AZ54

I lean far more toward 1) Age 2) luck and when I consider the league wide issues I suspect 3) the collective bargaining agreement that prohibits practice tackling, two-a-day practices, etc. Lift weights all you want but tackling to the ground, and being tackled to the ground is different. Practice it before the season and it gives your body time to gain that strength. Practice blocking on Oline and Dline more often (i.e. OTAs) and you get acclimated to the stresses, and timing of contact, you'll have in a game situation. Don't practice these parts of the game for 8 months and you lose it. I'm not an advocate of full contact practices throughout camp but I believe more contact is necessary than what they do these days. Briggs...injured shoulder while landing with his arm extended trying to make a tackle and a defensive player lands on his back further driving him into the ground. Classic way to dislocate your shoulder. Fail to see how a different weight lifting program changes that. Tillman...been battling a sprained knee all season. Tore a triceps muscle in a game. Again, he hasn't been able to do much more than suit up for games with very limited practice all season. Possible weight training issue. Melton...blew out his knee trying to move around a block. Avoiding weightlifting moves (i.e. squats) as Rusty did would have avoided this? I don't see that as a cause-effect. I think squats better reflect the demands placed on a player's body during a game than the various separate exercises on machines Rusty reportedly used. Collins....see above DJ Williams....torn muscle. I'll agree with potential for weight training here. Kelvin Hayden....torn hamstring, needed surgery. Didn't see how it happened so don't know if that's an issue where he was just running or doing some cuts in traffic and lost his footing. Could be a workout issue. Paea...turf toe. Never heard of a training program to avoid this. Meanwhile on offense, where our roster is younger, we don't see as many injuries. Martellus Bennett has played through his shoulder issue but it definitely impacted him. He got injured going sky high for a Cutler pass in the endzone and landed squarely on his shoulder. I'll submit that part of this is luck too. This is a physical game and reality is younger people heal quicker so what may start as a minor strain in a muscle doesn't escalate to a torn muscle a week later. A players age cannot be ignored when looking at injuries and the length of time it takes to recover from them. Past injury history is also a factor for older players. As they say, after the first game everyone is playing with some pain or injury.

I do count the Packer game because we had more pass rush there than we'd seen in weeks. Sure Rodgers would have handled that better than Wallace but still in that game i felt we were in better spots more consistently to defend plays than we were against Washington. Still had plenty of gaps in alignment against the Packers but again coming forward another week to the Detroit game that got better as well. I'm either ahead of the curve here and soon the stats will back this up or I'm off my rocker once again after drinking too much kool-aid. We'll see how we do the next couple weeks. The loss of Tillman will hurt because Bowman is not nearly as good in run support but that's the edge plays and the inside run defense is where I think we've improved. I'll throw this out there too: I think after the last game Bostic has come even with D.J. Williams play. Even if Williams were to come back within a game or two I don't think he'd get his job back. We'll never know that but I'll rely on the rest of the board to let me know what they see out Bostic the last couple games and in particular the Detroit game.

Over the last two games I like the progress I've seen on defense. The Packers minus Rodgers are not the same team but other than bouncing off Lacy and a some missed assignments during the game we had people in the right place most of that game. Against Detroit, minus another starter (SMC) we held our own against their run and passing games. Not even close to what we saw against Detroit in the first matchup this season. I checked on some stats and I'll be honest I don't see it showing up there so I got nothing to back me up. From an execution standpoint I felt our LBs and Dline were in better position and making contact around the LOS more than we were a few games back. Tom Thayer seems to have found a few positives too regarding Paea's performance. http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/vid...9d-b66288c98f52 I'd say Bostic had a good game as well and looked a lot more comfortable on the field. We still have gaps in talent (I can't even name our backup DTs right now) but I'm giving Tucker some credit despite the injuries and turnover I think he has the D headed in the right direction.

Trestman has integrity and that, IMO, bodes well for the future. I agree we should have pulled Cutler, if not at the half, midway through the 3rd quarter after it was obvious he couldn't move.

Looks like we have stunned silence on this one. Congrats to SMC.

He never played the run very well when he was in his prime why would that be different now when he's also not playing the pass very well? Two moves in the middle of the season likely takes away one strength (Peanut covering the edge and his run support) and creates two weaknesses. Give Peanut and off-season to practice at FS then I'm good with him there. I see no reason to sign Asomugha.

We run a west-coast offense predicated on quick releases. He can do that and I think his arm strength is better than he's given credit for.

Packers were out-coached and out-GM'd (if that's a word). Emery did a far better job setting up our backup QB position while the Packers were playing musical backups all the way up to the beginning of the season. Trestman had his backup more prepared than McCarthy did. I include McCown filling in for Jay against Washington in that assessment. On the other side our Oline, for the first time shutdown their pass rush schemes. Run blocking was hit or miss but overall was effective. Now about fixing our special teams, can we get Toub back?

A QB I watched play last week and was impressed with his ability to throw the ball. He's not mobile and may not have the deep ball arm strength so he might drop a bit in the draft. Yet his abillty to hit receivers in stride in the short to intermediate game is very good. http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/nfl-dra...ails-to-deliver

Great win. Saw some good things tonight from several players and many things we must improve upon. SMC...great game.. Make the hustle plays that's where you fit in. Peppers...finally influenced the game throughout. We needed that tonight. Rookie LBs...lot's to learn here....stay in your gap. I still think the future is bright for these guys but the learning curve will be painful. DTs....we really need Ratliff to shore this up. On offense everyone stepped up but game ball goes to McCown. He was really poised throughout the game. My other game ball goes to Marc Trestman. He had a game plan that worked very well.

It is time to settle this down with Steltz. I'll take the slower but surer tackle than all these missed assignments and missed tackles.

He had a great game.

I am assuming this so-called 1yr contract is in fact a contract for 8-12 weeks? Not a bad bet at all and hopefully this not only helps us later this season but if he plays well ideally it helps us to sign him to a new contract. There are no guarantees but surely if we gave him the best offer this year, and if he likes playing for the Bears, he might appreciate that enough to at least give us a chance to meet any offer he gets on the FA market.

Well said. Ask a Cowboys fan how they like their new 1-gap scheme which just happens to be ranked 32nd.

This is a good thing. That article makes it sound as if he is now healthy but likely not in shape to play. Even if he can't help us now he might be a big help in 3-4 weeks. Signing him should mean we can get Wootton back to his natural DE position and SMC back to his backup DE position.

I agree there is probably some truth to this but I also think there is a bigger part where the new guys just don't know how to adapt the defensive calls based on offensive alignment. Briggs can't exactly run around talking to each player just before the snap. As players have said, they need to learn it and execute it.

Lol, I might try it in a few weeks...nah I can't do this. Far from the old days when we did 16 400yd runs at 68sec with 1min of rest. The only good part of that was practice was over in 32 min. For an athlete playing a professional sport the Bears test should be easy.

Why would we do that? Peterson is a great athlete but he is not a great cover corner. Not yet but I think he'll get there. Anyway you're proposing we give up a lot of our draft picks so we can force him to change positions to something he's never done. He's better than our corners but isn't worth giving up that much.

Step into the light Mr. Bostic, it's your time to lead: http://www.chicagobears.com/multimedia/vid...2e-325baf272cba Keep blowing up the FB and shedding OL blocks and he will shine. Just has to learn it in the heat of battle now. I've watched this three times now and that hit on the FB still makes me smile at the thought of what is to come down the road.

I'm not totally surprised by this as the Steelers, then the Saints, and finally the Redskins showed a variety of looks in those games that we had never seen before and assignments were rmissed. I think the eye test we all see is that when they get their assignments correct, which is the vast majority of the time then they can hold their blocks. Long and Mills have played just 7 games, 3 of them against 3-4 defenses. They will get better as will Kromer and Trestman regarding game planning and play calling.

Draft Will Sutton out of ASU to be backup 3 technique, he should be available in 3rd or 4th Rd.

Perhaps you and I are the only ones who saw some of those plays Bostic made in the backfield for a loss. 6 tackles is not a bad way to start his career as a starter. I know it wasn't all good for him, especially early on, but once he sorted out his keys on their running plays he showed up. I'm very optimistic on his future for us. Wootton, playing out of position, impacted quite a few plays although his stat line doesn't reflect that. I even thought McClellin impacted a few plays as well. Cohen and Bass showed up a few times in the backfield as well but none of the Dline play was consistent enough. Peppers is not impacting plays. Even if you don't make a tackle you expect to see him get some penetration to break up a play. DT and DE is going to be a big focus this offseason. I give the Redskins credit for going to a no-huddle offense late in the game when we had two rookies at LB. Without Briggs to get players aligned quickly that was very effective.

I'd sign Cutler to a new mid-level contract, one that is written so we can get out of it easily if need be. Of course that means we'll be paying more per season but so be it. There is no way I want to commit to a rookie running Trestman's complex offense. Then I'm drafting a QB in Rd 1-3 to groom as Jay's replacement. If Jay improves or stays on the path he's been on this first part of the season then no worries as he stays our starter and we've got a solid backup. In general I think we need to go Dline in Rd 1 but if there is a QB there that Trestman believes can be our long term starter then I'm fine if we go get him. If everything goes great and Cutler improves to play at an elite level then there is plenty of precedent for trading your backup QB for another early round draft pick if he has shown some ability.

Has anyone seen Julius Peppers? He was a little bit more active today than the last game but watching the Redskins show no fear in running right at him for the game winning TD, with no need to double team him, says it all IMO. We can criticize all the others but the fact is he's the only one on our Dline getting paid to handle double teams and when teams can block him with one guy then that frees up blockers to get on our LBs. Regardless of cap hit I can't see Emery beginning the overhaul on D (actually continuing the overhaul since he focused on LB this past draft) by keeping Peppers around for this much money. You can easily replace Pepper's contribution on the field for a smaller contract to a vet FA ($2-3mil) and have money left over to address other needs at DT.

For vet min I'd keep him plus I think we'd get a little discount on the salary cap by doing so. When you consider the salary cap discount it's not worth pushing a rookie out there to return kicks IMO. To save special teams $$ I think Weems has to go and I prefer to fill his spot via a rookie or vet FA WR, preferably one with speed to mix in with our giants on the outside but can backfill on special teams as well. It's not that hard to find those guys among FA WRs coming off their rookie contract. Keep Hester back there as primary KR/PR for another season. If Hester demands far more than vet min and can find another team to pay him that then goodbye and good luck to him.