Month: December 2010

Jaguars owner Jerry Richardson is promising changes in a letter to PSL holders in Jacksonville (via Steve Reed at the Gaston Gazzette).  But Mike Florio at profootballtalk.com questions Richardson’s commitment:

“‘I want all of you to know that we plan to look at every aspect of our organization,’ Richardson wrote. ‘What we do in the future will entirely be geared toward putting the best possible team on the field. I am committed to fielding a winning team, and I’m willing to invest the resources necessary to make it happen.’

“Plenty of Panthers fans would take issue with that last statement. If anything, it appears that Richardson has tightened the belt. And there’s a growing belief that, when it’s time to hire a new head coach, Richardson will refuse to dish out the kind of money that would attract a guy like Bill Cowher.”

In Richardson’s defense he’s likely going to face a problem this year that all of the owners are facing.  Its the collective bargaining agreement.

With so much financial uncertainty its going to be very hard for anyone to dish out money to do anything to change any organization.  How can you hire a new coach and a new staff only to pay him a huge mount of money through a lockout?  I know that protections against a lockout have already been built into contracts and will continue to be.  But who is going to want to pay two coaching staffs even a minimum amount of money not to work?

What’s most likely to happen in places all over the league is what’s already happening in Denver, Dallas and Minnesota.  Fired head coaches will be replaced by assistants who are already being paid.  This is why head coaches are being fired especially early this year.  In Minnesota, owner Zygi Wilf can already claim that his team got better under interim head coach Les Frazier.  In Dallas Jerry Jones can say the same about Jason Garrett.  These owners can now claim that they did the best thing for their franchises while simulataneously protecting themselves financially in a lockout.  Obviously Broncos owner Pat Bowlen, who fired Josh McDaniels early,  is hoping he’ll be able to claim the same about interim head coach Eric Studesville.

I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Richardson do the same.  But it won’t be to hire Cowher or Bill Parcells or Jimmy Johnson or anyone else like them.  No one around the league will be looking to do that.  Its going to be a great year to promote assistants this off season.

From Brian Urlacher via Vaughn McClure at the Chicago Tribune:

“I was pissed off a halftime (of the Lions game), too. But it was three plays: the long run by Jahvid Best and the two passes, with the Calvin Johnson touchdown. That’s all they had the whole game. They led to points, sure, but they had 123 yards on three plays. They didn’t do (anything) besides that”

That’s true enough.  But it was those plays that made all of the difference.  Those three lapses are going to be the difference between winning and losing most of the time when you play a bend but don’t break defense the way that the Bears do.

Urlacher knows that.  But he’s better off not minimizing it.

Kudos to Brian Van Ochten writing for the Grand Rapids Press at mlive.com for nailing the real issue behind Ndamukong Suh’s unnecessary roughness penalty:

“In the fourth quarter, referee Ed Hochuli didn’t hesitate to toss his flag upon seeing Lions superstar rookie defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh take what appeared to him to be a cheap shot to the back of the neck or the helmet of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler as both players approached the sideline.

“It resulted in a personal foul that put the Bears in a first-and-goal situation.”

“It happened in the season opener at Chicago, right?

“The ruling that stripped Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson of an apparent go-ahead touchdown in the final moments of that contest because he failed to control the football all the way to the ground, was just the beginning of it, right? It was such a rotten call that even Jim Joyce could smell it.”

“It happened on Suh’s phantom horse-collar tackle against the Dallas Cowboys, right?

“It happened on tight end Brandon Pettigrew’s offensive pass-interference call against the New England Patriots on Thanksgiving Day, right?”

“‘I don’t care if it’s a penalty or not,’ Suh insisted.

“The problem is he needs to learn to care about that stuff.”

“‘What for?,’ Suh responded when asked if he should adjust his game due to the officiating. ‘There’s no reason to.'”

“It’s up to the Lions to become a much more disciplined team if they hope to get through the painful process of learning to finish games.”

Dead on.  If the Lions are ever going to win games, they have to be disciplined or they are going to continue to find ways to lose games.  The difference between the Bears and the Lions was never so evident than it was on the two controversial penalties the Lions incurred against them.

Sure, Johnson “looked” like he caught the game winning touchdown pass against the Bears in week one.  But calls to change the rule that cost him that catch buried the lead.  He dropped the ball at the end of the play when every receiver in the NFL knows very well that you have to get up off the ground with it in your hand to erase all doubt.  Otherwise, you open yourself up to the call that was made.

As I said in my game comments Sunday, whether you thought the call against Suh was a good one or not, the fact remains that if he thinks even for an instant and shoves Cutler with his forearm just six inches lower, there’s no question of a penalty on the play.  GM Jerry Angelo said it best:

“The officials made the right call. It’s unfortunate. I understand the heat of the moment, but our players know better.”

Guys like Brian Urlacher might not like it but the Bears do know better.  Defensive players aren’t allowed to run around and be neanderthals anymore.  They have to think about where they are hitting players and lower their target in the same way that offensive blockers have to stop before blocking a man in the back.  Its a tough thing to do in the heat of the moment but players on good teams do it.

The message is clear.  If you can’t play under control and with discipline, you aren’t going to be playing at all.  You learn or you lose.

That may sound like a rather obvious and mundane headline.  But its not.  Here’s why via Dan Pompei at the Chicago Tribune:

“The Bears played their nickel defense on 72 percent of the Lions’ snaps.

“The Bears used nickel in part because the Lions played a lot of three wide receivers. But they also used nickel at times against personnel groupings that do not necessarily call for nickel defenses. They played nickel on first down 11 times, and they were in nickel for 13 running plays.”

Pompei goes on to point out that the Bears may have preferred nickel with strong side linebacker Nick Roach sidelined for most of the game.

The reason this is significant?  I can remember situations less than a year ago when the Bears couldn’t even stop the run with the standard front seven.  They were constantly bringing an extra safety into the box, especially when current linebackers coach Bob Babich was the coordinator.

Now the Bears are stopping the run with just two linebackers in the game.  It’s a measure of just how much better this defense is this year over past years.

From The Detroit News:

“Chants of ‘Let’s go, Bears,’ rang throughout the day, occasionally getting shouted out by Lions fans. At several points Bears defensive players were imploring the crowd to make some noise.

“‘Chicago is a close town, only four hours away,’ (Drew) Stanton said. ‘So it’s not surprising. We anticipated that it might be an issue, so we were prepared to go to a silent count if we needed to.'”

I have never in my life heard of a team needing to prepare to go to a silent count at home.  Apparently the Bears are still traveling well this year.

Its hard to point to one but Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune pointed out what I thought was probably (collectively) the most important reason why the Bears beat the Lions yesterday in hisFour Downs feature:

“The Bears were resilient on defense. Charles Tillman blew outside contain on Jahvid Best’s 45-yard run in the first half but manned up on Calvin Johnson on the outside. The Lions receiver made just two receptions for 20 yards against Tillman.”

“[The Bears] held Ndamukong Suh in check, focusing on him with Kyle Vanden Bosch out. Suh, who should win defensive rookie of the year, had four tackles and one pass breakup.”

Even though Johnson did have a touchdown reception at the end of the first half, I’d say the Bears did a pretty good job of containing the Lions two best playmakers for most of the game.  If you do that, you will usually win.

Mike Mulligan at the Chicago Sun-Times addresses head coach Lovie Smith‘s half-time motivational technique:

“Bears coach Lovie Smith isn’t one to get caught up in extremes of emotion, but that didn’t stop him from directing some well-chosen words at his defense at halftime of the team’s 24-20 victory Sunday against the Detroit Lions.

The Bears trailed 17-14 at the time, having just given up a two-play, 91-yard touchdown drive. After watching defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli lay into the troops on the sideline, Smith gave his own motivational speech at halftime.”

“‘Everybody doesn’t curse and do all that stuff,’ [D.J.] Moore said ‘You can see on someone’s face how mad they are or whatever. You can feel the words for yourself.’

Nobody seemed to remember exactly what Smith said, but he got his message across after a sloppy first half in which the Bears’ defense missed countless tackles and allowed the Lions a whopping 253 yards.”

Smith has come under constant criticism for his (apparently) calm demeanor as Bears head coach.  They think every coach should be Mike Ditka.  But consider this.  How long did Ditka last before he lost the players?  Like everyone else I loved Mike Singletary’s now famous rant after the 49ers loss to the Seahawks last year.  Singletary’s an emotional motivator.  But where are the 49ers now?  Rumor has it the players have already stopped listening.

The bottom line is that Smith, like all the rest of us, needs to pick his spots in order to be effective.  He does a good job of that.