AZ54

You've got McClover coming down the middle on special teams coverage and that's going to help, hopefully a lot. To me it seems like that's where we are having the most trouble with our lane discipline and giving up extra yards on KR.

If you sign Brooks who are you going to cut?

Every team has these games. I can think of New England, Indy right off the bat in recent weeks. We are not an elite team, I think we're a good team better than .500 and possible playoff team. Oline struggles are nothing new for any team playing in Seattle. When the OTs have to be watching the ball at the snap it's tough to pick your blocking assignments and that showed all game long especially for Pace who is slow coming out of his stance. I'll take the win and keep hoping for progress on the Oline in the next few weeks.

I certainly agree on Forte being hesitant. He's ok on the plays where there is a hole but when the play is covered well he just doesn't pick his spot and hit it like he did last year. At least then he'd get a couple yards, this year he gets 0 or 1.

He got the wind knocked out of him. Apparently you've never played a physical sport and have no idea what it's like to not be able to breath.

We'll holla at him once he gets a pass thrown his way.

Here's what has to be the most impressive QB stat line I've ever seen for a Bears QB. This is just what he did against the blitz but this was against the Steelers in game 2 with Cutler still getting a feel for our playbook, with three new Olinemen, and Knox and Bennett in their second games. (I know Bennett saw the field a bit last year but no rec) **************************************************** Kudos to Don Pompei for analyzing the game film! http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...,3686467.column The tape shows the Steelers brought five or more pass rushers 11 times, and Cutler absolutely slew the blitz. He completed passes on nine of the blitzes for 106 yards. On those 11 blitzes, he had a 137.1 passer rating, a completion percentage of .810 and an average per completion of 11.7 yards. ******************************************************* We will be a totally different offense the next time we see the Packers versus what they saw in game one.

That one of the reasons Brady and Peyton Manning have been so great for so long. They will take what the defense gives you and still beat you.

Seattle has a lot to think about now. In game one GB used one of their top two CB to cover Olsen meaning they didn't respect our WR. It worked early yet as the game went on Cutler started to find Bennett for some good gains. IIRC Pittsburgh used either a S or LB to cover Olsen and Knox likely saw the 3rd CB or S. As per the Trib article today against Pittsburgh Hester received safety help over the top all game long. Until he lined up in Bennett's spot Knox likely saw the 3rd CB or safety and made them pay. On top of that Knox made that huge play against GB. The Bears passing game is clearly getting better but our running game has been poor. Are we about to see a team drop back and focus on defending the pass?

There are times when it's best to get your body on the ball quickly because a DB hit is imminent and this helps protect the ball from getting stripped. Just because a guy is catching against his body doesn't mean he's not using his hands to make the catch. For sure some WR use their body to stop the momentum of the ball and then wrap their hands around it. That I don't like. However, many elite WR will catch in close to their body in tight situations. Knox provides a good example of this on his TD catch. Instead of reaching up for the ball he jumped high and used his body to shield the defender. He wraps both hands on the ball as it arrives. He didn't grab the ball as cleanly as I'd like, I'm sure he'd say the same, but he pulled it in quickly where it couldn't get stripped away. IMO that's a good instinctive play for a rookie to make. I have no major problems with Olsen's two drops. On the first one he reached out for the ball and it got stripped away from him before he could tuck it away. Should he have made that catch, yes but he's made plenty of big time "hands" catches for us and he'll continue to do the same. On the second one he got speared the moment the ball arrived. I was amazed at how quickly he got back out on the field.

We were at home and our defense was playing well so overtime would have gone to our favor but it's still a bit of a crap shoot. That was what Lovie faced if we missed the FG. However, he relied on a Pro Bowl kicker to do his job. The only thing I wanted was another 10 yards before we kicked. After the first clock killin run I would have thrown another pass in there to try to get closer. I'm not going to argue because we won and Lovie was right.

Congrats. I think it's fair to say she knew the way to a Bears fan's heart.

Steelers have one of the best pass rushes in the league and considering all the blitzes they bring it wans't reasonable to wait on deep routes to develop. I know that as Cutler and these WR get more comfortable with hot reads the YAC potential these guys have will turn into big gains. I saw many more WR pointing out blitzes during the game so it's starting to happen and when it does it will make blitzing teams more hesitant to bring extra guys. Our Oline still has some work to do before they come together but I think there was good improvement from game 1 to game 2. If we get that same step up during game 3 Seattle is in trouble. In the meantime I absolutely love the fact that we can put together 10-12 play drives taking 5-6 minutes. We had a 97 yard drive covering 13 plays over almost 6min against the Steelers D. It's a far cry from recent years when we hoped for a short field to have a chance to score. Now we know we can do it against the best we just need to become more consistent in execution.

I"m pretty sure the hit on Olsen will generate a fine. They were very clear this offseason about protecting defenseless receivers from spearing hits. That was clearly a lead in with the crown of the helmet.

I was on board saying we needed to keep Knox on the roster. I too am surprised at how well he played against Pittsburgh. The way he played against Green Bay was how I expected him to look, a bit wide-eyed. His adjustment on inside routes from game 1 to game 2 is phenomenal especially knowing he went in there against one of the most physical defenses in the NFL. His confidence has to be soaring now. In game one Earl Bennett had a nice game for us. In game 2 it was Knox and most importantly for me were the key plays Hester made. It doesnt' show up big in the stats but it's those quick 5 yards catches on 3rd down that will make him a complete WR for us. None of these guys are a true #1 but it's starting to look like the combination of the 3 can be a solid threat. I still feel DA can be effective for us too.

I think this is only on a 3rd and very long play. Otherwise they'll just run him over. We've done this for years with Izzy but now it's good to see Anderson has gotten his strength and rushing skills up to a level where he can handle an occasional snap inside.

I suggested that Knox return KO in the first game. I want DManning on the field as part of our secondary and I do like how he plays NB for us. What I don't want is him to push things too far and hurt his hamstring again. If that means we have Knox return some KO for a game or two to let Manning get back in shape that's fine by me.

For some reason I am just not as "down" on the offense, QB and WR, as others. I am not saying I was happy with 4 INTs, far from it. I just expected a lot of growing pains in our first few games and especially the first one. We started Bennet who had zero rec last year, Knox a rookie, and Hester. We had 3 new starters on our Oline and a new QB. All of that went into Green Bay, a difficult place to play against an arch rival. What I saw was really bad play by almost all units early but improvement as the game wore on. Pass protection got much better late in the game, although it still needs to get better. Run blocking was poor throughout. WR made more plays in the second half and actually did some damage (i.e. big yards) against GB secondary. It's that improvement that has me confident we'll be able to get things going soon. This week we go up against Pittsburgh who has a better D but without Polamalu I don't think their secondary is nearly as good as GB. Their LB are much better though so the Oline needs to have learned their lessons from GB and be better at picking up their blocking assignments. If they do that, Cutler will move the ball against Pitt. I don't think we'll run the ball well this week but it still needs to be in the game plan to keep them off-balance a bit. And I don't think going 0-2 will spell the end of our season. If we come out of the first quarter of the season at 2-2 then we'll be fine, and really by the end of Oct I think we'll be 3-3 worst case. Assuming the arrow is pointing up for our offense the second half of the year should be better for us. I think wins against Seattle and Detroit and very likely. Beat the Steelers and we could have a great start to the season.

Knox is not ready for prime time but I do like getting him some reps in the game. The guy I'd like to get on the field is DA. He's a bigger WR and should be better suited for the quick slants against press coverage. I think we only had 4 WR on the active roster so the coaches would have to decide between Knox or Davis. I vote for the future.

Nothing was going to work until our Oline blocked pass rushers or opened some holes for Forte. Pass protection got better in second half run blocking didn't. I'm not sure what plays you can call when you are losing the battle up front on every play. Once that straightened out everyone else looked better, not great.

I don't want guys injured, I want them hurting so bad they get off the field. Like Urlacher did to Garcia years ago when he was the backup QB in Detroit. Ran through him so hard he was done for the season. I think Favre is primed for a similar take down this year.

With Aromashodu hurting I'm wondering if Knox is active tonight and plays as our KR. DManning is coming back from a hamstring injury and I think it would be wise for the coaches to limit his workload tonight. I sure hope it isn't Rashied Davis back there returning kicks.

Unfortunately for them they don't have anything but preseason film on the Bears so their isn't much to get prepared with. Sure they can go back to last year but we have a new QB and there's no comparison between what he does in this offense and Kyle Orton. On defense we are the same except we might be different. The D still goes with the Tampa 2 but what that means for their preparation largely depends on how good our pass rush is from the Dline. We already know they are going to be setting up differently (on an angle at times) than what we saw in the preseason. Today they put this article in the Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...0,5562815.story On the surface doesn't look like a big deal but one quote caught my eye: Hoke played under defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan and head coach Neill Armstrong. He learned from the way Ryan dealt with players and said it influenced his own coaching style. "You knew Buddy was in charge of the defense," Hoke said. "He made that exclusively clear from the get-go. Everything was detailed in what he did. He taught a very aggressive style, he taught the players to be aggressive." It's just pure conjecture on my part but Lovie fired his DB coach and brought this guy in for a reason. All preseason our DBs continued lining up way off the LOS but was this a smokescreen? I know we're going to continue in a cover 2 setup but might we finally line up our CBs closer to the LOS and play the quick slants better than the past? I hope so.

Maybe they released it to add one more thing they have to plan for, or at least think about.

Plank got a defense named after him, one of the most famous in the history of the sport. That's pretty good consolation prize.