Rants and Raves 2024 Edition

Obviously I haven't forgotten the years between Gould and Santos. My point stands, if the game comes down to a long FG we are at a decided disadvantage. Do you trust him to make that clutch kick with the big game or season on the line? I don't fully.

 

Ehhhh…I’m with EV. I’m not there yet, and no, I don’t need to recall Barf, Barfey, Eddie, and the off-season where 30 names none of us ever heard of had a kicking competition. Santos has to suck hard in critical games later this year to open to discussion about replacement.

My biggest takeaway about the missed kick was that multiple packers players/defenders post game said they studied Santos, and even with Soldier Field’s windy, swirling nature, they were most perplexed by Flus’ decision not to try to gain more yards, because a 3-5 yard gain would have changed the FG trajectory from low line drive for distance to a kick with some air under it.

Forget the fact that their defense studied opponents, pays attention to tendencies and where the game is, and were prepared—like a smart fucking team does—but when they think you play for the win and you do that? Another indictment of our latest dipshit HC.

But that’s okay guys, Eberflush sent video to nfl refs because one guy jumped over the long snapper and the refs missed it. That fixes his lack of competence and preparation.

 

But Hey! The Bears played "complementary football" where participation trophies are the norm under this regime as well as the last one and the one before that and well, so on and so forth.

 

Jesus are we handing out juice boxes again?

Honestly, the ground hog day bullshit here is really too much for me. I'm higher on Caleb than I have been the last two QBs, but it really doesn't fucking matter. We've all had these discussions. Over and over and over again. Nothing has changed. Everybody and their brother outside the organization knew a jettison of Justin and draft Caleb was the right move. We ALSO all knew that a "complimentary football" jettison of Eberflus to pair him with an offensive mind is the recipe for success. Instead, they are super proud of this search for their new OC Waldron, who somehow ended up being ONE OF THE WORST OCs IN BEARS HISTORY. Fuck guys, you cannot be proud of a process that results in....that. Fuck me.

This team is fucked from ownership, full stop. I don't care about Poles anymore, nor Flus. Not even Mr. Lakefront Stadium President. Only one thing fixes this org, and it starts up top. The old bag has to die AND George has to sell the team / give up control. It worked for the Blackhawks, it worked for Cubs, it's working for Washington seemingly. The rot is at the base, and it's existed since Papa Bear died, WHO IS THE ONE WHO HIRED DITKA. Outside of the Lovie smith years where we were competitive (and Lovie couldn't find his offensive buddy Ryan), this team has been an absolute shitshow. Fuck man, I've been talking with most of you guys since that Lovie blip of excitement, that was now fucking 20 years ago.

The media loves to shit on our QB history, how about our Coach history? Eberflus, Nagy, Trestman, Wannstedt, Jauron, the ghost of John Fox?

FIRE EVERYONE.

 

Another nail in the coffin for the blunderkid GM. Knew he was preinjured to the point he was about to retire, traded for him anyway, let him go to another country for treatment, and afterwards the pain returns quickly for Bates. That's so bears.

Ryan Bates was going to retire this past offseason with advanced shoulder arthritis. Another body to replace on the OL next year.

Fire everyone.

Bates “credits a trip to Panama to receive stem cell therapy for reviving his career,” Biggs revealed Bates “probably would have had to retire” if the therapy didn’t work.

“Nothing was structurally wrong with it. He was battling arthritis that was more severe than anything he’d previously encountered in a career that, before this season, never had included a trip to IR,” Biggs wrote on November 18, adding:

“The shoulder pain would calm down a little as Bates rested during training camp and the preseason, but each time he returned to play, the shoulder lacked strength and the pain quickly returned — worse than before.”

Bears' $17 Million 27-Year Old Nearly Had to Retire This Season: Report

 

It reads like a page right from Jerry Angelo's book "Legacy Of Ineptitude"
I didn't even know Poles was an understudy with him, but something about that Kiran Amegadjie selection reminded me of Angelo's tenure and the Chris Williams selection.

 

Piniero is the most accurate kicker in NFL history.

 

What a fucking joke.

 

Something else this staff didn't consider with that extra time that so many other teams would have is instead of going vertical go horizontal and move the ball to the right hash where he prefers to kick his extra points. Attention to detail with this coaching staff is so out of focus.

 

Case in point heh.

 

I remember being convinced in 2022 that Flus was actively trying to tank the last 5-6 games of the season and being totally fine with it since it led to the #1 pick. In hindsight I now realize that his in-game coaching is so bad it looks like he's always trying to tank when he never in fact was.

 

What’s Eberflush’s last stand going to look like?

is he gonna be a bitch like Trestman and bench starters? Look and talk perpetually clueless like John Fox? Over-the-top unnecessary angry like Nagy where he throws a tantrum before throwing a challenge flag? A mix?

 

No one here wants to entertain the conversation but Santos again hit a low kick on the game tying FG. Watch the replay, it was nearly blocked again. He's got as much accuracy as you could want but well prepared teams are going to always have a good chance to block these going forward.

 

The league is full of kickers with big legs.

In typical NFL fashion....the Bears aren't on board with that trend.

Last team to move to a 3-4 defense. Have never had a 4K passer. Don't fire coaches midseason. So on.

 

I don't know, but it's a good question. I think he's going to go the John Fox route, because that requires little change honestly.

That game tying FG was also 48 yards IIRC. I think we've always known he doesn't have the biggest leg, but two blocks in a row they are going to come for him anything longer than 40 I'd think.

 

The best is when Nagy went after an official for not calling a roughing on Fields and then you can read his lips when he's saying sorry to the official afterwards.

Such a bitch.

 

I think we saw ‘well prepared’ yesterday.

Anybody else notice how the Vikes intentionally bunched 3 DL over the LG/LT of the kick formation?

I’ll say this for the packers block, there was a missed penalty of the guy climbing over the long snapper, but the Vikes weren’t doing that.

‘Well prepared’ is critical. Gotta wonder how many teams are going to stack that exact area of the line going forward on FGs.

 

Fire this moron already!

https://twitter.com/BrendanSugrue/status/1861104967068565880

 

Wow.

 

I'm with you Blang, and of course everyone on here.
"It always warrants a challenge when you have that big of a gain....even if we don't have the best look that we would have." Yes, pearls of wisdom from the great Bears head coach Matt Uberflush. He went on to add if it was a 6 or 15-yard gain he probably wouldn't have thrown it.
He blamed the second blocked kick in two weeks as "technique" and now he said "Whenever that happens two games in a row we have to take a hard look in the terms of the the protection, the technique, and who we have it's going to be a big thing to look at today" So it wasn't a problem after last week but now that it's happened two weeks in a row you want to look at it?
The Bears as a team failed in every team aspect, but he threw out his favorite word in his press conference word salad by saying complimentary football again.
I agree each phase tried to outdo one another, and it was a massive failure on every level of coaching in each phase to the defense playing off the ball with the game on the line, to the special teams miscues the block and the muff, to going for that first two-point conversion attempt instead of kicking the extra point. Now Thomas Brown has done some good things this game, but he couldn't save Caleb from himself in that last possession. I liked what I saw from Caleb this game and while those overthrows continue to concern me throughout the course of these games Caleb needed to work more methodically on the final drive, and not try to play hero ball because he didn't need to.