Morning after thoughts *WEEK 3 FIRST PLACE EDITION*

Bill Polian has repeatedly said in interviews that the worst thing a GM can do is fall in love in love with a player, because you end thinking you need that guy and end up giving up too much to get him.


I own my own wholesaling business. In any business negotiation, the one who always always always loses is the one who isn’t willing to walk away.

 

100%

 

Here's a stage in addition to many of yours I went through as they were pushing their shiny new rookie out on the field and the Bears defense would make another rookie look as if they should start dusting off a shelf in Canton. Hell I had the Headlines made up already and I was ready to go to press.

So last week Mitch exited the pocket every chance he could get, and made no decisions with the ball other than to run it. This week he mostly stayed in the pocket and made bad decisions with the ball. There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere doesn't there?
How about when you are about to get run out of bounds throw away the damn football and not lose two yards behind the LOS.

 

He not only stayed in the pocket...he got lost in it a couple times and didn't know what to do. He took an "oh shit" sack because the Cardinals pushed his own linemen back and pinned Mitch in.

Not to mention the first drive when he decided to run backwards instead of trying to throw it away or just take a shorter sack.

 

I don't know if you any of you guys follow Anthony Adams on twitter or youtube...if you don't you should start immediately.

 

In that case he HAS to recognize that’s a double CB blitz and audible out of it or call timeout. They didn’t even try to disguise it. Terrible recognition by Trubisky - I mean that’s very basic shit.

 

I think of all the comparisons A. Smith is the closest. Let’s not forget that Alex smith had six different OC’s his first 6 seasons in the NFL. I see Trubisky developing a little slower than some other young QB’s but not as long as it took Smith to catch his groove. It’s going to be a frustrating season for sure as far as the QB play

 

Most of mine have been covered, but....

I'm right here. I'm about giving Mitch time, but he has to progress. There's no sugar coating this game, he wasn't good. Happy feet, bad decisions, bad reads, inconsistencies throwing the ball all there. And to add to BWW's point, kid just looks overwhelmed with this offense, its complexity, his reads, and his internal "oh shit clock" management,or ability to anticipate.

This will take time.

My favorite part of this last week was when Gruden spoke to the media on Monday or Tuesday and told reporters when asked why his team's pass rush was lacking that "good pass rushers are hard to come by."

Massie was all kinds of bad. Long was great. Kush struggled early. Leno was just good enough, meaning I didn't see any of him to be critical of. Whitehair had a bounceback after a couple of bad weeks.

These early games were great. It's like the refs calling the packer game decided to say "fuck you" to anything Green Bay. They got called on a shitload of ticky tack stuff, not so much for the skins. The Clay Matthews sack flag was downright appalling, because for the 2nd straight week dude sacks the QB and gets called for not defying physics.

Whatever, fuck the packers. The Vikings though? Slept through that Buffalo game and got embarrassed. I'd hate to be the team playing them next week.

Now to my own:

Nagy, fuck your decision making and clock management. Blowing a timeout when the plan was to kick the FG all along was the 2nd worst thing I saw this weekend, and would have been the worst any other weekend. The worst? Wake Forest-Notre Dame where Wake Forest lined up for a FG with their kicker still on the sideline and the punter/snap receiving holder looking lost.

Amid my negativity (I didn't have drunken stages like BWW), Blang gets credit for calling it first, but I agreed--even though down 14, it was winnable. And Wilks, from the Lovie Smith tree, played "not to lose" the entire 2nd half, in typical Lovie fashion. For once, it was nice watching the other team think the game was over after 57 minutes, only to lose a heartbreaker. It would have been icing on the cake if he had the signature Lovie stone face.

At this point, does Kevin White need to be on the roster? Anthony Miller goes down, and Bellamy gets the nod?

 

I was switching between a bunch of games, but yeah I saw two penalties called on their secondary alone, as well as the Matthews sack.
I also saw Matthews presser after the game in which he is slow to grasp the concept of what the NFL is trying to achieve, and what they expect him to do, and that is NOT wrapping up the QB and taking him to the ground with your body weight on top. I don't argue with him about the NFL getting soft, but keep doing what you're doing pinhead, Just do it!

Watching our Next opponent tonight and thinking I'm glad this guy is not rostered with this team anymore.
This is vintage Cunte

 

Ftiz magic is dead. Going to be an interesting week for TB. Assuming Fitzpatrick doesn't turn it around in the game.

 

It will be hard to wait 5-6 years as the 49ers did for Smith. My concern is the window of opportunity that we have now with the defense. Assuming we are healthy, I think this defense remains good for 2-3 years before injuries, age, and salary cap issues set in. A player like Mack doesn't come around often. Hopefully he plays at this level for many (think 5+) more seasons, but realistically that's hard to expect. Cutler had a 3 year window with Lovie's defense to take us to the promised land but failed. Then that defense got old and Cutler never improved.

 

I want to have patience...I really do. But it's hard.

 

This applies to me as well.

My concerns about this trade in terms of Trubisky have not been disproved at all, quite the opposite in fact. But even allowing for that, there's just no denying this trade has been a boon for the Bears. Mack hasn't just delivered on the lofty expectations, he's managed to exceed them! As someone who loves good defensive football, Mack has been the single biggest factor in making this D a joy to watch again.

Plus i just flat out don't believe Pace could've done any better with the picks. No way he lands a player of this calibre, even with 2 chances in the 1st round.


- Leonard Floyd needs to pull his club out his ass and start doing something. I don't actually know if he wore the club last game i just wanted to make a club joke. Also, i was unable to tell for myself during the game cos i barely saw him!

Floyd's contribution to that win was one solitary assist...thats it! Not even a solo tackle, an assist. Given all the other firepower on that line and all the attention being taken away from him, that is just a flat out fail from Floyd, club or no club. There was one point, im gonna say the 3rd Q, when Fangio schemed Floyd into a 1 on 1 v the LG, standing up pre snap. Floyd feinted outside then took it inside with a swim move and beat the LG hands down. Unfortunately Floyd lost his balance fell on his ass and that was that. Someone else got there thankfully but that should've been Floyd's sack, he damn well needs to make that play.

Floyd will never be in a better situation his whole career than he is this season. The bidding should start at double digit sacks this year. He's just not getting the job done right now and if it continues they need to sit his ass for someone who will. Lynch is playing way better than Floyd right now.


- Pretty much everything has been said on Trubisky, doesn't need me rehashing it. But one more thing:

On the Bears final drive they were trying to ice the game and ran Howard up the gut. But as they often do they showed it like Trubisky had the option to keep it and run himself. Trubisky didn't keep and Howard got stuffed, but if he had kept there was a huge gain there and it was game over. This play was run several times in the game and by my reckoning every single time the keeper was wide open. Big gain every time yet not once did Trubisky keep it.

Now, remember the previous week they did run the play and Trubisky did keep it? It was on for a good gain except Trubs made a bad decision to bounce it outside rather than take it inside and got tackled for no gain. So, did he lose his "keeper" rights last week? Do they have no intention of running the keeper and are purely running that setup for misdirection to try and help free up Howard?(it doesnt seem to be working)

Whatever it is, i hope they look at that in film study this week. I think im gonna call them running a keeper play sometime during the Bucs game and a big gain.

Go Bears!

 

My point is it took Smith 6 years because he played for 6 different OC’s his first 6 seasons before Harbaugh took over and Smith took off. If Smith would have had a competent offensive coaching staff take over in say his second season he very well could have blossomed much sooner. That is hopefully the situation Trubisky is in now. The entire offense is new. From personnel to play book. It is going to take time for everything to gel.

As far as how long we give the kid I would think we need to see marked improvement for a solid stretch of games most likely over the second half of the season. If Mitch can hold it together like he has and then really start to up his play over the last 8 games or so then it is perfectly reasonable to expect things to click right off the bat next season his second in the same offense.

If he doesn’t improve and even worse regresses over the second half of the season then Nagy and Pace need to bring in a Bridgewater type to at the least compete for the starting position going into next season.

So no way to a six year window. Personally I think Trubisky plays well enough to buy one more season. After that Nagy/Pace have to get creative if Trubs doesn’t work out. Or mabey Nagy/new GM.

 

For the record, this is the Floyd play i was talking about. It was the 2nd Q. If the vid doesn't play i'll just delete the post.

http://www.nfl.com/gamecenter/20180...ameinfo|contentId:0ap3000000965751&tab=videos