Embarrassing football being played tonight. Just seriously awful. Yet no one will get fired tomorrow.
Like clockwork. Bears' ownership working REALLY hard to shrink its fanbase. People can only be mad before so long. At this point, it's apathy. If Pace doesn't get fired, and they scapegoat just Nagy, I won't watch another game until he's gone. I wasn't going to watch a game this year, but then they drafted Fields. Realized very quickly how stupid I was. Haven't watched the Bears play in... 2 months, at this point? Since the Raiders game. I've been very happy.
Brilliantly stated. I was tempted repeatedly to create a thread, but by mid 3rd quarter I was only half paying attention. Yes, there were some bad calls, but the team from top to bottom is undisciplined, chirpy assholes. The only thing the game did for me was make me seriously worried about Fields development and whether we've ruined another prospect out of the gate. Fuck this team.
Justin Fields play in this game is a projection of Matt Nagy. It’s like the blind leading the blind and Fields is just going through the motions as the idiot Nagy bumbles his way through the game. On a positive note Graham Jr is a legit CB. Made at least a couple pass defenses and in the first quarter made a form tackle on a RB swing pass, Dalvin Cook I believe for a 2 yard gain to force a 3rd down. Funny how a 6th round draft pick is sitting on the practice squad all year as our secondary struggles.
Stupid team playing stupid football. I'm just used to it with this sad fucking franchise so I just watch for comedic entertainment, which there was no lack of yesterday. I'm fully aware some vancouver cuck is going to set me right with how to root for this team... Thomas Graham was pretty nice though. So it only makes sense he sat on the PS with the biggest glaring need on D being CB2 and Nickel for how many weeks? The MNF crew ripping Pace/Nagy was nice. Seriously though...I'm still confused how a 180 lb DB was "illegally low blocking" an offensive lineman when he was going to tackle the ball carrier by his legs in the backfield, where he beat said pulling OLineman to the point (as said OL pushing him down)--on a sweep. Bad teams don't get calls but...make it make sense. Teven Jenkins, like his passion, but smarten up, kid.
Positives When he’s in rhythm and just playing football Fields can sling it. His accuracy is really good. I like Tevin Jenkins. He has had some penalties but he’s also played pretty well after missing so much time. He’s big, strong, and mean. And he stands up for his QB. Thomas Graham was a nice surprise last night. Roquan is a beast. Akiem Hicks had fun in what was basically his farewell game. Robert Quinn has had a heck of a year. The bad We kept Jimmy Graham and said goodbye to Cordarelle Patterson. Fields doesn’t protect the football. No one can catch a fucking ball. Kmet is useless when he’s not blocking. God damn Nagy sucks. Bad penalties on top of bad penalties. Every game. Mustipher sucks. Holy shit the refs were bad. Low blocking on a DB making a tackle. What the fucking fuck? Fire someone. Soon.
The more I watch Fields the more concerned I am. Of the many flaws with his game, 2 are bothering me most. 1) Fumbles. He's terrible at protecting the football, worse than Rex. Whether he's getting sacked or on the run. And I don't think this problem is going away. According to google his hand size is 9 1/8 inches, which puts him in the 16% percentile of all QBs. Rex had small hands. So did Dave Kreig back in the 90s and both couldn't hold onto the ball. 2) Pocket awareness. Instincts are awful. Rather than stepping up he again does what Rex used to do and run back. Occasionally he's athletic enough to get a throw off but more often than not he's taking a huge sack. Not good.
I’ll play devils advocate in one respect which makes me think of young Andrew Luck. His eyes are always downfield, even when he’s got pressure or a defender in his face because his line sucks, and I’ll take that problem every time because as BWW alluded to, when he can get in rhythm he can sling. Rex never did that and Shoop/Tice/Whatever OC he had was better than visor. As for fumbles, 100% agree. Protect the ball, because teams aren’t gonna stop swiping at it. otherwise, just keep getting reps. I’m not gonna bash fields for making mistakes year 1. Now if it’s late next year and he’s missing wide open busted coverages, I’ll be much more critical
The issue isn't that he has eyes downfield, which I can live with, it's that he thinks he can buy himself more time + space by running backwards, rather than stepping up in the pocket. Fortunately this is something that can be learned and improved on as Fields matures, but I've seen so much bad QB play in my life that I fear it won't.
The fumbles are an issue. It’s coachable and trainable…but it’s an issue. The awareness….a few things stick out to me. He’s trying to hit a homer every play. That’s equal parts good and bad. He has to learn to take what the defense gives and also know when a play is dead. But also…the receivers he has are the worst in the league at separation. Give him weapons that make space and he won’t have a need to run backwards.
I like o-linemen that play like they've been Chicago Bears their whole life. Bear linemen are supposed to be nasty. That's the tradition. This kid gets it... Guys like Hilgenberg, Kreutz, Tait, Long, Van Horne, Covert, Bortz, and ole hit me in the head with a dumbbell Fred Miller would be proud to see play like this.
- That might be the most fired up during a game that i've ever seen Nagy. And honestly it was nice to see. What might've been eh slaphead? As it is, too little far too late. - Fields: Let me get the obvious out the way, the fumble happened early on and it hurt. Somehow someway the Bears are gonna need Fields to not fumble as much, its becoming a big problem. Of the 3 sacks he took 2 of them were horrible(the screen & when he ran back 15yards). Just no business taking either one. These are classic rookie learning moments. They can truly suck at the time, but as Morcheeba once sang, its all part of the process. The numbers say Fields had a good game, and im not saying he was bad, but im also not completely convinced. The accuracy was very good, ive got a nice stat to share later. But im not seeing a whole lot of progressions either. The Vikings didnt bring big pressure, there were opportunities for Fields to survey the field at times. But there looked to me to be a whole lot of 1 read-go. I'd like to see signs of improvement now we're at the backend of the season. TBH he might've been better at this earlier in the year.... - Tevin Jenkins: This is a player i could become a huge fan of. He needs to cut out the penalties which i think he will. One concern, multiple draft profiles flagged his arm length as a problem and it was on display last night. Twice on run downs i saw the DE able to lock his arms out and easily stack Jenkins before shedding to get in on the play. Arm length was the determining factor and Jenkins had no counter. Any OL players in here, bww? Not sure what specific move there is for this besides the obvs of doing a better job in the initial hand fight. Either way Jenkins is gonna need to find one. On the big penalty the ONLY problem i have on that was he raised his hand and hit the guy in the head. That will get you penalised every time and sometimes you'll get tossed. But a OL getting up in people's faces to protect his QB his EXACTLY what i want to see. Germian Ifedi can go fuck himself. In fairness to Ifedi actually, when Javon Wims acted like a punk last season it was Ifedi who told him to GTF off the field. And i applauded him for that cos it was the right move in that case. This one wasn't. For a start it wasn't nearly as egregious and needless as Wims. 2nd this is about an attitude change. One that Jenkins is gonna bring that this OL needs to learn. No prisoners will be taken between the whistles. No ones gonna F with our QB. That needs to be the future, i just pray that somewhere in his tiny brain Nagy gets this and doesn't pull Jenkins up for it. Be smarter with the head shots, yes, but dont de-tooth the tiger. - Last night is what you get when you have committed guys playing in your secondary and i applaud them. They flew into tackles, they helped in run support whenever they could, thats how its meant to be. It was a stark difference between them and Eddie "all mouth no trousers" Jackson. - Ogeltree has had several solid games this season, last night was his best yet. Dude was all over the place. Id like to see the Bears try to keep him with a 2-3year deal at a reasonable number. Considering his career was hanging by a thread it should be doable. - Here's a question: Quinn is a machine this year and everyone knows it. In the 7games he's just had without Mack on the other end he has 10.5sacks. I thought the go to Khalil Mack excuse for lack of production was he's always getting doubled cos there's no one on the other end. So how do we square this with what Quinn is now doing? Hmmm..... - 2nd Q, 6mins left, Monty has a good run behind a hole Daniels created. At that point the announcer(i think it was Riddick) starts talking about the Bears interior OL and how good it is. He specifically mentions Mustipher and how solid he's played before stating the problem for the Bears OL this season has been the Tackles not the IOL. WRONG! Its impressive in a way for that take to be so off base. Jason Peters has been the best OL on the team this season. And while Borom had a bad game against the Packers(who didnt) he's looked solid to me to start his career. Thats very promising. Meanwhile G to G has been a fucking disaster! Whitehair has been crap for 2 years, Mustipher must be a bottom 5 C and Daniels, while he has his good moments, seems to have just as many bad. I mention all this because Louis Riddick has been linked to the Bears GM job by more than one source over the last 18months. Based on those comments i want no part of him. Even if he was just talking to talk as announcers do, those are public comments. They couldnt be anymore removed from accuracy and as far as im concerned F him. No to Louis Riddick. - Demaryius Byrd had a brutal game. Muffed punt. Dropped a 4th down pass he totally should've had. And i think he had at least 1 other drop last night. Goodbye. - Jimmy Graham is such a fucking bum. He is literally getting paid a shit load of money for 1-2 plays a game. And when the ball comes to him in the endzone he fucking drops it! Be so glad to see the back of that guy.
Well he's got the right guy on the sideline talking to him. Jason Peters has short arms and he's going to Canton someday. Joe Thomas and Joe Staley are some other pretty darn good players that had short arms for tackles. You gotta learn how to position yourself and use your body to compensate. More than anything you just gotta fight harder and I don't think that will be an issue with Jenkins. When he's just running downhill he's really good. Really good question, honestly. I will say Quinn gets a lot of coverage sacks. So maybe his motor is just better than Mack's. I honestly don't have a good answer for this. That was an awful take...even worse than when Griese tried to call Dalvin Cook one of the best RBs of all time. It felt like Riddick was doing an open interview for the Bears GM job. He's gonna be a popular candidate. And I don't mean this in a dick way....his skin color is gonna benefit him because there are some teams, the Bears included, looking to be more diverse in their hiring. Which is a good thing. But you should hire the best candidate available. Riddick ain't that.
I've come to peace with the Bears sucking. These losses don't bother me like they used to. I've chosen to accept reality, and it isn't so bad. Fields certainly has holes in his game, yes they can be corrected, but will they? My guess is not likely, and that's only one very significant piece of this puzzle. I've been down the road too many times over too many years with this team to expect anything different. I don't need a further review.