AZ54

We have played against some good to very good defenses IMO. I include the winless Steelers in that assessment. Offense OTOH have been good (Bengals), bad (vikings), bad (Steelers), good (Lions). Considering that I think the Oline has done very well especially considering we have 4 new starters and two are rookies. The Dline is an issue for and even more so now that we lost Melton. Yet Peppers has recovered and now looks like the player we all love to watch. This will help a lot moving forward. Wotton has been solid. I think Paea and Collins can be solid but we need to see it. The problem is there is nobody behind the DT starters and really SMC hasn't done much either to backup the DE's. If this continues we'll struggle all season long. LBs have also had issues with DJ Williams returning from missing almost all of preseason. He's looked better lately but has plenty of room to improve.

I tend to believe this a lot more: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/be...ed-players.html Consider the comment in there that the Dline believes they may have been tipping off the stunts by their alignment or where they were looking before the snap. Something changed in the second half because they played much better and Izzy was still "reading" their signals.

Yes, miss Toub. We were better disciplined in staying in our lanes under Toub than we have been so far this season.

I think Wooten is doing fine as a DE. Trying to play him at DT for a lot of reps won't work but for a few 3rd and long situations during a game I think it's a good idea. Again, I don't see Emery making this trade or even contemplating it as we need all the depth we can get on our Dline right now.

With the Chargers in serious need of outside LB help, and the Bears in serious lack of pass rush ability from McClellin I'm curious how many here would consider trading SMC to the Chargers if they inquired? And if so what would you want in return? The Chargers have Melvin Ingram and Freeney out. Freeney is a stop gap on their roster so they could view SMC as a long term solution for them opposite Ingram. For our part the Bears are already getting Washington reps which IMO indicates they know they aren't getting enough out of SMC so they are hoping they can speed up Washington's development. Washington needs a lot of development so for him to be on the field when we have our top 3 DEs healthy says a lot IMO. With it being so early in the season and with such a promising start I think Phil will be very hesitant to make a deal. I don't think he'd consider it for less than a 2nd Rd pick at this point. That's where I'm at right now too because even though he's underperforming there isn't even as a good an option behind him. If Washington starts to show something against the Saints well then let's talk.

One might think he is qualified to know what a thug is since he lives in Detroit. That he employs a player voted by the NFL players as the dirtiest in the league should also give him a clue. Perhaps because he sees thugs all around him he assumes the Bears have the same type of players.

Finally Unga is cut and gone.

Totally disagree here. Kromer worked with Payton for years, even before they worked together at New Orleans, building game plans to defeat defenses. He was chosen to run the team in Payton's absence specifically because he understood best what Payton would do with the offense. Perhaps he's not as polished as a play caller but game time decisions are different than setting up a strategy. There is no way after all those years working together he does not know how Payton will want to attack our defense. While many focused on the Saints record in the first part of the season, Kromer's specialty, the offense, scored 32, 27, 24, 27, 31, and 35 pts in the first six games. This season the Saints have scored: 23, 16, 31, and 38. There are valid reasons to believe Kromer has an excellent understanding of what the Saints will try to do. Sean Payton will know this and may try to do something different here and there to see if he can catch us off-guard but in general attacking a defense is done by defining where you have an advantage. I believe Payton will stick to that until we prove we can stop it. Knowing what they do does not mean we can stop it. Can we really cover Graham with a LB? Can we get a good pass rush on Brees to force shorter throws? Who can keep up with Sproles on passes out of the backfield? I don't know if we can do those things based on what we just saw in Detroit but we should know they are coming at us.

This is needed. We can't keep giving up short fields due to lack of either distance on punts or lack of hang time giving returners time to avoid our coverage. Again, Emery is focused on execution and if you are not performing he starts looking.

Regarding the offense and other teams adapting to what we are doing, I agree they are sitting on the short routes. In terms of looking for the diversity of plays I think it is still headed our way. I still some direction of players on where to line up as they come out of the huddle. We've just had two away games one against our first 3-4 defense...really the standard when it comes to the 3-4 in terms of mixing up coverages and blitzes. The second away game was against a team with the best DT combo in the game and was in a loud dome. We still have two rookies on the line as well as four new players on the line in a new scheme. Those were not the games to be adding a lot of new twists to our offense. We split our road games, now we return home and it's time to add to the mix.

Their LT can't stop Peppers. They will have to do something to help him which will only impact their passing game by keeping someone out of a route. I expect much better play from our DTs this game as well. i agree with the assessment of our offense...run.

Horrible game by Cutler and he went back to his bad mechanics as the game wore on. He was inconsistent all game long and I have to wonder now if that hit at the end of the Steelers game gave him some soreness that affected his motion, or a hit during the game. Regardless, that has nothing to do with getting rid of the ball on time and protecting the ball when pressure arrives. We are 4 games into the season. Teams have enough film now to know our offense and Detroit often went 8 and sometimes 9 in the box to take away all the underneath stuff and bet on their pass rush to get their before we could exploit the deep routes. They were right for most of the game and they got into Jay's head because he didn't step up on his throws.

What has that got to do with our non-existent LBs getting off a block to make a play? DTs too. Things tightened up in the 2nd half but still these guys need to perform better.

I'm not optimistic about this signing but what else do you find in the middle of the season. He does know the defense so should be able to step in right away if that's what the coaches want. I prefer to see what Minter can do first. Not that I have big expectations for him but he did earn a roster spot for a reason.

Exactly the defensive game plan I was thinking we'd do. We'll see what Tucker has in store. Burleson out also makes it a bit easier for our LBs to focus more on the run and screens with Bush back in the game. I wonder if that was a Chicago style pizza that took our Burleson?

But at least they fined him: http://www.steelersdepot.com/2013/09/repor...wyer-fined-21k/

I think Anderson is quite a bit better in pass coverage than Roach ever was. I wish I had data to back that up but then again it's only 3 games. Nonetheless I say that Anderson has a better knack for getting into the right position to defend passes. OTOH Anderson only has 3 games of experience in our system (versus Roach's years) so there is reason to think he'll only get better as he is more comfortable with his assignments. He has out-played DJ Williams so far but I hope that trend is changing based on what I saw in the Steelers game.

No trade, he has no value to our roster and we need cap room for last minute signings to replace guys like Melton. Freeman does not know the offense (duh), not sure he knows any offense at all at this point. Let him get cut and if we have some interest I'd bring him in for a work out and see what the QB Whisperer says. I was never impressed by Freeman even when he had some decent stats but there are other issues that need research. I want to know why his teammates did not want him to be a captain, or was that the result of his head coach interfering in the vote process? Either way there are problems. It's impossible to know what all is going on in Tampa but the team is a mess and when I see two or three players give up on a tackle and allow a Patriot a free ride into the end zone I know the team, at least parts of it, has quit on the coach.

The Buccaneers have quit on their coach. Watch some of the game highlights and you can see some matador tackles.

I watched the Steelers game again with a lot of slo-mo for both defense and offense. Peppers is nearly back to his old self. I think he's still not back to where he was in terms of his energy but he was bringing it in the pass rush and on run D. He does get double teamed a lot because nobody else on our D line is worth worrying about consistently. I think with another week to recover from the flu and now with his hamstring obviously healed up (TD run as proof). FWIW...There was a strain of the flu out here in AZ in August that made a lot of people miss a full week of work including my daughter who was affected for nearly two weeks.

Paea should be our starting 3 technique, he'll be far more productive than what we've seen from either Melton or Collins there. Park Collins and Minter at NT with Collins also getting some time at the 3-tech. We must get some push up the middle and Paea is the only one who's shown he can do that with any consistency and he's doing it from the NT spot. In fact we won't find a decent 3-tech on the street as those guys are too valuable so if we are going to sign someone grab a big body who can handle the NT spot for run defense. We can cover the pass rush downs at NT in other ways.

Do we really need a QB named Chuckie?

Ditto that.

I expected a very physical Steelers team to show up tonight on both offense and defense, especially the defense. That's exactly what we got. We had the game in control until we hit their punter and that ended up giving them a TD a few plays later. Yet on the road where the momentum changed in the home team's favor the Bears responded on both defense and offense in the 4th quarter and that is what good teams do. It's not all perfect, we're still missing a pass rush and we gave up far too many big plays on D. The Oline must get better at run blocking. Our first draft pick in 2014 will likely be a DT. Depending on who drops it could be a CB but I think DT is going to be at the top of our wish list.

This... and the fact they won't go anywhere without a QB in today's NFL so might as well go all out for the right guy. I think Lombardi is right to make the deal for a 1st Rd pick. On Richardson's durability I haven't watched him play but some RBs are better at avoiding the big hit. LT was very good at it in his prime. Other RBs just run into defenders. Not sure where Richardson falls on that scale but if he takes a lot of contact that has to be a factor when considering his longevity.