AZ54

I agree on the cover 2. It's not about concept but how you apply the concept. For all the griping about the cover 2 you don't here much talk about us going to a cover 3, cover 1, or cover 0 and 4-3 versus 3-4 doesn't determine the DB coverage scheme behind the front 7. I'm far from a football analyst and really can't say much about any cover system except this; Any pass coverage should require players to stop the completion and not just to make a tackle after the catch. I don't have a problem defending the first down line on 3rd and long and forcing plays underneath and making the tackle. Lovie doesn't apply his zone scheme effectively as we drop back to far to defend the first down line. From here on out it's the Lovie 2 we don't like not necessarily the cover 2 or even the Tampa 2 (seeing as Tampa's DBs were much more effective in pass coverage back in the day). Lovie doesn't adapt his scheme to what teams are doing to defeat him (i.e. RB dumpoffs as in Minn game, slants as in Packer game). Things that are obvious to fans.

Not necessarily. I believe there was a desire to link JA and Lovie together to determine where things stand once and for all on the talent level of the roster. It was made clear that Lovie was stripped of ALL personnel authority which means they are telling JA to make the final call on the roster. Doesn't mean Lovie has no input just that he's no longer equal to JA. We have no idea who was responsible for which personnel decisions since the Superbowl but the fact Lovie was stripped of this authority means his choices have not been good. As posted in another thread the 2008 draft class was pretty good. 2007, Lovie's first with influence was bad. 2009 we went after Cutler. If JA was the one pushing that and if Love drove most of the 07 draft and JA most of the 08 perhaps the owners want to see if JA is worth keeping around. I wanted Lovie gone, still do but it's not all bad having the GM and Lovie linked together rather than JA bringing in another head coach only to find out he's not what we want as a GM. Putting money aside perhaps they just felt that JA is worth keeping around another year and that even if it's not ideal to keep Lovie around it's more logical to keep him and if necessary fire both next year and let the new GM choose his head coach. Fans may not agree with this approach but that doesn't mean this isn't how the owners and Philips feel. I agree it's not realistic to say money wasn't a factor because it always is in any business rather I think Philips means it was not the driving factor. One other factor that had to influence the decision was the collective bargaining situation. These owners remember the previous lockout and replacement teams. They have to look at this as another possibility this year, at least I do. Why bring in a new GM or head coach now only to lose a year of performance evaluation on their contract? Reality is if you have a good coach or GM you extend contracts usually with a year left. On a 4 yr deal, if there's a lockout, that would give you only two seasons to evaluate them. Not ideal. Or you give 5 yr deal up front but that's not ideal either.

Keep in mind Martz has never had a QB who could throw on the run out of the pocket the way Cutler can. The right OC can do a lot with that ability.

I'll jump in on this. In OUR situation with a weak head coach the assistants are more important to the success of the team. IF we had a head coach who was a good DC then I feel he could more effectively act as a DC or at least provide good insight and coaching into the meeting room and during the game; and in that situation a lesser skilled DC would work for us. As far as the military analogy we (officers) always knew if we had a good first sergeant the squadron would run well. In short, putting quality people in key supporting roles makes a big difference in an organization. That is the managers job, or in the Bears case, the head coaches job. I'm not a fan of Lovie anymore and wish he were gone. Now that the decision to keep him around has been made if we want success on D we need to bring in a DC who will be independent enough to run the show, even if they are nominally running his cover 2. I see other teams run a cover 2 where they actually cover WRs so it can be done...Pittsburgh won a Superbowl with the cover 2.

I agree with you, they won't fire Ted he's well liked by the family and he has done a good job with what they've asked him to do. Everyone seems to forget, he got them a new stadium and he got a team together that went to the Superbowl. Does the organization need to some updating, yes it's clear they all agree on that but I can see him getting removed from overseeing all operations and going back to being the finance guy. Then everyone below Ted today will be gone if we fail to make the playoffs next year. If Virginia is thinking about letting Brian take over it will all be arranged over the next year and we start fresh from top to bottom.

I don't know a single Redskin fan who likes their owner. While everyone is ripping on the McCaskey's for this past year, myself included, Snyder has had far worse results managing his team.

Harry is gone! We all pretty much knew Lovie would be back because of the contract issue $$$$. I want to know if he's been stripped of his authority to make personnel decisions. Not saying he shouldn't still have input but this role needs to go back to a sole final authority. If things get worse then it will be clear JA heads out the door too. I don't want anything to cloud that issue! Along the same lines I know we'll need to hire a DC who will more or less run something similar to Lovie's scheme but I hope JA has input on the hire and he enforces that the guy has enough autonomy to do things differently in a better way like Rivera did, (similar to how Turner had the reins of the offense). I can't stomach watching another year of Lovie's give-up-the-slant-give-up-the-RB-dumpoff D. It might be hard to believe but a cover 2 defense can done properly to where guys are covered on passing plays. On offense we already know the OC will have the same autonomy Turner did. If there's one thing Lovie's year as a DC has proven it's that he doesn't know enough about football to call a defense much less an offense. I hope we get one of either Martz or Weis. I was never a huge fan of Martz but at this point we have a one-year job for someone to fix things and IMO we need proven successful experience. Both of these guys have the resume that qualifies but are damaged enough that they'd likely take the chance on one year job to get their name back in the headlines. Plus we have the weapons on offense to be successful now. I think they are more likely to come here if they were offered the possibility of interviewing for the HC job if Lovie leaves after next year. No guarantee other than an interview and no guarantee of even keeping the OC job.

I was commenting during the game that even on the long returns we gave up Shaw kept showing up chasing the returner way down field and making the tackle. The guy just does not quit on the play and he has some pretty good speed.

Aren't the Bears required to disclose all injuries or face penalties ala New England? As far as sending Forte out on the field I totally agree. This was Ron "we need to get Wolfe on the field more" Turner.

Pass on Blount. His problems went way beyond the punch he threw, he was causing all sorts of locker room issues all through the spring and summer. On top of that he is slow. He just doesn't have the initial burst you see out of a guy like Brandon Jacobs. Boise State made him look worthless. Maybe if he lost some weight he'd get some quickness back but at this point I'd pass on him.

Can't be said any better than that. I'd like to thank BearFan for clearly stating the case for Lovie and I'd really like to thank Lovie for taking over the DC role to prove what we've all been thinking about his coaching for the last few years. Those two timeouts in the Green Bay game were priceless.

It's totally unclear what FA is going to be given the collective bargaining agreement negotiations. We will be in limbo on this for months if not until late in the summer. Therefore our best hope for upgrading the Oline is likely the draft. I'm all for trading Hester if we can get a day one pick, at least early second (if not keep him) and use it to get a good road grader OG. Lovie Smith is the guy who kept DA on the sideline all year long. I'm ok with firing him and take his buddy Ron Turner with him. We cannot sign Boldin because he remains under contract with the Cardinals for another year. I don't see us trading for him either with the emergence of DA and Knox. In fact I see little movement among our WR unless we trade Hester and I doubt we'll trade him. Therfore I expect we'll come back with the same top 5 WR next year: Hester, DA, Bennett, Knox, Iglesias. I hope we have enough confidence in those 5 to let Rashied Davis move on. Urlacher can definitely return and should be in effective enough next year. I'm not totally against trading him if we get enough value out of it but I think that means we're acknowledging that we're in a complete rebuilding mode. Until Lovie's fate is decided we don't know if that's what we'll do. In the end I believe Urlacher will be with the Bears next year. Pisa is a different story. Injuries are now routine with him but I'd like to have him back at the right price. He is a FA though. I'd also like to keep Jamar Williams.

I see good quickness, good hustle always staying with the play. From a video standpoint if you can't do the highlight of where you are on the field insert a 1-2 second pause at the start of the play it will give people time to find you, assess the formation and the defensive alignment before the snap. The transitions are so fast now it's tough to find you before the snap because you switch uniforms from highlight to highlight and also the camera angle (i.e. you swap from left to right side of the view).

Totally disagree, DManning doesn't have the vision to be a RB. You can see that in his kick returns where he's just full speed ahead at the first available hole. It works good on returns but not so well in a running game. I don't think we need to do anything at RB. We need to fix the Oline and we need an OC who knows how to use Wolfe's quickness on the outside. I would like to see us do something at FB. For those who want a bigger RB I'd rather see a FB who is capable of actually running with the ball.

'C' Why should we think anyone in the organization has enough foresight to showcase someone for a trade. Can't be B because our coaches who want to do everything possible to win would have looked at this a while back. Or not.

Fire Lovie, give final say on personnel decisions back to JA exclusively. Toub can stick around because he's one of the best in the league.

Based on yards per return Johnny Knox is better than both of them. Cribbs has the TDs 3 to 1 over Knox, and of course Manning has 0. However, Cribbs has twice as many returns as Manning, and 22 more returns than Knox. I really like our dual threat and prefer to keep it together. Trade Hester.

First time I've heard this. It's really starting to become more and more damning of Lovie. Now I wonder if Lovie is being spiteful with some of JAs picks. The way you see guys get left on the bench sometimes and we here crap like: "we need to work him in more", or "he's coming along".

I would love to keep this guy around. Leave him at NB, he does a good job there and will only get better as time goes on.

Despite all the efforts at drafting them I have to say a DT is a top need as well. We just got killed up the gut all year long. In this Angelo has clearly not done well but he (or his replacement) needs to be smart enough to know that protecting the franchise (that would be Cutler) is job #1.

Pace is gone and IMO we still need a really good OG on this roster. I agree Omiyale has improved this year but I'd like to move him back to OT and let him and Shaffer compete for the starting RT spot with the backup being our swing guy. We have Lance Louis who is very athletic and I'm not sure where he fits into this: Will we try him at OT next year or keep him at G? Not saying we should count on him as a starter but he should be in the mix for a backup role. That question brings up one of my biggest problems with this coaching staff: player development and player evaluation. I have zero confidence in Harry, Turner, Lovie to coach up players for the Oline and/or put the best ones on the field. Omiyale was a good example versus Beekman earlier in the year. While we acknowledge Omiyale's progress throughout the year was he the right choice for winning games at the start of the season? Pace starting versus putting Williams at LT. Recall we had the one-armed Ruben Brown playing week after week when even he admitted later he couldn't even lift his bad arm. With all the crappy decisions over the years it's impossible to grasp the talent we have in our backups, good or bad.

I am sick and tired of Turner. He always has statements like this. We should have used Garrett Wolfe more, I don't know why we didn't get him in the game. We should have used Forte less I don't know why we kept him in the game, We should have thrown deep more often. We should have called more running plays. We should have a new OC.

Someone needs to work the local media circuit so they can contact the league about this.

If all we get offered is a 3rd I agree, keep him around because he does have more value than that for the Bears. At least there seems to be some agreement that we should be quietly shopping him to see what the level of interest is.

I agree with them on the weightings part, everyone values different aspects of the game. It all depends on the system. Like they said, if you just ignore the overall score and use the individual ratings to evaluate players in the context of your system.