AZ54

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/roster-moves-bears-sign-harris-cut-sowell I'm assuming this means Hicks isn't likely to play which is a huge hit to our Dline. Sowell will likely just stay in town for when he returns to the roster in the next week or two.

At this point the best you could do is beat a 2 win team.

They will do what the Packers did and cover over the top forcing Trubisky to his short reads. They have a good enough pass rush with 4 Dline and we have a bad enough Oline for them to get early pressure often. Might be why we just brought Sowell back. Could be we load up with some 3 TE sets or have one of these TEs in H-back/FB position.

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/roster-moves-bears-sign-sowell-waive-whyte It'll be hard to miss Whyte. Not sure what the plan is with Sowell and now 5 TEs on the roster.

Great win, but it was costly. Gabriel I think had a concussion and Hicks left with a knee injury and a walking boot on his ankle. Maybe it was just my impression but did we see a return to Fox-ball (run-run-pass) in the 2nd half? If Montgomery ever gets a running lane he'll be known around the league. I'm not putting him in the same level but I honestly have not seen a Bears RB do that well with that much poor blocking since I watched Payton. The hate for Trubisky is literally off the charts even after completing 80% of his passes and a 116 passer rating. You know that happened only because he was on the road against Washington, on MNF where he always come up short, and you know it was because his Oline was playing great along with a strong complementary running game like Prescott had a week earlier. Comparatively speaking I wish the Oline could play as poorly as Mitch has, and I include all 3 games in that. In the first half fans were complaining about 3 missed passes. Fans are now watching to see if ANY pass is slightly off target and saying he's inaccurate. Yet they have no clue what the receiver is supposed to do after the cut, nor even how consistently the receiver runs that route against that coverage. This is on a completion. For years after his career was over Terry Bradshaw refused to go back to Pittsburgh. I understand why now. All the noise clearly got into Trubisky's head and he hadn't played well in two games. He started out shaky too against Wash. After all the years of struggles we might be happy but we're not willing to give him some time to get back on track. The internet has produced closet QB experts everywhere and they all know exactly what was supposed to happen and how they would have thrown the ball. I have no idea which way Trubisky's career arc will take him. He might melt under the pressure and flame out completely, or he might take off. Now the real question is why isn't anyone asking to bench Kyle Long? I'm a big fan of his but to be honest he can't play much worse than what he's done so far. Yet we get this: https://www.pff.com/news/pro-pff-nfl-offensive-line-rankings-following-week-3-of-the-2019-nfl-season?utm_source=PFF+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e0cbf313ad-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_09_24_QB_and_oline_ranks&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_ae3f4210bf-e0cbf313ad-191301673

The Oline has been a bigger problem than Trubisky but you'd never know it if you read the media reports.

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/injury-update-pineiro-questionable-with-knee

He was ok. He has talent along the lines of Chad Pennington and he was very accurate at times and horribly inaccurate anytime he was on the move.

I'm giving Trubisky the benefit of the doubt too. I was optimistic like most after hearing how well he understands the offense and I still believe that's true. However, calling the plays, knowing the plays, blocking schemes etc. does not directly translate to reading a defense. With that said, last year Trubisky was completely lost in the first few games. Despite all the uproar this year he's nowhere close to looking like that QB. If he was, and with all the other issues on offense we'd be in even worse shape. I guess means we'd be ranked 32nd instead of 31st . Overlooked are many of the good throws Trubisky made that were well defended. It's a mixed bag for sure but he's making more accurate downfield throws than he was at this time last year. Anyway, everyone has had a hand in the poor offensive play. Assuming Nagy was trying to bring in version 202 of the offense this year it's clear his entire unit wasn't ready for it. So now we reverted back to the basic plays, something Vic was probably ready for after seeing the offense go through this last year. We all saw an improved running game in Denver albeit an inconsistent one. Assuming we stick with that early on against Wash, we should start seeing a bit more of the 202 offense on passing downs. Especially with Burton back on the field. I'm optimistic too in part because Shaheen started playing like a man this past week. Plus we're already leaning more on Montgomery as opposed to the overweight Davis. If this continues it should help get the short passing game going when plays break down (outlets) or they pull away a LB who could be spying on Trubisky enabling him to scramble for more yards. That freelancing ability is where Trubisky has the most value at this stage in his career. He didn't make the Pro Bowl as a pocket passer so Nagy has to allow him to use that. For his part Trubisky has to become more comfortable taking the easy underneath reads earlier in the play and enabling his playmakers to do their thing.

Nobody wants to hear that. Trubisky played good football for most of the game but word on the (internet) street is that Nagy took the football out of Mitch's hands. I have to wonder if he took it out of the hands of his pass blockers after seeing how poorly they played. You knew Chubb and Miller were champing at the bit to get some sacks as much as Mack and Floyd were. Mitch as room for improvement but IMO the Oline needs more work than Mitch at this point.

Too much emotion on this one but I always take my wins anyway we get 'em. It was a tough game but I think this is a huge confidence boost for this entire team. Montgomery is the real deal. He finds more yards when there is nothing than anyone I've seen in a long time. The Oline owes him a steak dinner for some of his 3-4 yard gains. Trubisky was average but he didn't lose the game. On his one deep pass that was overthrown I wonder if he knows that at that altitude the ball will travel about 10% farther? If he didn't he does now. Nagy started out conservative but stayed that way I think to a detriment of the offense. I hope he can get all cylinders firing soon. The D is still the real deal.

Idiots

Nah, I was wrong. Signing the new TE and moving Abdullah to the practice squad had nothing to do with Dax Raymond. Preseason hero James Vaughters was let go off the PS to make room for Abdullah. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2019/9/13/20864491/chicago-bears-sign-abdullah-anderson-to-the-practice-squad-release-james-vaughters-roster-j-p-holtz

Technically I think it was involved but we could have just moved to bring the new TE to the practice squad if we wanted him there.

Abdullah is now on our practice squad.

Andrew Luck just retired because he's tired of being injured. Does anyone here seriously think he wants to line up behind our Oline after what we saw last week?

From what I can gather on film. everyone was taking a turn. Line getting beat and confused sometimes. RBs /TEs same . QB not taking the “ layup” when it’s there. Blitz pickup plan was confusing . This is one of the rare times you can actually say EVERYONE needs to get better. https://twitter.com/olin_kreutz/status/1171580252671348739?s=21

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1171885239649624064 Never heard of J.P. Holtz but the TE position was so bad last week that it makes sense to try something. I hate to lose Abdullah because he seemed to play well and earned his spot over Bullard. Hopefully he's back on the practice squad tomorrow. Holtz..he's big and slow but can catch so he is not a backup for Burton. There is no way we're keeping 3 TEs of this type. It's possible this is just a one week tryout and the Bears took advantage of the fact he had just been on the active roster. I think that makes him easier to cut versus when you sign someone directly off a practice squad but I could be wrong. OTOH either Sowell or Shaheen is injured and can't play this week, or one of them is about to get released once Holtz is up to speed a bit on the offense.

Or maybe Davis, who is just standing there watching the LB come free up the gut, could just step in front of him. Why is it Trubisky's responsibility to tell ARob to cut off his route when there is a blitz? ARob has to read that after the snap too.

I'd never look past their D especially given the edge protection issues we had last week with Leno and Massie. Massie was better than Leno. We better be able to run up the middle on their D or find a way to seal the edge with better blocking from both Sowell and Shaheen or we'll go nowhere again.

The notion that the hot read or the outlet was always open is also false. In some cases the hot read might have been a 3rd down completion but without a chance for a first down what is the point of doing that? I'd try to force the ball into a spot to see if we can get the first down. See the 3rd and 1 play where Shaheen and Robinson were the two options after a fake handoff. Green Bay played it perfectly and if Trubisky tried to throw to Shaheen it might have been picked off although more likely just incomplete. He tried to come back to the inside receiver but that was a no go. Once again with pressure in his face he ended up diving a yard short of the first down marker. I agree sometimes the underneath options were wide open and Trubisky was still too focused downfield and came off that read too late. We ended up with no gain, a sack, or a short gain that was half of what we could have had if he were quicker to decide. Lots of room for improvement for him to just take what the D is giving up.

https://twitter.com/rapsheet/status/1171790541488578560?s=21 The backup has been around for a few seasons so it's not like he's a rookie.

Much of this depends on which plays you choose to highlight. YOu can easily make a highlight film showing all of Trubisky's bad plays and think that's it. You can make a video just as long showing all the Oline issues that is equally convincing. Or you can make a video of all our running plays that is really short.

Try this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1084&v=c_e4nkDaj-4