Month: December 2012

No Guts, No Glory and Other Points of View

Bears

“Alshon Jeffery hurt the Bears as much as he helped them. A savvy route runner would not have been on the ground on that first-quarter play in which [quarterback Jay] Cutler was picked off.

“Then in the third quarter he dropped what should have been a 39-yard touchdown pass.

“But his second-quarter touchdown catch was very nice. He swam past Josh Robinson to free himself and made an over-the-shoulder catch that a lot of receivers struggle with. In the fourth quarter he pulled in a back-shoulder throw for 30 yards with Robinson all over him.”

Jeffery looks like a guy with a bright future in the league. As Pompei implies, he’s going to have to learn to be more consistent. He’s also going to have to stay out of the training room. But, like most wide receivers in particular, I think we can look forward to him being better his second year. This looks to me like a win for general manager Phil Emery.

  • Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune points out the need for offensive linemen but defends (a little) Emery with this comment:

“Drafting a playmaking tight end would be the best option, but the Bears’ needs on offense surely will begin with the line. It’s probably best the team passed on John Carlson in free agency last spring. He signed a $25 million, five-year contract with the Vikings and has been a bust.”

Its probably worth noting at this point that guard David DeCastro, who I really, deep down thought the Bears should have drafted, spent a good portion of his first season injured. So you could argue that Emery dodged a couple bullets.

“‘No, no, no, no,’ he said. ‘We’re just trying to win games right now and put the best five out there. That’s way too far in the future. The big thing to for him is he didn’t have an offseason coming off the (knee) surgery. He’s going to be living in the weight room. He’s going to get bigger and do more leg work and all that stuff. Whatever position he is going to be at, he’s going to have to get more lower-body work.'”

 

“What has to be bothersome for [head coach Lovie] Smith is his defense could not prevail despite an anemic effort from the Vikings’ Christian Ponder, as bad a starting quarterback as there is in the league. But Ponder managed to pull off an elaborate engagement proposal to his girlfriend during the week with Christmas lights and then beat the once-vaunted Bears defense despite completing only 11 of 17 passes for 91 yards. “

I’m not any kind of a Christian Ponder fan by any means. Certainly statistically those aren’t numbers that jump out at you. And Ponder does have a reputation for making some bad decisions. But I saw very little of it in this game. There weren’t many errant passes, either. To my eye, Ponder isn’t exactly surrounded by great talent at wide receiver or on the offensive line. It looks to me like the Vikings habit of trying to combine heavy reliance on the running game with penalties and undisciplined play is really more the problem than anything else. But whatever problems the Vikings offense had Sunday, Ponder wasn’t one of the big ones. He won’t win you many games. But when he plays like he did this week, he won’t lose you many either.

 

  • Biggs quotes special teams coach Kevin O’Dea on how he fixed Adam Podlesh‘s mechanics:

“‘We just changed one thing,’ O’Dea said. ‘When you deal with punting there are a lot of moving parts so the simpler you can keep it, the better. All we did was just change where his eyes focus to and aligned it better with where his leg and his hip are. That’s all we did. I am talking about the drop. So, we just put the drop back in line with where he can use maximum power. Now, he can use his leg in his swing to get maximum power into the ball.

“‘It’s his eyes as he drops the ball. We have a specific spot what he’s looking at for him. And everyone is different. It’s just like golf. Everybody has a little bit different sequence and where their swing is and how they line up and where their hips are and everything. So, all we did was study where his hips are, where his eyes are. Now, we just moved it a little bit. And right now it seemed to get him back in line. Now, he’s getting back in rhythm. Hopefully, it stays that way.'”

“Lovie Smith has to go.

“Now.

“If I’m Phil Emery, I wouldn’t have let him on the plane home after that 21-14 disaster in Minnesota.”

Rick Morrissey at the Chicago Sun-Times adds his two cents:

“Since George Halas retired for good, every Bears coach who has been fired failed in his last opportunity to beat the Packers. No pressure, Lovie.”

It is, of course, the time of year for this kind of speculation but this year it feels a lot more serious than usual. Mike Mulligan at the Chicago Tribune makes the case that its best for everyone if the Bears can keep Smith as head coach:

“Smith is miles away the most qualified person for the job he holds. Does anybody believe the Bears would get in a bidding war for Jon Gruden, rumored to be on the way back, or be interested in coaxing Bill Cowher out of retirement?”

No. But I didn’t think they’d sign Julius Peppers, either. And I didn’t think they’d fire Jerry Angelo.

There’s only one thing I’ll say about this. I don’t think Smith is a bad head coach. The could – and just might – do a lot worse particularly if there isn’t a definite plan and swift action on hiring a new one byt Emery (or Bears president Ted Phillips depending on who you think will actually do it).

But Simth has been here a long time and it doesn’t look to me like they’re going to get back to another Super Bowl with him at the helm. Too often it looks to me like the Bears are being out schemed in games. Smith is a master at handling players – arguably the biggest part of his job. And I don’t think they’ve stopped listening to him. But And there’s no denying that once the season is over, the Bears will have likely have faded very badly down the stretch two years in a row. And its now evident that X’s and O’s aren’t Smith’s strong point, nor is it the strong point of the coaches he’s hired.

There is one other factor here. Smith is a defensive coach in an offensive league. It may be time to get someone in here who can coach offense and, more importantly, who can judge talent on that side of the ball. It’s hard to watch the juggling act that’s taking place on the offensive line without thinking that something isn’t right about how things are being handled there. It’s the kind of misjudgment that we’ve seen all too often with coaches and players under Smith.

I acknowledge all of Mulligan’s points as being valid. But at some point you have to draw a line and take a chance or you’ll never get better. No guts, no glory. We may be at that point.



Packers

“The Packers (9-4) have won seven of their last eight games. The Bears (8-5) have lost four of their last five. Further complicating matters is the fact that while the Bears are losing players, the Packers are gaining them.

Pompei continues the (admittedly in this case inadvertant) comparison:

“In many ways, this has been a disastrous year for the Packers.

“There have been enough injuries to justify opening their own green and gold hospital. Thirteen starters have missed 66 games with injuries, and 10 players are on injured reserve.

“They are down to their third-string right tackle, their third-string running back and their third-string inside linebacker.

“There were two games that were all but in the win column before strange occurrences turned them into losses.

“And there have been a couple of butt whippings, the kind the Mike McCarthy Packers have not been accustomed to.

“And where has this left the Packers as the NFL season barrels down the stretch?

“More dangerous, and maybe better, than ever. Adversity has toughened this team.”

Morrissey elaborates:

“The Packers were down 14-0 Sunday to the Lions, and against all odds, reason, disease, pestilence and God’s will, they somehow came back to win.

“That’s apparently what it takes to overcome a two-touchdown deficit.

“We know this because the Bears trailed the Vikings 14-0 and treated it like an ascent of Mount Everest in sandals and swimwear.”

Good teams who deserve to be in the playoffs finish strong. Those that don’t, don’t.

“Cornerback Charles Woodson (broken collarbone), guard T.J. Lang (ankle) and linebacker Clay Matthews (hamstring) could return this week. Wide receiver Jordy Nelson (hamstring) is less likely to play.”

  • Pompei writes a pretty good column covering what teams have been doing to the Packers. It should be familiar to Bears fans:

“Although the Bears have failed repeatedly to hold down the Packers, the rest of the league believes the Bears know how to do it.

“So this season, almost every Packers opponent has borrowed the Cover-2 pages from the Bears’ playbook. It might not be Star Wars defense exactly in terms of complexity, but it has resulted in the deflections and interceptions of numerous Packers missiles.

“‘Our offense is not as flashy as last year,’ Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers told the Tribune. ‘It’s tough especially when teams are going to play you very soft the majority of the game, which we’ve seen this year. It has been 80 percent split safety.”

“The best way to get a defense out of a two-safety high look is to gash them with the running game. The Packers struggled to do that early, starting three running backs and failing to reach 110 rushing yards in eight of their first 10 games.

“But as the temperatures have dipped, their running game has warmed up. In their last two games they have run for 152 and 140 yards respectively.”

Elsewhere

“In the Pistol, the quarterback lines up about four yards behind center, or three yards closer than he would in shotgun. If one back is in the game, he lines up directly behind the quarterback instead of next to him. This is an advantage for the running game because the back can go left or right easily.

“The beauty of the Pistol, as the Redskins and Robert Griffin are showing, is you can combine a spread passing game with a power run game.”

“‘You have to contain it, you can’t let it get on the edge,’ the NFC coach said. ‘You have to make the quarterback cut back inside to pursuit. If he pitches it, you have to get outside and contain. If they want to run an inside zone, fine, that’s where the core of the defense is. Defensive backs have to be disciplined, throw off timing, jam, reroute, and not allow the receivers to get a good release.'”



One Final Thought

Before the Vikings game I commented that, with 4 games left against decent to very good teams, the Bears were going to have to win on drive and want-to. With that in mind, Haugh describes this exchange with Smith after the Bears loss to the Vikings Sunday:

“‘That opening drive really put us on our heels, and we never really recovered,’ Smith said.

“I asked Smith why the Bears never recovered, what with 56 minutes left in an NFL game after [Vikings runningback Adrian]Peterson‘s touchdown.

“‘You tell me,’ Smith snapped. ‘How do you answer a question like that? If I knew that, we would have done a little bit more about it.'”

I can tell Smith why.

 

Quick Game Comments: Bears at Vikings

Defense

  1. The Bears packed the box to stop Adrian Peterson. It didn’t matter much as, once again, they got pushed around on occasion up front, especially early on. The first touchdown was far too easy for the Vikings.
  2. The Vikings did a nice job of using misdirection to take advantage of the Bears aggressive defense. This has always been their weakness but perhaps never more so than early this game.
  3. The Vikings also occasinally took good advantage of the play action passing that Ardian Peterson sets up on the run game.
  4. On a related note, quarterback Christian Ponder had a reasonable today. Like the last game against the Bears, there were few poor decisions and he was pretty accurate.
  5. In fairness to the Bears defense, though they started poorly they tightened things up in the second quarter. The Bear defense made plays and got them off the field in a reasonable manner from that point on.
  6. Lets not forget to mention that the Bear defense got a lot of help from the Vikings as they continually shot themselves in the foot with things like dumb penalties.

Offense

  1. The Vikings obviously didn’t respect the Bears run the same way the Bears respected thiers. They came out with a standard seven in box and never really did anything special to stop it.
  2. Jay Cutler was under plenty of pressure as guys were coming almost unblocked on occasion. This put him in a bit of a bind as the Vikings coverage was mostly better than usual.
  3. The Bears running game struggled on occasion as the offensive line got pushed around again. They were allowing plenty of penetration. The trap plays that were working earlier in the season aren’t working as well anymore as almost everyone has seen it many times on film.
  4. Despite the last comment, I have to say it isn’t like the Vikings were contantly stopping the Bears cold on the run. The Bears did have occasional success as Matt Forte made the most with what he was given, made a lot of yards on his own and had a nice little game individually. The Vikings helped him out by tackling poorly in spots.
  5. Speaking of Forte, I like to see it when the Bears use him as more than a dump off option in the passing game. I’ve said this before but he’s a good receiver and he usually ends up with a linebacker on him.
  6. Once again, Alshon Jeffery flashed his potential today. If he wasn’t always open, it seemed like he was at least getting marginal separation most of the time. Hard not to like his future.
  7. Brandon Marshall and Jay Cutler are unbelievable. I can’t remember enjoying watching two Bears play as much as these two for most of this season. Certainly not on offense. Marshall was being triple teamed and making catches. I see it every week and I never cease to be amazed. I’ve never seen anything like it.
  8. Anyone else’s heart stop when Cutler was seen trying to make the tackle on the intereceptions in the first quarter and third quarters?
  9. Interesting decision to replace Edwin Williams with James Brown at left guard. I’ll be interested to find out what the reason was.

Miscellaneous

  1. Once again the Bears got one of the best of the NFL announcing teams as they drew Kenny Albert, Daryl Johnston, Tony Siragusa.
    Johnston was spot on all game as he, for example, pointed out early on that the Bears weren’t matching the Vikings intensity. Siragusa correctly pointed out that the major problem with the Bears running game was that the there was no push on the inside. Both hit the key points all game. Sorry, haters. Nothing bad to say here.
  2. Marshall dropped a big first down. Alshon Jeffery and Devin Hester both dropped touchdowns. Those would have been huge plays that would have been a big difference.
  3. the Bears had more than their fair share of penalties and they need to clean it up a bit. But what struck me was how the Vikings kept helping the Bears out by constantly shooting themselves in the foot with stupid penalties. After a nice start to this game, there seemed to be times when they were doing everything they could to give the game away.
  4. The Bears missed Robbie Gould as Adam Podlesh kickoffs were shorter than usual. I thought the Bears return teams were really poor early on. They left the Bears pinned back in poor field position.
  5. The Bears had a fumble they got back. Ponder threw a harmless intereception at the end of the first half. But Cutler’s interceptions were obviously the most damaging as this would have been a different game without the two Viking touchdowns that resulted.
  6. There was lots of slipping and sliding around my both teams today. You would think the footing in a dome on artificial turf wouldn’t be a problem. But something looked like it was wrong.
  7. Obviously this game came down to the interceptions that resulted in two Viking scores combined with good Viking defense and the Bears inability to score on offense. The dropped balls by Jeffery and Hester in the second half were imporant. Those are the big plays the Bears offense is lacking.But nothing really bothered me more this game than the difference in intensity between the two teams in the first quarter. The Vikings came out like a team fighting to stay in the playoff hunt. The Bears definitely didn’t.

    Judging from the comments of players and head coach Lovie Smith last week, I’d say Smith spent his time reminding this team that they were still 8-4. Maybe its time to instill a little urgency instead.

It’s About Character and Other Points of View

Bears

  • I’m not too sure about this comment from Bears offensive coordinator Mike Tice on the return of wide receiver Alshon Jeffery to the lineup. Via Mark Potash at the Chicago Sun-Times:

“So that really helps us because when they try to key on Brandon [Marshall], we really have two go-to guys on the field at the same time.”

Jeffery is a step above the other receivers, no doubt. But he’s hardly a “go-to guy” (yet).

  • On a related not, Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times points out that, whether its being done on purpose or not, the “Randy Ratio” is back.

“We’re going back to the fundamentals — what we were doing earlier in the season. We just have to do that to be successful.”

That sounds like a pretty good idea and not just for the defensive linemen. Part of the problem last week was that the Seahawks are a good team that played reasonably well. But the Bears didn’t help with some serious fundamental breakdowns in things like gap discipline. They play their best when they’re playing fundamentally sound.

“Whether or not Brian Urlacher returns from a hamstring injury this year, he’ll be a Bear next season. That comes from highly placed sources inside my head.”

“It’s not so much his straight-line speed that has suffered since injuring his knee in last year’s season finale. He proved he could still run when he chased down Golden Tate from behind after Tate’s 49-yard gain in the second quarter of Sunday’s game. It’s brakes that he lacks. He struggles to plant his feet and re-direct himself. It has looked like he has been playing on ice all season.

“Never before in a season have we seen Urlacher overrun plays he used to make routinely.”

Whether Urlacher has lost some quickness is a debatable issue. But, like most of the players in Lovie Smith‘s aggressive cover two defense, Urlacher has been over running plays on occasion his entire career.

“Moore has excellent ball awareness and ball skills for a corner. But I think coaches were disappointed in the fact that he was not playing more physically. [Kelvin] Hayden is a bigger, stronger defender and better tackler.”

Moore will likely start this week with Hayden replacing the injured Tim Jennings in the lineup.

Vikings

  • Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune is dead on with this comment:

“The idea has been thrown out there that the Bears could seek retribution on Vikings defensive end Jared Allen for the illegal hit that ended the season of right guard Lance Louis, who suffered a torn ACL in the teams’ first meeting. But it’s football and not a street fight. The Bears’ line needs to be concerned about blocking Allen, who whipped left tackle J’Marcus Webb for 3-1/2 sacks in the meeting at Minnesota last season, not taking him out. The second they divert their attention from blocking Allen will be the moment he turns the corner and zeros in on quarterback Jay Cutler, still not a month removed from a concussion.”

“Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder became engaged this week after he proposed to ESPN personality Samantha Steele with an elaborate setup in which he spelled ‘Marry Me’ using Christmas lights. Sound like a second-year player with his mind fully on the game? Not really. Ponder doesn’t have a lot of help on the outside and that problem is made worse with the absence of Percy Harvin. He possesses a deer-in-the-headlights look too often in the pocket and struggles making plays downfield. At least things are going swimmingly for him off the field.”

  • Pompei gives a scout’s report on Viking safety Harrison Smith: “Opponents should use play action and try to take advantage of Smith’s aggressiveness to get receivers open in the middle of the field.”
  • Matt Bowen at the Chicago Tribune points out that with Brian Urlacher out and with Adrian Peterson likely to be the Vikings main threat, its a perfect situation to use plays like this one to attack middle linebacker Nick Roach with tight end Kyle Rudolph. I’d expect a lot of this at crucial times.

Elsewhere

  • One of the things that head coach Lovie Smith‘s Bears teams are noted for is consistency. They usually beat the teams they should beat because, like their head coach, they never get too high or too low. Most of us consider this to be a good thing. However, its hard not to see that teams who do get up for the Bears usually end up winning because the Bears have not been mentally prepared to rise to the challenge. With that in mind, Judy Batista at the New York Times answers a fan question about the inconsistency of the Giants under head coach Tom Coughlin:

“I don’t think the Giants’ problems are ones of effort – they don’t quit, do they? – I think they are one of execution. Nine penalties is not because they are not trying, it’s because they are sloppy and perhaps not focused enough. The Giants have undoubtedly had a recent history of going up and down. I don’t have any idea how they would be with another coach, but ask yourself this: Would you exchange Tom Coughlin’s results with the Giants for anybody else’s? I’d take the inconsistency in the regular season in exchange for getting on a roll late in the season and into the playoffs any day.”

So would I. I guess the question is, would Bears general president Ted Phillips?

  • Toni Monkovic at The New York Times debates whether the gun control comments from Bob Costas at halftime of the Cowboys-Eagles game was appropriate. The quickest way to get me to change the channel for any sports show, radio or television, is to start talking politics, race or religion. But even I would have to admit that the appropriateness if this topic is debatable given Jovan Belcher‘s murder-suicide.
  • Stuart Miller, again at The New York Times addresses the issue of replacing more injured players on the roster, particularly with the new concussion rules. It appears to me like the idea of a developmental league may be gaining a little steam.

“2011: Robert Griffin, III, QB, Baylor
RG3 is the greatest young quarterback ever.

“2010: Cam Newton, QB, Auburn

“Cam Newton works as a professional quarterback in the NFL and is the former greatest young quarterback ever.”

One Final Thought

Here’s another curious comment, this time from David Haugh at the Chicago Tribune:

“If the Ravens can go 4-2 without Ray Lewis, then the Bears should finish 3-1 without Urlacher against a favorable schedule.”

“Favorable”? You’ve got to be kidding. Yes, Arizona is a game the Bears should win but two dome games against a decent team in Minnesota and a team with more talent, if less discipline, in Detroit? And the Packers who have both talent and discipline?

I know everyone wants the Bears to be a sure playoff team but let’s cut them a break and be realistic. That’s a darned tough schedule and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Bears go 1-3 during that stretch with or without Urlacher.

Having said that, Potash takes the opposite approach and addresses the doomsday scenario with the Bears losing all four of their final games. He says they can still make the playoffs at 8-8. I consider both that and the possibility that they Bears will actually lose all of those games to be highly unlikely. I’ll be very surprised if they lose to Arizona and, though the other games are tough, they do have a reasonable chance to surprise me and pull them out. It isn’t like the Vikings and Lions aren’t perfectly capable of playing poorly enough to lose.

I think this quote from wide receiver Brandon Marshall pretty much bottom lines the situation via Haugh:

“Championship teams start to separate themselves in the month of December. Right now it’s about character, want-to and passion and who wants to get it done.”

I don’t think the Bears have the talent to get to 10-6 and a certain playoff berth. But the difference between winning and losing in the NFL isn’t that big and I definitely do believe that they can overcome that deficiency by simply playing better than thier opponents. We’re about to find out what this team is made of.

A Final Word on the Tragedy in Kansas City and Other Points of View

Bears

  • Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune believes that Lovie Smith made the right call by going for it on fourth and inches in the first quarter Sunday because an NFL team should be able to gain half a yard in that situation. Too bad the game is about what you can do not what you should be able to do.

“After gaining just 14 yards on eight carries in the first half [Sunday], Matt Forte gained 52 yards on 13 carries in the second half to finish with 66 yards on 21 carries. But he also caught three passes for 30 yards, including a 12-yard touchdown when he lined up wide on third-and-four in the third quarter.

“Why can’t the Bears do that more often? Coming into the game, Forte had 27 catches for 184 yards, 47 of them on a screen pass against the Titans.”

Former Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz seemed to use Forte much more effectively in the passing game than current coordinator Mike Tice does. The touchdown reception was nice to see. We should see more of it.

“I’m surprised the Bears have not tried (ORT Gabe) Carimi at left tackle. That’s what he played at Wisconsin. Chris Williams looked better than Carimi at right tackle, and Williams had to be bailed out from playing on the outside. He couldn’t get it done at tackle or guard.”

I like this feature and I tend to respect the opinions of scouts. But this is one of the dumber comments I ever heard. There’s no way Carimi’s going to play left tackle on a bum knee. Maybe next year. I doubt it but at least it won’t be a dumb comment at that point.

  • Adam L. Jahns at the Chicago Sun-Times lauds Carimi’s play Sunday. To my eye Carimi did a pretty good job of pass blocking but that big, tall frame of his really isn’t made for run blocking at guard. I didn’t watch every play but I think it really hurt the Bears running game.
  • Craig Steltz says via Jahns that he knew he might be playing Sunday with Chris Conte having the flu. That may be so bt he sure looked rusty. FOX highlighted two striaght plays where he apparenlty left a Seattle tight end wide open in the endzone.

“(Bears DE Corey) Wootton has been a surprise this year. He is having by far his best year in terms of creating sacks and pressures. (Having your team use) a first-round pick on a player at your position can have that effect.”

“And if the team does miss the playoffs, where does that leave coach Lovie Smith? The suspicion is that Smith’s future isn’t tied to Urlacher’s, but that Urlacher’s future certainly is tied to Smith’s. The player is out of contract at year’s end and the Bears plan to assess the situation then.”

  • You can put this Audible into the “truth hurts” category:

“There are some bad football teams right now with good records. I’d put Baltimore and Chicago in that category. Losing to Charlie Batch at home is not a good sign. … I didn’t think Russell Wilson was going to be as good as he has been. He is the biggest reason the Seahawks beat the Bears. I was too hard on him coming out of college. The kid is a good player.”

I wouldn’t say the Bears are a bad football team. But I think even some of the hard core fans now realize that they aren’t as good as thier record. With the Packers and two dome games coming up, I think that will become even more apparent shortly.

  • Vaughn McClure at the Chicago Tribune notes the punter Adam Podlesh is doing a much better job after the Bears sent a warning shot across his bow by bringing in a few punters for workouts two weeks ago.
  • Jack Betcha at The National Football Post goes through the signs that your team is going nowhere. The Bears were doing well until he threw in this comment in almost an offhand way at the end:

“I also believe that teams that have 5 year droughts of not drafting O-lineman in the first three rounds are setting them self up for failure.”

“This is a tough time. This is the time where it’s easy to point fingers at people. The one thing about this organization, this team, this coaching staff, the players, we are going to come together through adversity. Through training camp and OTAs, little things that happen, I’ve been able to witness that. So that’s the promising thing for this moment right now. Very disappointed, but not discouraged.”

Give both Marshall and quraterback Jay Cutler credit. These are tough, competitive guys with reputations for being disruptive. But things aren’t going well out there right now and they are the ones trying to lead the team out of it. Kudos.

    • Jahns reviews the Bears defensive struggles with the read option play Sunday. I’m no expert. I didn’t even know what to call it in my game comments. But I can tell you that I watch college defenses stop this play pretty much every Saturday. I’m surprised it turned out to be such a challenge. Apparently the Seahawks were, too, because it took them four quarters to finally convince themselves that they could consistently run it.

Steve Rosenbloom comes to a similar conclusion:

“So, to recap, the Bears weren’t ready for [Seatlle quarterback Russell] Wilson’s read-option, didn’t adjust successfully during the game, and still couldn’t figure it out a day later. Indeed, there’s a great chance that we’ll come back to this game and its fallout as the time the Bears decided they needed a coach who can resolve at least one of those things.”

Pesonally, I’ve always thought that Smith was a good head coach who was working on limited talent. But there’s no getting around the fact that he has failed to attract the kind of offensive coaching talent that’s necessary to win in the NFL. If the team doesn’t make the playoffs this year, Smith might not survive it. And its not just panic talk to say they definitely might not make the playoffs. I think they’ll win at Arizona. But they’re probably going to have to surprise me by winning in one of those domes, Detroit or Minnesota, to make it in.

Many die hard Bears fans will try to blame injuries if the team collapses. Don’t. Neither the defense nor the offense was playing well against good teams even before the injuries. It isn’t entirely Smith’s fault – as I said above, aging talent is still the major issue. But I’ve walked away from more than one game this season thinking that they lost in part because they got definitely out coached. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Smith pay the price.

      • Anyone actually own one of these? Yes, they actually sell them. Via profootballmock.com:


Vikings

“Watching how Adrian Peterson has worked his butt off to get back to where he is — gutting it out at the beginning of the year to get to the bye week. He’s the best story in football. It’s always been an attitude with him. It’s a mentality. He’s unrelenting. It is a nightmare for defenses to account for. … (QB Christian) Ponder has hit the wall. There’s no consistency week to week.”

Elsewhere

“I’ve heard talk about (Eagles GM) Howie Roseman already meeting with (Oregon head coach) Chip Kelly. Obviously, there are no rules preventing a GM from talking to a college coach during a (school) visit. I think San Diego would be a better fit for Kelly, myself. The run-and-shoot (scheme) worked at first back in the 1990s, and the Lions drafted Andre Ware and were plucking players to run it. NFL staffs were pulling out all the stops to figure out how to stop it, and once they did, it fell hard and hasn’t worked since. If you want the blueprint for how to stop Kelly in the NFL, watch the Stanford game. I guarantee you NFL coaches are calling up (Stanford head coach David) Shaw and saying, ‘Send me that tape.’ With Oregon’s running game trickling to the NFL, (NFL coaches) need to snuff it out.”

      • But I’m not too sure about this one:

“(Patriots offensive coordinator) Josh McDaniels is going to be a hot ticket (on the coaching circuit). He’s been a head coach before — did he have too much authority? I don’t know. … He believes in his system. The offense has been humming.”

The guess here is that McDaniels doesn’t get another shot at a head coaching job until he shows that he can do it somewhere other that New England. Too much authority or not he made a mess of things in Denver.

“The problem with Mark Sanchez ­— I always thought it was more mental than physical. Playing quarterback is hard in this league. You need to put in the time to prepare. It has always been about more than the game to him — using his celebrity status to his advantage. … You usually only get one chance to bring in a head coach and one swing at selecting a quarterback. (The Jets) traded up for Sanchez and it didn’t work. (Eric) Mangini didn’t turn out too well. Say what you will about Rex (Ryan) — I think he is refreshingly honest — I don’t know how much time he has left.”

Sanchez might have lost his job to third string quarterback Greg McElroy on Sunday.

Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum:

One Final Thought

Mike Florio at ProFootballTalk.com comments on this quote from Brady Quinn following the tragic murder-suicide by Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher:

“‘The one thing people can hopefully try to take away, I guess, is the relationships they have with people,’ Quinn told reporters after the game. ‘I know when it happened, I was sitting and, in my head, thinking what I could have done differently. When you ask someone how they are doing, do you really mean it? When you answer someone back how you are doing, are you really telling the truth?

“‘We live in a society of social networks, with Twitter pages and Facebook, and that’s fine, but we have contact with our work associates, our family, our friends, and it seems like half the time we are more preoccupied with our phone and other things going on instead of the actual relationships that we have right in front of us. Hopefully, people can learn from this and try to actually help if someone is battling something deeper on the inside than what they are revealing on a day-to-day basis.’

“These are words that we should all study, and heed. I’ll be printing them out, keeping a copy on my desk, and reminding my son of Quinn’s thoughts whenever I can.

“It’s impossible to know whether greater sensitivity by those around Jovan Belcher could have prevented Saturday’s events. Chances are it wouldn’t have mattered. But the lesson is that we should all be more attentive to the people whose lives are intertwined with ours, through our families or our friends or our places of work. We enter and exit this world alone, but we are in between those moments part of a broad and complex fabric that both provides us with support and commands it from us.

“Let’s remember that the next time — and every time — we’re more worried about interacting with someone who isn’t in the room than someone who is.”

Quick Game Comments: Seahawks at Bears 12/2/12

Defense

  1. The Bears defensive line was getting handled up front on the run plays. Some of it was lack of discipline as players got out of their gaps but much of it was simply failure to get off of blocks. They did better the second half.
  2. On the other hand, the defensive line got good pressure on Russell Wilson as they were able to penetrate in passing situations.
  3. It looked like the Bears might have played quite a bit more zone defense today than they have recently. Lots of cover two and maybe some quarters coverage. Certianly not as much single high safety as wenve been seeing.
  4. On a related not, as usual the Seahawk wide recievers were a hand full for the Bears defensive backs. They always seem to have guys like Mike Williams or Golden Tate coming through for them year after year to cause the Bears trouble.
  5. I can see why Russell Wilson is starting for Seattle. He’s about as accurate as any quarterback you’ll see. That little college option that he runs with Marshawn Lynch out of the shot gun is surprisingly effective. He did a lot of damage on the run.
  6. I thought it was interesting that Shea McClellin was the one spying Wilson in the second half.
  7. I would have liked to have seen some better tackling near the end with the game on the line. As color man Tim Ryan pointed out, they did look tired.

Offense

  1. The run game went nowhere as the Bears got dominated up front. They successfully executed the short, quick passing game instead. They moved the ball nicely at times doing that as Seattle settled for limiting the big play. In fairness, the Bears did run better late in the game.
  2. Having said the above, the pass protection wan’t bad and Gabe Carimi in particular was pretty good at his new postion most of the time in this respect.
  3. Nice play by Jay Cutler on the first touchdown as he flipped the ball over an unblocked defender to find Earl Bennett.
  4. Cutler was a little erratic today. He was really accurate at times, especially when he threw to Marshall. He was fitting the ball into some very tight windows. On the other hand, there were times when easy throws were off base by quite a bit more than they should have been. He did a lot of damage at important times by taking off and running.
  5. Much was made of Seattle’s big corners and how they were going to handle Brandon Marshall. They didn’t succeed as he once again caught many balls. Admittedly they were short passes. As stated above, the Seattle corners were concentrating on keeping him in front of them.
  6. What a downright stupid decision to go for it on fourth down near the beginning of the second quarter. With the offensive line being pushed around by a physical Seattle defensive front, Lovie Smith had to have been blind not to have seen what would happen. His decision to coach like he’s actually got talent on the unit was really poor. He has to see what’s going on and be smarter than that.

Miscellaneous

  1. Chris Myers did a nice, straight forward job. My Bear senses were tingling as I thought I occasionally sensed a pro-Seattle bias. Borderline calls were often pronounced to be in favor of Seattle even though they were eventually reversed upon a more neutral review by the referee. Myers even continued to argue with former Vice President of Officiating Mike Pereira on the dropped Seattle touchdown at the end of the first half after the score was overturned. Still, honestly, if the bias was there at all it wasn’t enough to bother me. It certainly wasn’t overt.

    Nothing against Ryan, who was fine and who I’ve always liked, but after a long series of seeing some of the best announcers in football, he was a half step down. Teaching moments were fewer and farther between.

    Jamie Maggio did a good job of getting Pete Carroll’s take on the overturned touchdown as she caught him giving the referees an ear full going in at half. And she’s hot.

  2. Seattle’s wide recevers did a good job of avoiding drops. The the Bears Earl Bennett dropped a touchdown in the second quarter. Marshall dropped one near the end of the third quarter that would have been a first down.
  3. A horse collar tackling call on Brian Urlacher all but put the Seahawks in field goal position in the first half. J’Marcus Webb had a damaging false start in the fourth quarter as the Bears were nearly in field goal position. They eventually punted. Julius Peppers had an offsides that sopped the cloack late in the fourth quarter.

    For Seattle Bruce Irvin’s’ illegal hands to the face followed by a personal foul on Alan Branch in the third quarter let the Bears off the hook deep in thier own territory. The Bears eventually scored a touchdown.

    Brandon Marshall had a good penalty as he prevented an interception by committing offensive pass interference at the end of the third quarter.

  4. Seattle kept the Bears pinned up against the goal line for much of the game. I wasn’t entirely sure what the Bears were doing on the punt return early in the second quarter where Eric Weems ran back at the last minute to field a punt. On the other hand the Bears did a nice job of limiting Leon Washington’s production.
  5. The Marshawn Lynch fumble in the first quarter was huge as it stopped a nice Seattle drive to open the game.
  6. This was one you look back on at the end of the year and remember the game that got away. Things fell right for the Bears today. They fumbled three times and got it back all three times. Tipped balls were getting through. They were the beneficiaries of a few borderline calls and a couple no-calls. They played good defense all day, were ahead in the fourth quarter, then collapsed and let it get away.

    I honestly think that Seattle is a little bit of a better team. But the Bears should have won this one.

It’s Only Human And Other Points of View

Bears

“He actually has been OK at times but lapses into poor technique leads supporters to lose their patience. Based on how he played earlier this year, he should give Vikings defensive end Jared Allen a challenge. But in year two at left tackle and year three as a starter, Webb should have advanced beyond the point of semi-regular meltdowns.”

“Gabe Carimi lost his starting job to [Jonathan] Scott this week, but still made an impact as an extra tackle on short-yardage plays. He also played guard for the first time in his life whe he replaced [Lance] Louis in the third quarter.”

Biggs goes on to explain how Carimi handled the switch. Here’s what Carimi himself had to say:

“‘(Center Roberto) Garza helped me out a lot. He looked at me like this (holding his hand up to hide his mouth) while we were walking up to the line to explain the play.’

“Said Garza: ‘Everybody was trying to help everybody. He had never played guard before so I was just trying to help him with little things. We were in a tough situation. No one else could get hurt.'”

Like most Bear fans I sincerely hope Carimi’s future isn’t at guard.

“But I’ll tell you what, Monday night they were sliding to him so it’s (Roberto) Garza, Chilo (Rachal) and J’Marcus Webb and Justin Smith and Aldon Smith bum-rushed both of them. That should never happen. When you have three for two, that should never, ever happen. To me, part of that is coaching. Part of that is guys aren’t doing the right thing. Because the guard should jam the heck out of the D-tackle knowing that Roberto is coming over and then (Rachal) helps the inside of J’Marcus so he can set real hard on the middle of the defensive end. That was probably the most disturbing thing to me. “

Tucker was also extremely critical of Gabe Carimi but I doubt he was taking his knee unjury into account. Its going to be hard to see what Carimi is going to be until next year when we can be sure its completely rehabilitated. Biggs appeared to agree in the article.

  • It’s really unfotunate that Louis’ season is over as Sean Jensen at the Chicago Sun-Times reports that he has a torn ACL. With the possible exception of center Roberto Garza, he was the only lineman who was really having a good year.

“Dan, what’s your take on Edwin Williams? I thought he was better than expected when forced into service last season. I’ve been a bit surprised that Chilo Rachal was playing ahead of him. — Mark Early, Arlington, Va.

“I think Bears coaches are anxious to get a good look at Williams. The thing about him is he really hasn’t had a chance to show exactly what he is. My feeling was that he might be best at center, but I’m not so sure anymore. Williams is not as athletic as Chris Spencer, and he’s not as powerful as Chilo Rachal, but he has more power than Spencer and more athleticism than Rachal. So he is a blend, and he has a chance to develop into a decent starting guard as Lance Louis did.”

I have frequently wondered why Williams didn’t get a better chance at guard. He’s always played well in games when called upon. My conclusion has been that Williams may not be much of a practice player but perhaps Pompei has it right. He might not be special in any one athletic characteristic and that might make him blend into the background.

“It has been a long time since Andre Gurode suited up as a reserve for the Ravens in the AFC championship game last season, but the 34-year-old still went to the gym five days every week, hoping for a phone call.”

  1. Why hasn’t Gurode been signed by someone before now?
  2. Will he have to knock off a bunch of rust before playing effectively (if he’s capable of it) with this Bears?

We shall see. Unlike most of the Bear fans I have talked to, I have some hope that Gurode will provide an upgrade. He had knee surgery two years ago and, like Carimi this year, I doubt he had fully recovered one year after the procedure. The Bears might be getting him right as he’s getting back to a high lievel of play.

  • My impression was that Cutler did a pretty good job of spreading the ball around Sunday against the Vikings. But Biggs points to the statistics which who otherwise. Marshall was targeted 17 times — three times more than the other seven Bears with catches.

“Marshall’s physical play is ideal as cold weather sets in. By breaking tackles, he gained 7 yards after contact on one play and 12 on another [against the Vikings].”

  • McClure points out that wide receiver Dane Sanzenbacher may see some significant playing time tomorrow. Like most Bear fans, I like the undersized Sanzenbacher. But you know they’re in trouble whenever your see him playing.

“Why the Bears’ defense has worked — mostly

“The Bears have played with a safety up in run support frequently over the past several games, with only limited success. But their base scheme has generally succeeded against the Vikings because it does not over-pursue or leave itself vulnerable to cutbacks, a Peterson strength.

“The concern now, however, is that Foster had 85 yards in the first half of the Houston game with the zone-blocking/cutback scheme, and the San Francisco 49ers obliterated the edges of the defense with jumbo packages and ‘wham’ blocking from fullbacks and tight ends.

“‘Anytime we come off a game and something hurts us, we go in, install it, re-fit it,’ [defensive coordinator Rod] Marinelli said. ‘Because we’ll see it again down the line, somewhere, sometime, this week, next week. We’ll see some of that stuff again.

“‘We see the corrections we can make. We go through it, re-teach it, fit it up and then we’ve got to go play fast with it. Beat blocks, get off blocks, all those basic things.'”

The Bears have, in fact, been sneaking that safety up at the last minute all season and doing it with amazing accuracy in terms of predicting when the opponenent will actually run. Up until the Texans game, that is, where both they and the 49ers used that aggressive play calling to draw that safety up, then try to beat the coverage in the passing game.

“‘We were in man coverage and the tight end, he’s pretty good,’ Wright said. ‘In the red zone, they definitely like to use their tight end. The quarterback didn’t look off and Chris made a great break on him. I had him off the line and Chris had him over the top. The formation was triples and they always run their tight end on a seven route on the backside of triples so we kind of knew and had a bead on that.'”

“I’m not going to go into the extent of them but a lot have to do with focusing on certain spots of the ball. It’s almost like you have certain drills you do as a golfer that you work on something but it happens to improve something else because of the focus you are putting into it. Getting down to the nuts and bolts of it, coming up through the ball is something that we have been working on. Something as simple as just keeping your head down past the time the ball has been punted. Not crossing over. Having good drops. Getting down to the basics of it.”

  • I’m not sure I’m entirely satisfied with the way Rosenbloom ended his column Monday:

“Let’s be clear: The Vikings are a bad team. Tough, but not a contender. That made them a good opponent for the Bears. That’s the kind of team the Bears are beating this season. The Bears will face good teams eventually. Good thing it wasn’t Sunday.”

I’ve been as vocal as anyone about the Bears taking advantage of a soft schedule early in the year. But the Vikings aren’t a bad team. They’re an average team and the Bears are an above average team. So the Bears did beat a team at home that they should have beaten. But let’s not degrade the accomplishment. They’re not elite but they’ve shown repeatedly that they’re pretty good.

Seahawks

  • From Lovie Smith’s description, I’d say that, like Chrisitan Ponder, Seattle’s’ Russell Wilson sounds like the kind of quarterback who won’t lose you a game. Via Biggs:

“He’s been steady, he’s done what they asked him to do and he’s mobile in the pocket, makes great decisions and has just been productive for them.'”

  • Nick Eaton at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reviews what went wrong in Miami last week. It appears that the Seahawks took an extra week off after getting one with their bye. The good news for the Bears is that it continued a series of bad road performances for the young Seahawks team. Tim Booth at the Associated Press reviews the team’s road struggles and points out that they didn’t just start this year. The bad news? They may be showing signs of breaking out of it is this statistic is any indication:

“In Seattle’s previous five road games, Wilson performed markedly worse than he had at home. All eight of his interceptions this season he threw on the road. Before Sunday’s game, he had a passer rating of 65.8 on the road compared to 122.0 at the CLink.

“But on Sunday, he went 21-of-27 — including 16-consecutive completed passes — for 224 passing yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions and a stellar passer rating of 125.9.”

Elsewhere

  • Potash on how Vikings quarterback Christian Ponder takes advantage of the presence of Adrian Peterson in the Vikings backfield:

“According to Pro Football Focus, Ponder has completed 63 of 93 play-action passes for 623 yards, four touchdowns and one interception this season. His quarterback rating on play-action is 96.3, much better than his 80.6 mark when it isn’t used. Play-action passes also make up 29.5 percent of his throws, the third-most among quarterbacks.”

  • Whatever else you might say about the Vikings, if you have a left tackle, you are well on your way to stability. From Pompei.
  • Here’s an interesting point made by Judy Battista at The New York Times that has also been noted by several of my friends:

“Q. Why do the Giants seem so inconsistent? – Crabsail, Locust, N.J.

“A.
Let me answer that with another question: Have you seen many teams you’d call consistent this season? Even the ones with the best records have seemed unstoppable some weeks and barely able to hold it together on others. That’s the nature of parity.”

  • profootballmock.com also has the real reason for the sprinkler “failure” in Miami:


One Final Thought

Neil Hayes at the Chicago Sun-Times inteviews an anonymous scout on the state of the offensive line:

“How can an offensive line bullied by the 49ers dominate an above-average Vikings front seven six days later?

“‘It happens all the time,’ said a veteran NFL scout who specializes in offensive line play. ‘Green Bay got shattered by New York [on Monday night]. They weren’t close to what they were capable of doing. Watch them this week.

“‘It’s human nature. I can’t explain it. Nobody can. If you could you would be a billionaire. If you could define human emotion when it comes to a football team or human performance we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. It happens. It just does.

“‘You wonder sometimes. You want to count on this and you want to count on that but you can’t count on anything. There’s an emotional factor and sometimes it rules the game.'”

“‘Sometimes there’s an urgency on a football team that’s difficult to define,’ the scout said. ‘The 49ers had it against the Bears. The Bears had it against the Vikings. When the Vikings beat the 49ers, it was the other way around. Explain that one to me. Why that happens I can’t tell you.”