Rants and Raves 2024 Edition

I think if it weren't for the past few decades of this team being a complete shit show most of the time I would more patient and forgiving. But it has been a shit show. Regardless of the GM or coach. So I have no patience and I will not forgive.

Flus actually complimented Velus Jones in the postgame yesterday. Said he was proud of him. So that's cute.

Not much to say about Caleb except for the fact he didn't turn the ball over. Came close a couple times. I don't think he's ever going to be the high double digit interception guy. He only threw 14 in college on over 1000 attempts and almost never threw one on critical 3rd downs. So that part of his game I feel good about.

What is concerning is we are now into this is how you ruin a QB territory. Again. Pressure up the middle in his face before a play can develop forcing him to go off script too much. That's just a recipe for bad.

How many times can you call toss plays in one game? Because Waldron is gonna try to break that record.

I wouldn't have put money on Keenan Allen being the guy that buttfucks Williams first passing touchdown attempt.

Bears defense got gashed in the run game in the first half but then settled in. That's still concerning for me. Outside of Billings the line was not holding their gaps well against the run.

Edwards is a monster. And so is Edmunds. I loved the communication I saw from Edmunds preplay and at least four times the play from the offense seemed to go right where he was pointing. That reminded me of some Urlacher watching it.

Can't give enough praise to the secondary. They played really well.

Outside of the asshole that still can't catch a fucking football in the air uncontested ST were fantastic. We have a punter folks. And a return man, apparently. Hope that continues. Coverage teams were solid.

Next week will be harder. On the road on Sunday night against a far better QB. Mixon just had a game. And the Texans have a pretty good defensive line. The Colts did sack Stroud 4 times yesterday so hopefully the Bears defense comes to play because they will be needed. Texans do a lot well on offense. My early feeling is Williams will play a bit better and get his first touchdown but the Bears are gonna come up short in a tough road game and lose by a couple scores.

 

I will say, I could have in no way predicted what happened yesterday, but by the same token, we knew the Offensive Line, particularly the interior was suspect. I honestly thought "mid" was a reasonable description rather than "absolute dogshit", but here we are.

I hate our fanbase. The discussion yesterday today was either "Williams is a bust" or "he has excuse X, Y, Z". He's far from a fucking bust after ONE game, and so much of the offense was terrible, but he did also play poorly. There's no reason to sugar coat that. He can and will get better. But he also might get ruined because our GM prioritized everything but the trenches. The huge loss for a sack doesn't concern me at all, that's a coachable thing. The inaccuracy? I'm hoping that was jitters, because he was all over the place.

VJJ should only ever be a RB. And even then I'm nervous he's going to fumble, though mostly his fuckups are all catching the ball, and if he's catching a pass as a RB I hope to god it's not lateral. I am really, REALLY curious what the compensation would have been for him that Poles didn't want to give up. A bag of potato chips is my bar. He has a definite blind spot with this guy.

I was furious with the defensive line in the first half yesterday (again, interior mostly, but that Seattle cast off was exactly what those fans said, a liability in the run), but the second half they really turned it around. Yes, Levis is an idiot, but it can't be understated that the Bears defense came to play that second half. I know you said you were more worried about the Dline than Oline BWW, but I think the edge of "who's more a liability" goes to the Oline to me after that disaster.

Tory Taylor was worth it. Yes, it's a high draft pick, but he will be with the team far longer than most of our 4th rounders. I didn't expect we'd be watching an Iowa game yesterday, but there was one punt where he kicked from something like the 20, and then the coverage team got them down at the opposite 20 and then they took a penalty, so it was virtually 20 yard line to 20 yard line. Literally flipping the field. Wasn't hoping to need it, but that helped the defense out a TON while the Playschool Offense was fucking around.

There has been little to no discussion on how bad the RUN game was. At one point we were averaging 1.4 yards/carry or something ridiculous like that. There were some big runs late that made this look better, but we were not running the ball well at all.

It honestly felt like the most Bears game from a Lovie Smith era. But even his offenses weren't THIS anemic (maybe 2005?). I'll never be sad about a win, and we knew the new offense was going to take some time, but good grief.

The Texans and Colts went to the wire, and are our next two opponents. This kind of performance won't get it done. I agree with BWW, we'll see improvement from the offense (we kind of fucking HAVE to because it can't get much worse), but lose by a few scores. I didn't realize it was a night game, so we are ALREADY putting Caleb under the bright lights. I'm hoping it won't be too big for him, but then I didn't expect the nerves and shit we saw yesterday.

Last to say, I hear you on the patience BWW. I'm pissed, but not impatient. This offense WILL get better. Better to win a game playing like that and take your lumps, especially early, than lose. But I'm also not like my idiot friend who was shouting for Bagent mid fucking game. At the end of the day, the struggles yesterday fall on Poles more than anything. That line play was disgraceful.

 

I thought that 20 years ago. And 15 years ago. And so on. I'm in full on show me mode now.

Unfriend that motherfucker.

 

Odunze getting MRI on his knee

so that’s cool

 

Ehh, not ready to say this. The one punt we failed to down inside the 5, if he is the greatest punter ever he would be coffin cornering those so they bounce out of bounds before the pylon. Still hate the pick even if he turns out to be all pro.

Don't remember him getting hurt on a specific play.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/CHIBears/s/W45BQcuxlH

This is hilarious. The one where he gets trucked had me ROLLING.

 

I can respect that, he does tend to drop them in the center instead of going for the angles. And I agree its a high pick, but he’s also not a dud, there was plenty to like in that game.

 

here’s the play: x.com

 

Same here. He has to do waaaaay more before i come round to liking that pick. Maybe im being a dick(very unlikely), but i expect a pro bowl during a rookie contract for that kind of investment in a punter. Really id like multiple pro bowls. Its just not something thats worth the pick unless they're insanely good and even then, how many pro bowl P's over the last 20years have been undrafted? Is it most?

Well of course fucking Velus was involved.

FUCK!!!

 

I think I might hate Velus more than Webb.

 

I’m like BWW in that I'm getting beyond impatient with this team modernizing. I'm going to sound like a broken record, and I don’t care. Drafting WR3 number 9 overall may have sounded smart in April (didn’t sound smart to me at all), but it looks fucking stupid after what we saw yesterday, and I’m not even touching on the MRI news. Won’t have more info until probably Wednesday. Flus said he hurt it on a run blocking play, and is expecting a ‘good prognosis.’ I’m no medical doctor, but ‘good prognosis’ and ‘needs an MRI’ seem antithetical, or an oxymoron, no? Not trying to jump to the worst possible scenario, but Kevin White popped into my head while reading that. I hope it’s nothing and Flus' positivity is right.

As mentioned, what the fuck with the toss plays? Why are zone runs so easy for everybody else except this fucking franchise? Braxton Jones' strongsuit is run blocking at the 2nd level, and you have Teven next to him, who sucked on his own yesterday, but theoretically, you should be carving teams with your run game there.

I’ll give Waldron credit on one thing, he dialed up more quick slants than the bears have called in the past 3 years, even if Caleb couldn't throw to them or threw a ball that got deflected.

Coleman Shelton can get the fuck off my television. I’d have 3 Centers in camp working out today because yesterday was a travesty. What the fuck does Ryan Poles see to make him comfortable with Shelton and Bates? Furthermore, if Shelton ‘earned’ the starting spot, what does that say about Ryan Bates? Also, as much as I want to be angry at Braxton, he and Wright played mostly fine compared to the IOL, which needs to be incinerated and started from scratch. Plenty of mistakes, including I counted 4 just bad snaps and the penalty on Braxton (out of 53 offensive plays) and the fact that I didn't pay much attention to him because I was busy motherfucking the IOL means I can't watch him closely enough to gauge if maybe I'm the one whose wrong, and not Poles for offering no alternative or even a camp battle at LT.

Speaking of Poles, Blang or Bww or someone in the game thread called out, appropriately I might add—that Ryan Poles should no longer be shielded from criticism. It’s your job to fix the offense and you’ve wiped your ass for the past 3 years on the OL. And even worse, he’s ’the former OL,’ so he understands the importance of it and...well...he just fucking doesn't. He's doing what his failure predecessors before him as bears GMs have done, which is chase the one-in-a-billion elite QB because that's what the data tells him to do now instead of using the traits and putting them in the best position to succeed.

Gervon Dexter popped more, and he even had a sack, which took a while but he worked and worked and worked and got one, so that's pretty nice that he can get to the QB when he holds the ball in the pocket 6+ seconds. Billings still outplayed him. I'm really hoping sooner rather than later we'll be able to say that Dexter outplayed the journeyman for a change.

Will Levis really is terrible. So is Velus Jones ever returning anything, but watch. It would be 'bears' level of stupid to have the other return guy catch it and then he'll hand it off.

That Aussie punter is really nice. Felt like I was watching an Iowa game without the wave to the hospital across the street because the offense was just terrible.

Caleb wasn't good, and he looked like a rookie--and while I'm optimistic its one bad game, his first ever game. I liked the quick pass sequence, and think you should come out doing that against Houston, because it worked for the Colts. That, and Anthony Richardson, when he got the running lanes, didn't hesitate and made chunk plays himself. The colts moved the ball, and Houston gave up a few home runs, and the bears theoretically should be able to do the former. Stopping Houston's offense is an entirely different beast. With an OL as shitty as it is, time to start moving Caleb/the pocket to buy time, even if it halves your field. Time to show that the OC you hired can tailor the scheme to the player, I want a bounceback.

Kinda feels nice not being lectured on how to be a fan of my team after the game.

 

Odunze is week to week with an mcl sprain.

 

Jesus Christ dude! Why would you speak this into existence? Even better than a handoff, a fucking toss! Waldron loves that shit.

Same injury as Jordan Love then. Interesting. Odunze didn't look terrible out there, he did have a good heads up play on that big deflection.

 

I'm a little more sober about everything this morning. Don't see how we compete with the Texans. Caleb in his first road game with that o-line "protecting" him in a dome environment in prime time. The D isn't facing Will Levis either. Feels like a 34-10 type of loss coming.

 

Hard to feel good about scoring points when the offense did that on Sunday. Center play was horrible but the HC doesn't even talk about it in his presser but says there's a rotation at RG. So that makes sense.

 

Well I know the Colts defense hasn't been good so far but I don't see how things change next week (still a road game). As long as this o-line can't run block or pass block we're not going to win a single road game. D holds a good offense to 19 points on the road and yet there wasn't a moment I felt like we were going to win that game in the second half. DJ Moore is frustrated. Can't blame him.

Nate Davis needs to be cut. Does he even care? His effort might be even worse than Coleman Shelton, who is trying but is not an NFL player.

But what the fuck with Darnell Wright and Teven? They both look like shit too. Is Teven hurt? Braxton might be the best piece of this line now and even that thought is horrifying because he is bad too.

 

Why is Everett the first option at TE? Why does Homer outsnap Herbert? How can Shelton possibly be the best option at center? And why was Nate Davis allowed to do nothing all offseason and then do even less during the season?

Those are my most glaring issues.

I'm tired of the praise thrown on Poles for one trade when he's ignored the biggest issue on this team repeatedly.

I didn't like the piss poor communication between Williams and his receivers last night. Even worse I didn't like DJ Moore's body language on the sideline. If we had strong coaching I would overlook it. We don't so that deeply concerns me moving forward.

Williams deep ball is all over the place right now. It's no where near accurate. I know that will change. It just sucks right now.

The Bears defense just show down a good offense and expected SB contender on the road on Sunday Night. I thought outside of Stephenson the defense was stellar. Imagine if Gordon holds on to that pick. To me it looked like he spotted something on the play and he moved presnap into a position to be there to make a play. Good stuff.

No Velus Jones means no ST issues whatsoever.

I don't know how you fix an offensive line during the season. Playcalling is part of it certainly but you have too many offensive weapons to go max protect all the time. You can't have free rushers when they are 4 or 5 coming and 5 blocking. You just can't. Alter the scheme....change something. Lineup every available guard and center on the FA market right now and get them in Halas Hall for a tryout.

There's absolutely no way that Shelton and Davis are your best options currently at C and RG. Their collective play has been historically bad.

But it's okay. After the game Eberflus said they will look at the tape and get things corrected. So I feel great about that.

 

Typically when a QB takes that many hits and sacks he's holding the ball way too long. CW's average time to throw was 2.59 seconds.

36 pressures on 44 dropbacks.

36.

 

My worries coming into this season were:

Who the fuck is going to block?

Will the new OC call a competent offense?

Who is actually going to help guide Caleb and help him grow? Who is there to lead him, rather than just expecting him to come in and take the reins / grow on his own?

So far, bad answers to all. And if these weren't such obvious fucking things to see, I'd be less upset. But they are obvious, and always have been.

It fucking amazes me how incompetent this front office can be, year after year, regardless of who's in there.

 

Also I know people want Kmet more involved in the passing game but he sucks as a blocker. Whiffed on a few last night that led to sacks/hurries. Everett should probably be released and a blocking TE brought in because we need that.