt like 2019 Nagy. What was the plan? Where was one thing leading to another? These were just random plays pulled out of a hat. Can you please just give the fucking ball to Monty on 3rd & 1 instead of Patterson?? This is your Offense Nagy AND its your guy back there now. WTF is 3points before garbage time? Nagy was brought here to be the Offensive mind, his Offense's have consistently been the worst in the NFL since he's been here. Well now he has the QB for "his system". From where im sitting the excuses are all gone. - I don't give a F about positional dev time, the Bears took a TE in the 2nd round and he currently has 1 catch. He has 3 targets in 4 games!!! This was your top pick in the draft! - Darnell Mooney is already the #2WR on this team, which is both encouraging and very sad depending on how you look at it. But at least the coaches see what he has. His PT goes up each week and his targets right along with it. - Remember when Ted Ginn was fast? When was that, the 90's? - I think all our eye tests say the Bears D didnt have a great game yesterday. But the bottom line is this, they gave up under 300 total yards and under 20points. In todays NFL that should mean a win 8-9 times out of 10. Yes there are several things re the D we have concerns with, but again, the reason this team struggles so much to win games is the Offense and thats on the HC & GM. - Akiem Hicks was a beast man as usual. No sacks but 2 QB hits, 2 TFLs, and constantly penetrating in the run game and forcing the RB away from the POA. Impressive against that OL. Also largely why our ILBs had 4 TFLs themselves, although it could've been more. - Robert Quinn decided he was taking the day off i guess. - JJ is taking some lumps along the way but is doing well. Lost outside contain on a big run, and got burnt on a deep pass too i believe, but also had a lot of good plays. Forced contested catches, had another 2 PDs and at no point loos like he doesnt belong. Good stuff.
Started my own thread but will move my thoughts here Matt Nagy said after the game that holding your opponent to 19 points should win you a game. And he's right. In 2019 and 2020 teams that held their opponent to 19 or fewer points have won 82% of their games. The Bears, during that same time frame, have lost 4 times while holding their opponent to 19 or below. Prior to the garbage time touchdown the Bears offense had 3 points, were 3-13 on 3rd down, had 28 rushing yards, and a QB with a 4.68 yards per attempt. A week ago the Bears were undefeated and Chicago had two baseball teams going to the playoffs. 1 month into the season and the Bears have, statistically speaking, a top 5 defense and bottom 10 offense. Things don't change much around these parts. Fans tend to hold the defense far more accountable than the offense. I'm not saying this defense is great...it's not. But they do their job more often than not. Fans, and the team itself, really need to start holding the offense more accountable. It's 2020 in the NFL....you should expect your defense to give up 20 points a game. You should expect your offense to be capable of scoring much more. I saw Phillip Rivers twice yesterday read that Roquan Smith had the RB coming out of the backfield presnap. Once when he had the RB flanked out and once when he put him in motion. Both times Rivers either changed the play or motion the RB to the other side....Trevathan's side. Both times Rivers passed to the RB....with Trevathan in coverage....and both times it was a sizable gain. Obviously his piss poor play has shown up on film. And obviously QBs like Brady and Rodgers will feast on that in the weeks to come. How often do we actually see a Bears receiver get separation and make a wide open catch? I feel like it almost never happens. I was optimistic about the Bears schedule at one point. Now looking at it...where are wins coming from? Not even the Panther game makes me feel good. Jags maybe. If the offense continues the way it has....this is a 6 win team at best. For all the talk about Nagy and so on.....we are on year 6 of Ryan Pace. This is 100% his roster. His mess. The best thing that can happen to this franchise is for someone infected with Covid to sneeze and cough on Virginia McCaskey. Sorry. But she's lived a really long life. Things I'm sick of seeing.... 3rd down throws short of the chains to a covered receiver. Dropping INTs. Missing tackles behind the line of scrimmage. Gut runs on 3rd and 1 that go nowhere. A 1980s offense in the year 2020. 2nd and 14 plays where our defense gives up 13 yards. This team. Fucking sick of this team.
Just wow. Great spot. If thats true then they're in a world of trouble, cos there's really no other option to Trev. I know they've tried getting Bush on the field instead in non heavy packages but you're just inviting run then. Sure i saw that look at least once yesterday where you essentially have 1 LB on the field with Mack & Quinn up on the LOS and the Colts audibled to an inside run. Hahaha. Shitty thing to say? Yep. But true? Yep.
It's not a bad D but it's far from a good D. As BWW pointed out, so many plays where it's second and long or first and long after a penalty, and the D gives up a huge chunk of that yardage right back. For 2.5 games we saw Nagy exercising (by his standards) extreme caution with the playcalling. It was balanced. He was not afraid to call runs on second and long if needed, or at any point in the game, save for the 4th quarter of week 1 and 3. Yesterday that all went out the window. Barely any runs called in the first quarter, the ones that were called were mostly to Patterson. The rest of the game it was run on first down, and then pass pass until we punt. Now it's not like the run game had any momentum at that was being stopped by Nagy, and the Colts were certainly daring us to throw. But I think we saw a clear shift in philosophy. The reason Nagy ran as much as he did in week 1-3 was to minimize Mitch's fuckups. In his mind, I think that's the reason we run at all. Anthony Miller. Even the balls he does manage to catch, you see him juggle a little. This guy is more bust than boom. I'm ready to move on.
I'm about there as well. Give Ridley his playing time. Two things Miller does extremely well.... Drop passes. Run his mouth. He's always jawing. That goes for a lot of players on this team. I see them mouthing all the time to the other team. And celebrating stops on 1st down when the previous play they gave up a big 3rd down conversion. Yesterday I saw a ST player celebrate a tackle at midfield on punt coverage. Midfield. This team runs their mouths too much for being so god damn mediocre.
As a defense you no longer have the threat of a QB ripping off a 45 yard run with Foles. So could we see more man coverage and less zone? If so there will likely be no holes in the zone for receivers to settle because the defenders are already in their pockets contesting these throws. Goldman is missed no doubt you could see Hicks was gassed in the second half.
1) The better team won all three phases. Here's a hint, it wasn't the bears. I got no 'silver linings,' just a ton of questions. The bears had no rhythm. It kind of seemed like scatter shot/reactive offense where the colts defense (the guys without the ball) dictated everything for 3 and change quarters. I ask myself what the offense in all of its futility does well and the only answer I have is "get the ball to Allen Robinson." The colts came into this game with a clear plan of "turn the bears into the team that ran the ball 7 times in one game last year and that's how we win." The colts didn't respect the bears on offense, that much was clear. I don't know what Nagy's game plan was. 2) The entire OLine got manhandled. Justin Houston made Charles Leno his bitch. Buckner rag-dolled Whitehair and Daniels. The good news is that there's only 1 DeForest Buckner and he is in the AFC. 16 rushes for 28 yards. What bothers me is that Leno isn't going anywhere. Whether its Pace or someone else calling shots this offseason, the bears have tight cap and Leno makes less than 1/2 of the best LTs in football (Laremy Tunsil the highest paid LT at 23 mil a year, Leno is 10). 3) Obviously a humbling loss, and by NO means am I saying Foles is a franchise guy, or excusing him for some bum ass throws. But an unathletic guy in the pocket without Jason Peters on his blindside is a recipe for what the colts did yesterday. Have 8-9 guys constantly around the box, whether it be to blitz or stuff the run. It is one week, I do want to see more, because after watching/listening to some football talking heads; this is the best Colts single game defensive performance since 2008. They had some playmakers on that team then. In Foles defense, Colts secondary were constantly jumping routes and swarming to the ball/tackling well, even after their star ILB went down. Its not going to get any easier. You get a Todd Bowles defense (dude loves to blitz and leave his secondary guys on islands) on a short turnaround. I'm probably going to be asking a stupid question here, but for Nagy/Lazor; why the fuck not tailor an offense to get rid of the ball quickly? In year 1 of Khalil Mack as a bear, Erin and other QBs got rid of the ball within 2 seconds, with some success. Maybe give that a shot? 4) The run game. What the fuck happened? It can't be Tarik Cohen going down. It cant be Mitch being a "dual threat" while Foles is the pocket statue. I get a couple DLinemen constantly in the backfield doesn't help, but when the colts were stacking the box, at least one linebacker and a box safety were meeting Monty in the backfield. Yeah, something's wrong if Monty is using all of his moves while still 3 yards deep in his own backfield. 5) Ted Ginn made it pretty obvious that he did NOT want anything to do with returning punts yesterday. He looked entirely disinterested even when he was in on offense. I've bitched in game threads and thoughts threads about Riley Ridley, and again I have to ask...why cant he beat out Ginn/why's he inactive again? How does a 34/35 year old Ted Ginn Jr. get playing time but a mid round draft pick known for his 4.4 speed (ran a 4.6 at the combine which probably hurt his stock), clean route running, dependable hands with knocks being his size (6'1 and 190 lbs) and that he doesn't have breakneck 4.3 or better speed? Did Pace pick wrong with Ridley? Can the kid just not handle the NFL? Is the kid a dumbass? I'm aware sometimes guys need to develop, but this kid needs to shit or get off the pot. A good team would release Tedd Ginn this morning after yesterday afternoon... 6) May as well get it off my list now. Fuck Buster Skrine. Fuck Pack for deciding this sack of shit is worth 4 mil a year. The dude is just...painful to watch do anything. On a 3rd down with help from EJax over the top in the 4th, he 'looked' like he was in position and the CBS announcers said it was good coverage, but as soon as he and the WR went up? WR had leverage, position, and Skrine was just along for a highlight reel ride at that point... 7) Is it too much to ask this early for Darnell Mooney to be the #2 WR? Anthony Miller is on my shit list too. The INT was on him, and like Ginn, I noted a few plays where he looked like he wanted nothing to do with being on the field. Mooney had the 2nd most targets yesterday (and catches/yards) after Allen Robinson. 8) Why is Demetrius Harris getting more targets than your 2nd rounder Kmet? 9) Kyle Fuller had an ugly game. JJ had hits and misses. EJax was playing box safety more than 'center field' which isn't what I thought you paid the guy for. Bush got hurt. Gipson is an extra linebacker with a DB body. 10) ILBs showed *some* life. Key word - some. Danny T and Noquan got pantsed plenty yesterday. Tackling was bad at times. If Danny T's best used at this point in his career--blitzing or delayed blitzing--just do it then, Pagano. 11) Dline. Hicks v Nelson did not disappoint. RRH got robbed of a nice coverage sack. Again no pressure on the opposing QB but got plenty of opportunities to/1 on 1's. Meanwhile, the Colts got constant pressure with a 4 man rush. 12) The bears are paying $41.5 million of the 203 and change million salary cap to two guys. Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn. 3 tackles. 0 sacks. 1 TFL between the two yesterday. I assume refs hate Khalil Mack because Anthony Costanzo got away with murder several times yesterday. I said in the point above both guys got plenty of opportunities. Wait. I found 1 silver lining! Barkevious Mingo is much better at 1 mil per year than Aaron Lynch in his 3 years here. That's sad. 13) ST sucked too. Joel Iyebunigwe is trash. Looked right at the guy in front of him and in J'Marcus Webb fashion--turnstiled the guy untouched right through for a blocked punt. Patterson--I get it. He's one of the best returners in the game. But he took two boneheaded kicks from the back of the endzone out and the bears had the ball within their own 15. 14) I wasn't even going to chime in on this, and at the end of last week when it happened through Saturday--it wasn't reported much because of expectations for the 3-0 bears at home against Indy; but Ryan Pace was in North Dakota. Watching assumed 1st round QB prospect Trey Lance. No, North Dakota State doesn't have a season, just one game and Lance didn't look good at all (google 'Trey Lance bears' and the top article after Saturday's game is 'Bears attend Trey Lance's showcase game but it was a dud.' This. Calling plays/execution of 3rd down plays short of the sticks is replacing "dont run backwards" on my pet-peeve list. Tom Brady/Erin on 3rd down and long throw/design plays for 1st downs. Not a 'John Schoop' special and hope for YAC. The defense is good. Not great. Not legendary. Not elite. Just good enough to keep you in a game. In today's unpredictable age, that's a nice thing to have. The offensive futility though....oof.
Another way of looking at it is that Leno is the 4th highest paid player on the team right now. THE FOURTH!! That is obscene. There exists no case whatsoever, cap based or otherwise, for keeping Leno on this team next year. Production wise he a legit bottom5 LT in the league and one of the worst players on the team. And as you say his failings are gonna be exposed even more now he has a pretty immobile QB to protect. The fact the Bears have tight cap space is another clear reason why you get rid of him. Cutting Leno pre June 1st gives you about $6.2mil in extra space. Shitcan Leno and go draft a LT in the 1st round. Personally id eat double that cap hit just to get rid of him if it was me. The Bears cannot go into next season with Leno as the LT, they just can't. I don't feel well. This might be the only thing that would trump a "Leno" next year. If they let Ryan Pace pick the next QB for this team they are insane. Flat out insane. There is literally ZERO reason to do this! Pace hasn't just been bad when it comes to the QB position, he's been a total abomination. The Trubisky pick is gonna age worse every year. I believe passing on who he did will go down as the worst draft move in history. AND he got raped in a trade to do it. Hell he didnt even do basic due diligence!! But in addition to that. He continued to trot out fucking Cutler for 2 years. He gave Mike fucking Glennon $18mil. He got out-haggled into trading a 4th rounder for Nick Foles. Pace has shown beyond any shadow of a doubt that he doesn't have the slightest ability to evaluate the QB position. Oh and he's also never hit on a single 1st round pick his entire time here. I like to think ive hung in there thru a lot over the years, but Pace getting to pick the next QB might send me over the edge.
Totally agree. Up until recently I was in the Pace is doing just well enough to jusitfy keeping his job another season camp. I've removed myself from that camp. His failures are directly leading to losses on Sundays. And his hits are not making a big enough impact to stop that.
I truly wish I had your optimism. The cap savings are nice if you cut him post-June 1, sure. But he's still the starter. Not Bars. Not Spriggs. Not Massie in a swap of positions. Not whoever the fuck Arlington Hambright is. Leno is. How do we explain that? I need no convincing of what he is and what he isn't because he's been the starter since 2016, starting every game/not missing one mind you. When he's benched, I'll feel much better. That, and kicking the can with Kyle Fuller's 20 mil 'poison pill' year seems more of a Ryan Pace thing to do. Maybe Mack again too. Again, wish I had the same optimism. The McKaskeys definitely are operating under "we are a 3-1 team right now" seeing it as a positive through 4 games, 12 games to go obviously withstanding. I think its going to need a Trestman-level locker room dysfunction to get Pace/Nagy out. And what we are able to see, the players respect him/are playing for him. Scraping by with 6-7 wins and they'll give him his 4th year, especially if he wins 1 against GB. The Lions still employ Matt Patricia. The Vikes games are coin flips. Houston is a really stupid football team, and the bears are just dumb enough to squeak one or two out against better teams. The Saints and Rams are the two weeks I feel 100% confident are L's. The proverbial shitty position of rooting for this franchise... If I'm wrong, and they do shitcan Nagy/Pace, you know they're bringing in another "John Fox" type regressive mind and revert back to Ron Turner offense. Pace, with all of his flaws has taken chances and the results speak for themselves. More bad than good. The next guy wont take chances, and that's good from the standpoint of not just giving away draft picks. Its terrible because being vanilla has the same guarantee of success as Pace's attempts while he wheels and deals. The same thing some of us have lamented with this team having a bad offense since for-fucking-ever. They're going to revert back into a 1980s offense in what would then be 2021 as opposed to a modern offense.
First thing that stuck out to me were the penalties. WTF was that? Where is the discipline? I guess this eludes to the yapping the Bears have been doing a lot of. Too much swagger not enough discipline. Patterson had his worst game as a Bear. 2 things I don’t want to see him doing. Running it on 3rd and short and trying to catch it anywhere more than 5 yards in front of the line of scrimmage. Dude. I just don’t get the amount of hate for Skrine. He is the 3rd corner. He is gonna give up some plays but I just don’t see the liability that you see out there. Look at it this way. The $13 million a year corner gave up the only TD of the game to a big yet slow TE on a crossing pattern. And was flagged twice for PI. There was a lot of talk about how the play calling would change with Foles at QB. Foles has always been a heavy shot gun QB. Surprisingly to me anyway I didn’t see Nagy change too much. The run game wasn’t working but I still don’t feel he abandoned it like he has in the past. Maybe the future will tell us more but I’m hopeful the running game will continue to be a part of Nagy’s offense. Don’t expect too much better on Thursday night. Tampa is giving up less than 3 yards a carry on the season.
Have you been watching the same guy? He's been the target of every QB since he got here because he is not good in coverage and teams know it. He replaced the guy who made the nickel position one of strength for this defense, not 'the 3rd corner on the roster.' The position got worse after Bryce Callahan left, because Callahan could actually defend the pass and his replacement cant. I understand Callahan leaving, money was tight, he had injury questions, and there were other pressing needs. But this guy has been a bust and the guy teams pick on, including yesterday when he (with Eddie Jackson over the top) blew a big 3rd down with the Colts on their own 26 in the late 3rd and Marcus Johnson. 1st and 10 from the bears 45. Want numbers? He's been targeted 21 times and allowed 16 catches and allows over 10 yards a reception, yet per PFF, he plays 51% of plays. For perspective, Callahan gave up 8-8.5 yards a reception during his time here. His one pass deflection came against the Detroit Lions in week 1. In today's modern game, the Nickel/5th DB (teams use hybrid safeties these days as well) is no longer the #3 guy on the depth chart. Fuller, who plays 100% of snaps has been targeted 30 times so far this year. Want to deflect to Jaylon Johnson next because he had a bit of ups and downs yesterday? 27 targets playing 81% of snaps. Again, Skrine plays 51% of plays and has been targeted 21 times. (stats through 4 weeks via nflplayerprofile). Surely, Matt Ryan, Matt Stafford, Phillip Rivers, and Daniel Jones all saw something scouting this team... Deflect to a single bad game Fuller had, (and yeah--he had a bad game) to justify Skrine being bad? I get this may be a foreign concept, but Fuller can have a single bad game and Buster Skrine can be awful and a liability--at the same time. Also, I wonder how Skrine does covering TY Hilton as opposed to Marcus Johnson.
To start let’s look at last season. A bigger sample size. As per Pro Football Reference Skrine gave up 48 completions on 81 attempts. 59.3% 9.7 yds/comp 5.7 yards/target 4td’s. 68% of snaps. Just for comparison. Not to say Fuller is a bad player. I love Fuller. Big fan. He gave up 70.8% of targeted passes last season at 12.6 per comp and 8.9 per target with 5tds. PFR doesn’t update stats till Wednesday but through the first 3 weeks Skrine was giving up 68.8% of targeted throws for 8.5 yards a reception. I never argued that Skrine was better then Fuller so there was no deflection on my part. Just can’t see how you would come t a conclusion that Fuller played better than Skrine yesterday. Yea Buster gave up plays but Fuller is paid 4x what we pay Skrine. He should be way better than what we saw yesterday. Sorry man but there is really no data that is going to point at Skrine being as bad a player as you are making him out to be.
Anyone know anyone with Covid? I will pay them to show up to McCaskey’s house. Trump.........I'm sure he will work for Free.
Week 1 we had 28 rushes, week 2: 32 rushes, week 3: 25 rushes, week 4 only 16 rushes and only 10 of those to Monty. I agree it wasn't as bad as the Packers and Saints games last year when we had less than 10 rushes each I believe, but only 16 rushes in a game that was never out of hand... to me that's not sticking it to it. The other thing, Pace has really disregarded in the RB position in general. We could have Devonta Freeman or Fournette. Instead we have Patterson who's now our RB2 due to Cohen's injury. Yeah I know the o-line sucks but there's no excuse to be that thin at the position when so many decent options were out there.
I don’t know where you get your numbers but I have checked multiple sources and Skrine has played 67.5% of snaps which is his usual. He has given up 13 catches for 10.2 a catch which is a bit high but still best out off the Bears DB’s. You hold Callahan as the gold standard. In 18 Bryce gave up 38 of 53 targets. 71.7% 9.2 per comp. he gave up 1 TD and had 2 picks. He missed 3 games Last year with Bryce off to Colorado Skrine gave up 48 of 81 targets. 59.3% 9.7 per comp 4td’s 0 picks. Is a healthy Callahan a better dB. Yes he is. Doesn’t mean Skrine is a scrub. He is a less expensive option because you can only spend so much on one side of the ball.
I totally agree with you on Nagy’s handling of the RB position. He likes Patterson way too much. Montgomery is a workhorse who should be getting the bulk of the carries. If your only gonna run it 16 times Patterson shouldn’t have even touched the ball. That being said I am hoping Nagy doesn’t revert back to last seasons neglect of the running game. Was last week great? No 16 rushes is low but the run game wasn’t going anywhere. Not all the blame is on Nagy not calling runs if Foles and the rest of the offense would have been a bit more threatening in the passing game maybe the run game opens up more. We will see going forward. I totally understand the worry with Nagy’s play calling. Just didn’t see a drastic enough difference in Foles first start to convince me Nagy is up to his old ways.
Where did I say that? I said Nickel was a position of strength with Callahan and now the opposite with Skrine. Buddha Baker and McKenzie Alexander presently are the gold standard. Desmond King too (but he's on the outside for the Chargers now that Chris Harris got hurt). I'd put Honey Badger in there but KC plays him at safety these days. https://beargoggleson.com/2020/07/29/buster-skrine-advanced-stats-review/ yards per route run (YPR), yards per target allowed (YPT), yards per snap (Y/S), snaps per reception (S/R), snaps per target (S/T). You'd make a great politician, Rob. My point you selected was explicitly about Skrine. You're the one who responded with: "The $13 million a year corner gave up the only TD of the game to a big yet slow TE on a crossing pattern. And was flagged twice for PI." Is Skrine the $13 mil corner? No...he's not. So Kyle Fuller has what to do with my original point about Skrine, exactly? (Hint: I touch on Kyle Fuller in my point #9 where we both agree about how ugly of a game he had). Also, I never put those words in your mouth. I implied Skrine would not have had a better day covering TY Hilton/WR1 (the job of the $13 mil a year corner you strawmanned to when I brought up Skrine). Agree to disagree that 'doesn't mean Skrine is a scrub.' In recent memory, the only guy I'd prefer him to is Cre'Van LeBlanc. I think there are better options and that $6.1 mil could be better spent (OTC says his base salary is 4 mil and bonuses come to 2.1 mil.) Especially with this offseason approaching and Allen Robinson to keep around.
