Bears
- Brad Biggs at the Chicago Tribune thinks Monday’s debacle was finally the end for Bears head coach Marc Trestman. Its the first time all year the veteran reporter has said so and he’s probably the reporter in town whose opinion I have the most faith in when it comes to these sorts of things:
“Aaron Kromer, spared for the time being, seems destined to go down with Trestman as well at the end of this season, which mercifully is less than two weeks off.”
“(null)”
“Those in league circles have reserved serious doubt over the last two months that the Bears would move on from Trestman after only two seasons — and with two seasons remaining on his contract. It’s not the way the McCaskeys have conducted business in the past. Heck, they brought back Dave Wannstedt after a four-win season in his fifth year. But things were never this out of kilter when Wannstedt was in charge.”
No matter what the Bears do, no matter how many coaches or GMs they fire or don’t fire, they’re going nowhere as long as Jay Cutler stays. I can’t imagine they’ll eat that unfortunate contract they signed him to earlier in the year but there will be no hope whatsoever that they’ll be better next year if they don’t.
- Rich Campbell at the Chicago Tribune on general manager Phil Emery‘s pre-game comments:
Emery was extremely angry about the Kromer situation. His comments during the pre-game show on WBBM-AM (780) indicated as much. At the risk of misinterpreting them, it sure sounded as though he would not have been as lenient or forgiving as [head coach Marc] Trestman was in permitting [offensive coordinator Aaron] Kromer to remain on the staff.
As I’ve said many times, GMs have no business commenting on the state of the team too often during the season. Generally the players need to hear one voice and that is the head coach’s. In this case Emery could do no good and a lot of harm by commenting. As it stands, most of Chicago is now under the impression that he is distancing himself from Trestman. Whether that is true or not, it does no one any good to communicate it and it leaves people with further proof of the organizational dysfunction that is becoming more and more evident under his watch.
- Matt Bowen at the Chicago Tribune offers the insight into the Bears situation that comes with being a former player:
“To be honest, players want to be held accountable. They want to be pushed, challenged. That’s how they improve and it resonates throughout the building when poor performances are deemed unacceptable.”
Somewhere along the line I think Marc Trestman got the impression that NFL players would hold themselves accountable without interference from him. Probably in an ideal world, that would be the case. Sadly, it doesn’t seem to match reality. That should have been evident way back in September when linebacker Lance Briggs decided to take the day off to open a restaurant. If it was, it was probably too late by then to do anything about it.
- Biggs addresses Kyle Long‘s situation with the team and wonders if they’ll ever move him from guard to tackle:
“[Ndamukong] Suh, who the Lions will attempt to re-sign in free agency, isn’t the only three-technique tackle in the NFC North to concern the Bears. The Packers’ Mike Daniels and Vikings’ Sharrif Floyd are emerging young talents.”
“Teams construct rosters to have matchup advantages against division opponents and shifting Long to tackle would create a void for the Bears six times a season if Suh remains with the Lions.”
That’s a good point. I’m a believer in the Marc Trestman/Aaron Kromer theory that teams should keep the pocket clean from the inside out with strong guards as the anchor of the line. I think I like Long where he is.
- Defensive coordinator Mel Tucker on covering Calvin Johnson and, presumably, the other Lions receivers. Via Adam L. Jahns at the Chicago Sun-Times:
“‘We have to play tighter coverage, be more disruptive on the routes and we have to hit the quarterback more,’ Tucker said. ‘We’ll work to get that done.”
Too little too late but its nice that Tucker finally is adjusting to his situation. At the time of the first meeting he thought he could bring pressure on Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford and take care of the Lions receivers in soft coverage. That hasn’t worked all year, dating back to the preseason.
- Hub Arkush at chicagofootball.com continues to lose my respect by taking cheap shots at the Bears for their decision to bench Cutler:
“Ironically, Cutler with his 28 touchdowns, 18 interceptions and 89.5 passer rating rates a notch above Matthew Stafford, who has 19 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and an 87.8 rating. Stafford does have 157 yards on Cutler with 3,797 to Cutler’s 3,640.”
“Perhaps that is why Stafford hasn’t been benched?”
Arkush knows perfectly well that Cutler’s stats were accumulated in garbage time of horrendous losses. Often the games were close with very low scores at half largely because of the offense’s ineptitude. Cutler is a fantasy quarterback.
You don’t have to agree with the Bears decision to go with Jimmy Clausen – there’s plenty of reason to be skeptical of Clausen. But these kinds of cheap arguments should be beneath Arkush.
One Final Thought
For those of you who haven’t seen this parody of the podcast, “Serial”, from Barstool Sports, you need to listen to it. We may never know who murdered the Bears.