Another Sunday ruined by a team that sucks year after year and is still not close to being a contender. So let's pile on. Leonard Floyd - F He is certainly one of the worst regular defensive starters in the entire NFL. Unable to do anything in pass rush, he was burnt badly by James White on a TD in the first half in coverage. I'm not sure what he's good at other than being another Bears first round bust. The most disappointing Bear of 2018. Fangio - F None of us would have expected that as soon as Mack was injured this defense would become one of the worst in the league. But that's exactly what happened. Poor effort from the front 4 in getting pressure on the QB. Tackling fundamentals seem to have vanished. And we see no adjustment game to game, or within games. I said on the game thread that any improvement we've seen from the defense since Mel Tucker should be credited to Pace for getting Hicks, Trevathan, Prince, Mack and adding talent on the rest of the defense through the draft. I was the only one who called for Fangio to get fired with the rest of the staff last year and took a lot of flak from the board for it at the time. But I saw a defense that showed poor effort and fundamentals in key games last year and we're seeing the same this year. The defense is most responsible for all 3 losses, particularly with their struggles in the 4th quarter and today was no exception. Trubs - D Worst accuracy from him all season. Routinely missed open receivers with the overthrow in the first half. His INT on the deep pass to Miller was due to his underthrow. He was easily flustered and could have had 2 more interceptions had the Pats held on to the ball. His hail mary throw was actually a fail. Rule #1 on a hail mary, make sure the football gets to the fucking end zone. It didn't. Were it not for some spectacular runs with his legs, and the final 2 passes of each half padding his stats, this would have been an F performance. I'm still optimistic about him going forward. Eddie Jackson - D The man is too aggressive and is a poor tackler on top of it. Hicks, Goldman - D Got destroyed off the LOS in the run game, generated zero pressure on Brady. Where the fuck have these guys gone the last 2 weeks? Nichols - A The only man on the d-line who came to play. Makes the most of his limited opportunities. Good find for Pace. Nagy - F Team came out flat again. Kicking to Patterson twice, I don't care if he fumbled he's proven to be one of the most dangerous return men in the game. Wasted a play at the end of the first half when we could have thrown a hail mary or tried a 58 yard field goal. Worst of all, not onsides kicking after the Burton TD and trusting the D to actually get a 3 and out when they were getting mauled all day. Stupid. Cohen - B I don't like running him between tackles but he was still able to make plays even though the Pats were keyed in on him. Burton - A He gets open. He hangs on to the ball. He picks up YAC. He's a good football player. He's become Trubs security blanket. Josh Bellamy, Dion Simms, Ben Brauckenfucker - F Cut all these idiots.
I wouldn't say they are the worst D in th NFL. We did hold the Patriots offense to 24 points. And we did take the ball away 3 times. And we held Brady under 300 yards. But I agree with you on the lack of up-front pressure and I definitely agree on the takling. What I thought was interesting is that they switched up Mack and Floyd yesterday to draw the double team to the left side (used Mack as a decoy) and that left Floyd by himself with a back-up RT. Floyd did nothing. It's really hard at this point into his career, and after trading up to get him at 9, to say he is not on the borderline of bust material.
Thisis not the same defense that we saw before the bye. I think that bye came at a really bad time for us. And that's not making an excuse. It just feels to me that all momentum was obliterated. That's on the coaches to get back.
It also has a lot to do with the quick passes we’ve seen the last two weeks. They don’t have time to get to the QB without blitzing. I’m afraid that’s going to be a blueprint for all other offenses to follow going forward.
I would give the WR’s an F as well. I know Trubs has to be more accurate but his WR’s did nothing to help him out. A couple of drops and a couple of poor efforts on not perfect throws. The first interception hit off Bellamy and into the defenders arms. The second was thrown short but it would be nice to see the WR win that battle instead of the defender pulling it away with one arm.
Bellamy is a piss poor route runner. He doesn't adjust to the ball when it's in the air. He doesn't know how to run the scramble drill. No ball skills what so ever. The guy is pure garbage. His only value is as a special teamer and I don't see him do enough there to justify his roster spot.
Mitch is getting hell for that pick but the more I see it....the more it looks like a really good throw....thrown to a spot that really only his receiver should have been able to make a play on it.
The good news in this is a lot of teams we will face coming up don't really employ an offense in that style and probably won't drastically change their style either.
Isn't Fangio the highest paid, or among the highest paid, DCs in the league? It's his job to figure how to disrupt the QB no matter what. And there were plenty of throws where Brady, Osweiler sat back with all the time in the world before a throw was made. I think A-Rob's injury was a big factor. But why is Bellamy so high on the depth chart? He's not better than Javon Wims and it's debatable if he's better than White. Bellamy is supposed to be a special teams guru. Special teams allowed 14 points on Sunday. Why is he on the roster.
Yeah...I didn't understand his strategy in either game. The Bears defense isn't built to play zone coverage and sit back and wait for mistakes. It's built to be an aggressive defense that gets pressure and plays mostly man to man on the back end.
I heard a stat where we only blitzed 4 times on Sunday. Even though we hadn't come close to Brady all day, Fangio was still rushing 3 or 4 guys only while we played zone coverage in the secondary. That's a recipe for disaster against a guy like Brady. Would be nice to see more blitzes from Roquan, Callahan or even a safety.
At least sugar the gaps with your mike linebackers once in a while to give the offense a different look.
