Sorry, guys. Reality is intruding and telling me that I can’t watch tonight or on Monday Night against the Vikings. I’ll watch on GamePass eventually but not until well after the game ends.
See you in Week 6. Heck, the Bears might even have a new quarterback by then.
Defense
Offense
Miscellaneous
Yet they still managed to pull it out with good defensive play despite repeated mistakes by the other units. Kudos to the Bears for the win and for running the ball effectively in over time. But, really should this have even been close?
Glennon could be ineffective in a lot of ways but two picks, one a pick six, and a fumble aren’t going to cut it on a team run by a defensive coach like John Fox. That’s why Jay Cutler isn’t here any more. It will be why Glennon loses his job sooner than expected no matter how many excuse you make for him and no matter much pressure he faces from a defensive front seven like Tampa Bay’s.
It doesn’t matter if the Bears resort to recruiting high school players for their offensive line or to play wide receiver. Glennon can’t have many more games like this with Mitch Trubisky waiting in the wings.
Having said that, there is one good reason to consider starting Trubisky. All training camp we heard that the major difference between Trubisky and Glennon was that the deep ball was part of the offense when Trubisky was on the field.
It’s possible that Trubisky could get more out of these miserable receivers in that area. I’m not saying it would happen – there’s only so much you can do with the talent you are given – but its possible.
In any case I wouldn’t look for the Bears to start Trubisky before Week 5. After having a good game against Atlanta, Glennon will get at least another game. After that, its Thursday Night football against the Packers on a short week and it’s doubtful that the Bears would start Trubisky under those conditions.
I’d look for Monday Night football on October 9 as the earliest date we’d see him.
I thought the defense, by and large, was OK. They didn’t give up the big play. It’s not like the Bucs ran all over them on the ground. They did face some tough spots with short fields. Another thing the Bears did was allowed long drives. Tampa had drives of 13, nine, eight, 11 and 16 plays. Good defenses find a way to get off the field.
The defense didn’t play badly. But it most certainly was not OK.
Those long drives were a result fo the Tampa Bay offense picking apart a Bears zone defense, one that they were forced to play because defensive coordinator Vic Fangio doesn’t trust his corner backs to cover one-on-one.
When they did cover one-on-one, Tampa Bay quarterback Jameis Winston’s eyes lit up as he threw deep to wide open receivers who were on out matched cover men. Had Winston not consistently over thrown those receivers, the Bucs may have put up a fifty burger, something that may well happen with Aaron Rogers on the agenda in two weeks if something doesn’t change soon.
Hardly ideal to put Mitch in down 23 with O line problems and these receivers.
— Dan Pompei (@danpompei) September 17, 2017
Amen. I wouldn’t want to doom anyone to being the quarterback of this team right now. And I really wonder how much anyone could learn under these circumstances.
8. This was one of the toughest game I can remember having to watch. My only comfort is that it wasn’t the Packers. Yet.I can go on and on about penalties, turnovers and the fact that the Bears are going to have a very hard time competing with no wide receivers and no cornerbacks. But let’s just bottom line this.This miserable franchise is a national laughing stock. Again.
The first thing that I heard after the Bears loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday was the thing I expected. That was because, if nothing else, it was the same thing I heard last year and the year before that.
“We could have won if not for two dropped passes,” one fan said. “We didn’t have Kyle Long.”
One media member said, “Had Bears right tackle Bobby Massie held his block against Falcons defensive end Brooks Reed instead of weakly opening the turnstile, perhaps quarterback Mike Glennon would have found a mismatch in man coverage to complete the game-winning pass.”
And, of course, Bears head coach John Fox got into the act. “I think right now we’re a pretty good football team.”
[eye roll]
Let’s be honest, here. What we heard Sunday, what we’ve heard for a long time, the “What if…’s” and the “If only…’s”, can be characterized as one thing: the mating call of the loser.
These are the words that every losing organization says to itself. But they don’t change the fact. You lost.
The truth is that there isn’t that much difference in talent, top to bottom, in the NFL between teams. Yes, the Bears have a miserable wide receiver corp, the worst in the NFL – before injuries to Cam Meredith and Kevin White. But they also have budding star running backs Tarik Cohen and Jordan Howard. Yes, they have a below average defensive backfield. But the front seven is pretty good and showed that yesterday.
No, though the Falcons were the more complete team, that wasn’t the difference yesterday. The difference was in the little things that went wrong at key moments during the game – little things that always bite bad teams.
You think the Bears are a “pretty good football team”? Good football teams don’t allow 88 yard touchdowns to mediocre tight ends like Austin Hooper.
After taking a day to digest that play, it seems evident now that the team completely blew the coverage. Linebacker Jerrell Freeman played zone when everyone else matched up. Danny Trevathan was spying quarterback Matt Ryan. Freeman didn’t carry Hooper up the seam. Free safety Quintin Demps, left the middle of the field to double Julio Jones. Hooper was left completely uncovered.
You think that the Bears win “if only Massie had held his block” on the last play? What about the two dropped touchdown passes, one by Jordan Howard and the other by Josh Bellamy, just two plays before? If it looked familiar, its because the Bears managed to drop passes in close home losses to the Titans and Packers last year. “If only” Bellamy had caught one of those, Matt Barkley would be a local hero.
Believe me, if it hadn’t been dropped passes and critical missed blocks, it would have been something else. That’s because these are plays that bad teams don’t make. They are plays that the Bears haven’t made for some years now. And that’s the difference between a “pretty good football team” and what they really are. A team that flat out doesn’t come through when it counts, that let’s injuries affect their play, that always makes just enough mistakes to lose.
“If only” the Bears could win the close ones “If only” had that little something, that intangible winning combination that allows them to do what it takes and make plays when the game is on the line. But they don’t. And people are going to have to be realistic and face that as we enter what could be another long year.
There are a couple answers to this. First, the third quarterback on the roster is usually your developmental quarterback. The Bears have one of those – he the second stringer. So you don’t need another one in that spot.
Second, Sanchez can still play a role as a mentor to both Trubisky and Mike Glennon.
“This has all been well thought out. We were honest and up front with Mark about the reasons we value him. It starts with he’s a good player,” general manager Ryan Pace said. “But it also goes into all the intangibles he brings, what he brings to our locker room and the quarterback room. Mike can lean on his experience, and Mitch can lean on that too. He’s valuable for us. He’s the kind of guy that just exudes positive energy wherever he is, and he has seen a lot in his career.”
But perhaps more to the point, Sanchez is a good insurance policy. There’s no guarantee that Trubisky is going to be ready to step in and replace Glennon should that be necessary. He still lacks experience.
Trubisky will now get the first shot should it come to that. But with a poor wide receiver group and an offensive line that is already showing cracks due to injury, Trubisky may not perform well. In fact, it would be fair to say that playing him could do more harm than good. In that case, you want Sanchez available to stop in and take the heat.
Head coach John Fox said that McPhee is “probably in the best shape he’s ever been in” and “We felt confident just watching him move around today.”
GM Ryan Pace echoed that thought:
“Monday’s practice, you felt him out there. He only knows one speed. We’re mindful of that, how we’re going to manage him. But it’s exciting to see. I think you’ll see today with his pads on, the way his body looks, the way he’s moving around. He’s a very disruptive player that provides a lot of pass rush for us. So it’s just exciting to have him back. But we’ll have a plan in place. And fortunately we have enough guys there where we can rotate and be smart about how we utilize him.”
Much has been made of the fact that McPhee is moving better after losing pounds in the offseason. But McPhee was pretty quick even at his heavier playing weight and what people aren’t saying is the real reason for the weight loss. It because it has a dramatic effect upon a player’s knees.
Studies show that for each pound of body weight lost, there is a four pound reduction in knee joint stress. For the average person, the accumulated reduction in knee load for a 1-pound loss in weight would be more than 4,800 pounds per mile walked. You can imagine how much that increases in an athlete that runs up and down a football field for a living.
The hope obviously is that having McPhee play below his normal playing weight will extend his career.
Jenkins is a 6’3″, 327 lb defensive lineman that the Bears signed in the offseason, presumably to be the primary backup for nose guard Eddie Goldman.
The defense wasn’t the same last year when Goldman was out injured and they had little behind him in terms of depth. So it was surprising that the Bears risked exposing him to waivers before resigning him after putting safety Deiondre’ Hall on injured reserve.
It all worked out in the end but it makes me wonder what the Bears were planning to do at the position if someone had claimed Jenkins.
Chalk this one up as a slam dunk win for the Bears.
“For all the early excitement brought by the arrivals of rookies Mitch Trubisky and Tarik Cohen, it’s hard not to feel a bit letdown after the Bears’ final cuts of the preseason Saturday.”
“With only five wide receivers – realistically only three you’d want on the field – and five tight ends plus a fullback currently, it’s clear there will be a few more changes to the team’s 53-man roster, most likely prior to the opener against Atlanta.
“That’s a good thing. Because for the moment, this group leaves you feeling a little flat at best.”
I have to agree. Way too much of this roster looks exactly like it did last year. Even at positions where there were changes like cornerback I question whether the team is actually any better than last year.
The Bears are essentially relying on better health and better play from their previous draft picks for improvement. I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to provide significant improvement.
“Defensively, the lack of star power puts a ceiling on what to expect. The Bears remain the only NFL team without a defensive player who has been to a Pro Bowl. The other 31 have a least one defensive Pro Bowler from the last two seasons. In other words, the Bears are trailing in the personnel department, which showed last season in their NFL-record-low 11 takeaways.”
Of course, I agree. But if you are looking for a bright side I’d say that the Bears do have potential Pro Bowl talent in some of their recent draft picks, namely Leonard Floyd and Eddie Goldman.
By far the biggest problem that the Bears have is the fact that wide receiver Kevin White hasn’t developed. It’s left them totally bereft of a passing game and, though the running game looks strong, there’s a only so much that you can do against good teams without a legitimate passing threat to go with it.
You can’t hit on every draft pick. But if anything has doomed the Bears to an – at best – mediocre season, that’s it.
Langford is just a guy. We just didn’t recognize it because we forgot what a good running back looks like.
“What’s going on here? Has the NFL embarked on a new era of next-level wheeling and dealing? Or are we overreacting to what history will judge as a bunch of relatively inconsequential moves?”
“As the ESPN Stats & Information chart shows, NFL teams have made 30 trades since Aug. 1 through late Sunday afternoon. That’s already more trades than we saw between Aug. 1 and the first game of the regular season in each of the previous nine years. The average during that period was 13.3 trades.”
“Of course, teams have always tried to trade players before releasing or waiving them. So the biggest question to ask here is this: Why are teams giving up draft choices, albeit low-round picks in most cases, for players they could probably have acquired on the open market if they were patient?
“In some cases, a general manager might feel that the available player is either better or better in his system than the profile of a player he might draft if he holds on to the pick. He might also consider the pick a small price to avoid a bidding war or even a free-agent courtship should he wait for an eventual release.”
It’s just a guess but the way the salary cap is handled nowadays may have a lot to do with this.
First, the cap has been rising and many teams probably have more space than usual to work with.
But, probably more importantly, many of the NFL deals in recent years have been front loaded with guaranteed money to make sure that there’s minimal dead space if the player doesn’t work out.
That means that there’s less dead guaranteed money accelerating onto the cap when many of the players are being traded. This was, of course, the biggest reason why trades haven’t been that common in the past.
“Mitch Trubisky’s first start will come … against the Browns in Week 16. The Bears will stubbornly cling to [Mike] Glennon as their starter throughout the season. Not until they finally are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs will they turn to the future and give Trubisky a shot in a comfortable spot: a home game against the wretched Browns.”
If the Bears aren’t mathematically eliminated from the playoffs until week 16, I think we’re all going to be reasonably satisfied regardless of when Trubisky finally plays.
Meet Chargers kicker Younghoe Koo ???? pic.twitter.com/xnYxHV1CW5
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) September 3, 2017
Eye on the ball: Tight end Adam Shaheen was at fault for one of Trubisky’s three incompletions, a pass over the middle that the rookie flat-out dropped. Shaheen had minimal production in exhibition games before Thursday, entering the night with three catches for 18 yards. He bounced back from his early drop to record three catches in the second quarter from Shaw, resulting in 19 yards.
Shaheen is a prime example of why training camp reports should always be digested with a grain of salt.
All Spring into early training camp all we heard was about Shaheen’s athleticism was allowing him to dominate in camp and how fans could expect an immediate contribution from him come September. But the eye test has told us a different story.
Shaheen very evidently has had a hard time adjusting to the speed of the game and he’s having a hard time just catching the ball.
He’s a small school prospect and its way too early to call him a bust, of course. But his early performances have not impressed me and playing tight end isn’t like playing quarterback. We should expect to see better from the second round pick sooner rather than later.
“Inexplicably, the Bears chose to play the last minute as if it mattered. On three of the last five plays from scrimmage in the final 64 seconds, Bears offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains called passes for Trubisky in an irrelevant game they trailed by 25. The future franchise quarterback they protected by calling nine straight handoffs early now was the guy asked to drop back behind the third-team offensive line with nothing to gain from a touchdown pass.”
“[T]hey chose the most precarious path out of the preseason. They put Trubisky in harm’s way behind an offensive line not equipped to protect a player that valuable. As Trubisky lay at the bottom of a pile of Browns after a sack, general manager Ryan Pace must have been apoplectic watching helplessly. Asked about the decision after the game, Fox justified the negligence with familiar coach-speak about the inherent dangers of football.
“How do you excuse taking a timeout with 11 seconds left to run one more play?”
I think Haugh needs to switch to decaf. To be fair, he’s far from the only one. Head coach John Fox has been roundly criticized nationally. Not that he shouldn’t be used to it by now.
The Bears and Trubisky himself have repeatedly emphasized that he needs experience in playing situational football. So the Bears put him in in to what will be a common situation once he becomes a starting quarterback and asked him to play it like it mattered.
I admit it. My opinion on this might have been different if Trubisky was injured. I don’t think so but it admit it might. In any case, he wasn’t and, looking back on it, the risk of dropping back for only a few passes wasn’t really that great compared to the high impact experience gained with the bonus that it came at a time when his mistakes didn’t do any damage that counts for anything.
“It’s a tough call between [Titus Davis] and Tanner Gentry, the undrafted rookie free agent from Wyoming. It looked like Davis got a little more run with the backups early in the game. Neither one should feel too safe if they make it through initial cuts because there is often additional roster movement.”
Davis must be doing things in practice that the average blogger can’t see on a consistent basis. Because based upon what’s actually happened in the games, I’d say that Gentry has done far more to earn a roster spot than Davis. In fact, in contrast to Biggs, my interpretation would have been that he got more playing time in the last game because the coaching staff was giving him a last chance to show them something. And yet we continually hear Davis’s name as a player to be accounted for.
I’ll be interested to see how this shakes out but, as Biggs points out, I think the Bears will be scanning the waiver wire looking for help at this position. It would surprise no one if one or both of these players ends up sneaking through to the practice squad.
“If I had done a mock 53-man roster at the outset of training camp, I would have had Daniel Brown making the team and [Zach] Miller getting cut. Brown didn’t flash a lot in training camp and preseason and I’ve switched my thinking on this one. Miller’s vast injury history is concerning. The Bears surely don’t believe they can get 16 games out him. Not the way his body has betrayed him throughout his career. But Miller can make plays in the passing game and for an offense that doesn’t have a lot of players that can get in the end zone, he stands out as one of them.
I, too, was reasonably certain that the Bears had given up on depending on MIller and that his days were numbered. But it was evident from the first preseason game onward with MiIler consistently appearing in the double tight end sets with Dion Sims and the other starters that the Bears had plans to ride Miller for as long as his body would allow this year, allowing Shaheen to learn behind him.
On the other hand, it might be that the Bears are preparing to give up already on Morgan. That’s a fifth round pick down the drain to go with the likely loss of at least two 2016 picks with cuts at the safety position.