Month: November 2024

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has thoughts on the botched end of the game yesterday:

[head coach Matt] Eberflus mentioned re-racking the second-down play a couple of times and that is where it gets super confusing. The only thing I can think of is the Bears had two calls. Maybe there was a pass and the QB draw and based on the look the Lions presented, they checked to the draw. Perhaps they liked the pass call that was an option on third down if they re-racked it. I’m only guessing here because it was impossible to walk away from Eberflus’ news conference feeling like you understood what happened.

I’m sorry I didn’t post game comments yesterday but Thanksgiving out of town with my family is a bit chaotic to say the least. Concentrating fully on the action just wasn’t going to be an option.

Nevertheless, everyone came to a focus at the end, and everyone had an opinion. As the only Bears fan in the house, the only comment that I had to make was, “Welcome to Chicago”.

Well, that’s not entirely true. It was clear to me that, at its core, when it’s all said and done, this was the result of bad coaching. Which isn’t a great revelation, either.

All that aside, Eberflus’s apparent attempt at obfuscation isn’t terribly surprising. The guess here is that he was trying to protect Caleb Williams, a rookie quarterback who took too much time to get what was probably a simple play off and blew it at the end. There might be more to it than that, but that’s probably the major factor.

When this season began, I tried very hard to temper expectations for this team for precisely this reason. Admittedly, this has been a bit worse than even I thought. But predicting 10 or more wins, which I heard very often from members of the media, was just not a realistic expectation on a team when you are starting a rookie quarterback.

Last-minute comebacks are great, and it’s nice to know that Williams can execute under those circumstances. But let’s not forget that the Bears also put themselves in those holes, and Williams was at the center of it all simply by the nature of the position. Let’s remember what that offense looked like halfway through the second quarter yesterday.

Yes, there are quarterbacks out there who transcend all of that, and that would have been wonderful. Perhaps with better coaching (or possibly any coaching), Williams could have done it. But it was always more likely that Williams was going to have an up-and-down season for an organization that is most often up and down all on its own. The only thing that you can do is ride it out.

Offense

1. The Bears started the game with all of their preferred linemen in their preferred places. So there was going to be little excuse for not protecting Caleb Williams today. Overall, I really thought they did about as well as you could expect. Nice job up front today.
2. I thought that offensive coordinator Thomas Brown showed a lot of confidence in Williams, allowing him to pass twice in a row from his own end zone on the second set of downs in the game. Williams held the ball both times and scrambled without getting sacked and, in fact, ran the ball for a first down on the second 1.
3. Williams was having to use his mobility to escape a pass rush where the Vikings out-schemed the Bears far too much for my comfort. He did as good of a job of it as anyone could expect. But you would hope that it wouldn’t be necessary as often as it was.
4. The Bears needed to run the ball well today. They didn’t, averaging three and a half yards per carry and running the ball half the number of times that they passed it.
5. Man, that sack that Williams took in over time was a big mistake. That ball had to find its way out somewhere.
6. The Bears have been doing OK matriculating the ball downfield, and you can live with that kind of ball control offense. But you have to execute if you are going to make that work. There isn’t much room for error.

Defense

1. A nice job by Jonathan Owens on the first set of downs, stripping the ball from Aaron Jones and then recovering the fumble. That’s pretty good defense. Once the guy is held up by the first tackler, the second swoops in for the ball.
2. Minnesota started the game attacking the Bears to the outside. It looked to me like defenders behind the line of scrimmage may have been playing too passively instead of attacking the line of scrimmage on those plays. They had a tough time stopping the run all game.
3. The Vikings attacked Terell Smith wherever they could. With Jaylon Johnson on Justin Jefferson, that left him on Jordan Addison. That’s a mismatch.
4. Johnson did fine against Jefferson but, though much will be made of Jefferson’s lack of production, the penalties he draws need to count.
5. There was much talk during the week about the poor pass rush from the front four. I felt that the Bears did a better job of doing that this week. A good effort from the defensive line.
6. Tyrique Stevenson missed a tackle early on, and it looked like the Bears pulled him from the game. Then Smith had one at a critical time in the fourth quarter. So who else are you putting in?
7. Far, far too many explosive plays by the Vikings today. I’m sure the Bears will look closely at what happened today and attempt to do something different next time.

Miscellaneous

1. The Fox crew of Kevin Kugler, Daryl “Moose” Johnston, and Laura Okmin did a nice job today. It’s always a pleasure to draw Johnson for a Bears game.
2. The Bears with another blocked field goal this week. It looks to me like the ball is simply coming out low from Cairo Santos’s foot. They really need to fix this.
3. I’ve noticed a tendency for punter Tory Taylor to out-kick his coverage the last few games. It’s leading to some reasonably big run backs. I’m sort of wondering if Taylor is going to take that kind of attack if maybe he should aim to punt the ball out of bounds.
4. Boy, what a huge error by DeAndre Carter in the third quarter. The ball hitting him in the leg inside the Bears’ 20-yard line just deflated the whole Bears sideline. At the time, it felt like the last straw.
5. The onside kick, which the Bears recovered with 22 seconds left, was an interesting play. Santos’ ball really never had a chance to get to 10 yards and a smart team would have left it to die. But that’s easy to say when you arne’ down there at midfield. It was a big break for a team that really needed one.
6. Some critical penalties as always today. But none more critical than the pass interference call on Johnson deep in Bears territory as he tried to cover Justin Jefferson that eventually led to a touchdown. Jefferson is a tough assignment, but the Bears have to be more disciplined than that. They were lucky to get away without pass interference being called before that.
7. Couple big, catchable balls that weren’t caught in the third quarter really affected the momentum of this game in the second half. The Bears aren’t the kind of explosive offense that can afford those.
8. It’s very evident that the Bears coaching staff simply cannot get the players to execute in the way that they have to in critical situations. There’s always some little thing that goes wrong. Little mistakes here and there. The Bears are among the league leaders in pre-snap penalties. The “Venus De Milo” no-arms tackle by Kevin Byard that resulted in an explosive gain on the first play of the second half. The pass interference penalty by Johnson. The blocked field goal from Santos. The failure to catch well-thrown balls. The ball hitting Carter in the leg inside the Bears 20 yard line. All these little things add up to losses. And although it’s all on the players, it really does come down to whether they’re prepared mentally to play the game.

This was a nice, significant step in the development of Caleb Williams. Though I thought the Bears could have handled it better, and Williams had some inaccurate throws late in the game, Williams did far better than most expected today against a team that specializes in the blitz. And, of course, he continues to perform in big moments at the end of games.

Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune has highlighted a recent flaw in the Bears defense.

There was plenty of blame to pass around for the missed kick and many fair questions after the 20-19 loss to the Green Bay Packers. But focusing on poor protection, a low kick, choosing not not to run another play and whether the left hashmark was ideal obscured an issue that has plagued the Bears recently and could be their undoing if it happens again Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings at Soldier Field.

The pass rush, spearheaded by defensive end Montez Sweat, has been lackluster of late, short of the level the Bears need to execute the plan of complementary football they talk about when charting a path to victory.

It’s been really interesting that the defense was under a little bit more scrutiny this week after new offensive coordinator Thomas Brown took over to improve the offensive performance against the Packers. But it important to note two things:

1. The defense held the Packers to 20 points. An average team that holds an opponent to 20 points has every right to expect to win.
2. The Bears offense was held to 19 points. On an average team, that’s considered to be very poor.

The defense is fine. I’m posting this early before the beginning of the Vikings game but I’ll be very surprised if they don’t hold the Vikings to under 20 points, as well, despite the apparent problems with the pass rush.

I guess what I’m saying is, this isn’t what I’m most focused on.

Having said that, it is a problem and the defense would certainly be much better, especially against very good teams like the Lions on Thursday, if they could get pressure without blitzing. In that respect, I thought the Bears plan to correct the problem was interesting.

Defensive line coach Travis Smith said resetting along the line doesn’t mean overhauling what they have been doing.
“Whenever you get some adversity or frustrations, a lot of people look outward to blame or say, ‘We need to do something different, we need to get fancier, we need to look at the trends,’ ” Smith said. “I think reset means let’s reteach us.”

I think “reset” is an interesting word but in my world it means the same thing that good coaches always talk about in situations like this. When there’s a problem, go back to your fundamentals. I’m sure that’s what the Bears defensive linemen spent their week doing.

The Lions on a short week are next on the docket after the Vikings. Here’s hoping what the Bears are doing bears fruit soon.

Defense

1. No surprise. Green Bay came out running the ball and generally feeding Josh Jacobs. And they did it with great success. He’s been the heart of their offense all year, and he had a wonderful game.
2. On Green Bay’s first touchdown, the defense was so bad it’s almost indescribable. Twelve men on the field and men in coverage who had no idea what they were doing. There were so many open receivers on that play that Jordan Love could’ve picked his target. A terrible start for the Bears team that already appeared to be in disarray.
3. The Bears defensive line really got its rear end kicked at times today. Green Bay’s offensive line generally kept Jordan Love very clean and protected. The Bears really need to get more pressure on the quarterback in critical situations.
4. If you’re a Packer fan right now, you’re reasonably upset at the team for some poor red zone efficiency today. There were a couple of times where they had the ball easily within scoring position and didn’t turn it into points. Don’t get me wrong, the Bears defense was good there, and that helped. But Green Bay hurt themselves, too, and had they taken advantage of their opportunities, this game wouldn’t have been this close.
5. Christian Watson burned the Bears on a couple of very good plays in the second half. Good game by him.

Offense

1. The offense came out, and it looked at me like Thomas Brown’s influence was apparent right away. The Bears formations were tighter to the center of play, and it looked to me like there was a concerted effort to make as many of the players look the same out of a given formation as possible. As far as the course of the season is concerned, it may be too little too late. But it’s a good change.
2. It is very evident that the Bears worked with Caleb Williams on getting the ball out quicker this week. It looked to me like Williams was given some answers this week that Shane Waldron just never gave him.
3. It’s not a great surprise with all of the injuries, but the Bears offensive line wasn’t good today. Williams getting the ball out quick certainly helped them, and they did appear to handle pass rush stunts a little bit better than they have the last few weeks. But overall, this unit appears to be subpar, particularly up the middle.
4. It seems evident that Green Bay was concentrating a great deal on stopping DJ more. They were swarming to him and were certainly determined to limit his yards after the catch.
5. Williams getting the ball out quicker also had the effect of keeping the Bears from getting behind the chains as often as they had been the last few games. It was very important to keeping the offense on the field.
6. I love the fact that the Bears score one touchdown right before halftime and it’s like they won the Super Bowl. Packer fans must be dying laughing.
7. I like the fact that the Bears used Gerald Everett as a fullback in a situation other than the goal line where they were using Doug Kramer. They need to go to the power running game every once in a while and I really like that Thomas Brown wasn’t afraid to do that.
8. I expected the Packers to adjust to what the Bears were doing at halftime. But they really didn’t do very much different other than Rush the passer with more discipline. In particular, as Tom Brady pointed out repeatedly, they stuck in a zone defense despite the fact that the Bears often struggled against man defense in the past three games. I guess they decided that holding a team to 10 points in the first half is pretty much what you want. And they have a point.
9. I understand why they did it, but I’m not sure I like the idea of Caleb Williams running as often as he did. He didn’t get hit very much running the ball because he was smart about it, and he slid fairly often and stepped out of bounds. And it did give the Packers one more thing to worry about. But I’d rather see Williams not having to rely on running the ball so often. They had a particular tendency to do it on third and fourth down. Teams are going to pick up on that pretty quickly and start keying on and hitting Williams.
10. There were still quite a large number of miscommunications out there where Williams was throwing to one spot, and the receiver was running to another. The Bears have quite a bit to tighten up.

Miscellaneous

1. Kevin Burkhardt, Tom Brady, Erin Andrews, and Tom Rinaldi were your announcers. With the Packers winning 25 out of the last 28 games, I have to tell you that I get a little bit tired about hearing about how this is still a “rivalry”. Maybe they should wake the Packer fans up when the Bears don’t suck anymore, and everyone should just stop pretending in the meantime. XXXX
2. I heard lots of complaints about the unnecessary roughness call on Xavier McKinney at the end of the first quarter. But when they show the replay from the referees’ view behind the play, it sure looked like he had his hand on his back, and he gave him a shove. It may not have been a strong shove, but it was way out of bounds, and he had no business doing it. Soft? Maybe. But definitely a penalty. There’s no excuse for that.
3. We haven’t heard as much about punter Tory Taylor the last few games. I’ve noticed that teams have started to take his punts inside the 10 and run them back. Taylor sometimes outputs his coverage, and I think teams have picked up on that.
4. The Bears were 12 for 19 on third down today. The Packers were 1 for 6.
5. On the other hand, the Bears still had more than double the nu

Defense

1. Everyone wants to run. But you had to figure that the Patriots really, really wanted to run given what the Bears put on tape last week. They certainly did do that, running for 4.5 yards per carry before they had to run the clock out. They ran the ball 35 times with only 25 passes.
2. The Patriots were throwing the ball right at Tyrique Stevenson whenever they could. Up until this game, he stood up to that kind of pressure pretty well. But today he had a poor game.
3. The Bears defensive line had a very difficult time penetrating against the Patriot line all game. That makes it very difficult to stop the run.

Offense

1. The Patriots were playing man coverage just like the Cardinals did last week. It looked to me like the receivers were having a tough time getting open. The Bears occasionally resorted to little tricks to bump guys open off the line, but other than that, it looked like a struggle.
2. The Bears attack was reasonably balanced until late in the game, and they didn’t do a terrible job statistically rushing for 3.7 yards per carry. But there are lapses. For instance, halfway through the third quarter, the Bears came out and called seven passes in a row. You cannot win ball games doing that.
3. I think teams have that little swing pass to DJ Moore in motion to the right figured out. The Patriots were on it so fast that they almost intercepted one near the beginning of the first quarter on a third down. I know that they’re desperate to get the ball to Moore in situations like that, but it’s time to put that one away.
4. Yes, there were 9 sacks, and yes, the offensive line is a shambles. But there’s more to the dysfunction in this offense than that. I cannot figure out how the Bears could average 1.8 yards per pass and still struggle so badly to get the ball out. I look at what the Patriots do on second or third and long, and Maye gets the ball out on a short slant and lets his wide receiver run. But Caleb Williams in the same situation drops back and has to take a sack. I don’t see that quick slant anywhere in the Bears game plan on 3rd and long when you know that the blitz may well be coming. I can’t figure that out. Williams just isn’t being given answers.

Miscellaneous

1. Daryl Johnston does a pretty good job on these broadcasts, giving us analysis on aspects of the game that fans are otherwise forced to wonder about. For instance, he made it clear that receivers weren’t getting open for Williams, something I think we all suspected but which you can’t see on TV.
2. Drake Maye came into the game having statistically thrown a high number of interceptable balls in previous games. The thought was that the Bears would be able to take advantage of that in a way that other teams apparently hadn’t. Maye threw only 1 interception, an awful throw right to TJ Edwards near the end of the first quarter.
3. By far the most important aspect of this season is the development of Caleb Williams, and right now he looks very uncomfortable out there in a way that he wasn’t the first 5 games of this season. Even when the Bears weren’t winning, he was throwing well and with confidence. But now his confidence is very evidently down, and his accuracy is way off, even when he’s not under any pressure. The Bears have got to find a way to get him mentally right. Do they have coaches who can do that? I have my doubts and have had my doubts from the day Shane Waldron, a former tight end with limited quarterback coaching experience, was hired. We could be looking at a very long second half of the season, and it’s teetering on the edge of disaster for the franchise.

Defense

1. To my eye the Bears started out bringing more pressure than usual in an effort to get to Kyler Murray. I’d say it’s likely that they identified something on tape that made them think that this would work.
2. Of course, once the Cardinals started running the ball well, the blitz became irrelevant. And they did a great job of it. They ran the ball 31 times for 208 yards and 6.7 yards per carry and it was actually worse than that because Arizona eased up in the second half.
3. It does appear that Murray often picks out his target before the snap. If the target doesn’t come open then it looks like it’s pretty much a scramble drill or a dump off.
4. Jaylon Johnson, I know you think you should be an All-Pro coverage man. But we need you to tackle, too, buddy. You’re missing too many.
5. It’s not just that the Bears were being dominated up front. They looked faster, too. I saw a number of runs where backs just plain beat everyone to the corner.

Offense

1. I was surprised at how often the Bears went empty backfield. Most analysts thought the Cardinals would be blitzing heavily. It showed a lot of faith in Caleb Williams being able to hit a hot receiver.
2. Not that the Cardinals blitzed a lot. They mostly picked their spots. It looked like they saw what I did last week. Williams had the most trouble when he expected blitz and they dropped eight into coverage.
3. Once again, Williams looked unsettled by the entire situation this week. His accuracy and timing was just a tick off.
4. Once again, Williams kind of threw up a rainbow pass into Rome Odunze early in the second quarter on a broken coverage. It’s like he’s almost afraid to throw the ball. Again, he’s not comfortable. He’s got to get back to hitting his back foot and letting go of the ball.
5. I thought TV analyst Charles Davis did a good job of pointing out something that I’ve been thinking about Williams for a long time. The Bears had the ball right within field goal range and Williams dropped back and instead of taking the dump off pass to the running back, he held the ball in an effort to get a big play. And he was sacked and taken out of field goal range. Williams has got to learn to take the easy pass in that situation. He has to stop big play hunting and make sure that he keeps the ball and field goal range.
6. D’Andre Swift has been a wonderful find for Ryan Poles and his staff. He’s quick in space, he’s sure handed and he breaks tackles. He’s been worth every penny.

Miscellaneous

1. I don’t know why Even Washburn was so surprised that it was raining during the game. The NFL website said that there was a 30% chance it would happen in their weekly Sunday game weather report.
2. Once again, congratulations to Bears fans in Arizona. We could hear you.
3. The Bears were far, far too undisciplined. They are not, nor have they ever been, the type of team that can overcome penalties and they committed a load of them today. The stats said 6 penalties for 33 yards but it seemed a lot worse.
4. Well, I think a lot of Bears fans knew that the run defense might eventually be exposed once they started playing better teams. Despite the fact that they really aren’t that good, its looked like the Cardinals on the road were the breaking point. They were dominated up front and never challenged Kyler Murray in any kind of a serious way to have to throw the ball. It will be interesting to see where the team goes from here.

I continue to believe that Caleb Williams’ problem is not the blitz. It’s when teams drop eight into coverage and rush four. It seems to leave him completely discombobulated. He’s going to have to get some coaching that’s going to give him answers and then he’s going to have to adjust or we’re going to see this the rest of the year.