BearFan2000

I got to thinking he'd have to have a shot to be on the cover. He's a game breaker and makes an impact on the game by just being there. Do you believe in the Madden Curse?

Hester should have also gotten that PI on the first throw to him. The Defender never looked back. Later we get flagged for two questionable PI calls. Hester is a freak. That punt return was a thing of beauty. The way the ball hung up there you could tell he was sizing it up. Then the hesitation and sudden burst similar to the FG return against the Giants. Deven can lull you to sleep and then blow by you like a certain #23 who used to play for the Bulls. The guy is just going to get more dangerous as he continues to play. Special teams coaches all over the league are racking their brains and chewing out their kickers trying to contain him. Now if they continue to integrate him into the offense it won't be just the special teams coach who'll be sweating. He's racked up a lot of points in his young career. I have to wonder at some point this coming season do they extend him and try and keep him here for a long time. The sooner they do it the more bang for the buck they'll get but he's already going to command a decent extension.

I too was thinking that the calls were awful one sided and also found it irritating that the announcers had their full homer outfit on. They never once directly mentioned the Giants could win the game. When they brought up how much time was left they'd say it's so many minutes away from perfect season. They made it sound as though the Giants shouldn't even attempted to compete and were stunned that they did and held their own. I was rooting for the Giants (first time I've ever rooted for them) I cannot stand the Pats, they have become an arrogent collection of snobs. There were a lot of instances where the zebras lent a hand where needed. It was convenient that they were allowed to hold in the pocket, wr's pushing off, ect. There was even a late hit out of bounds on Jacobs and they called Toomer for a 15 yard penalty when it was clear the pats player hit late. It was also nice how towards the end of the game the officials weren't paying attention to getting the ball ready for play and were pretty leanient on letting the Giants be held down to keep the clock moving. There really should be an * next to their perfect record. They should have had to forfeit the win that they were caught cheating in. Their punishment was to loose draft pics dependant upon their final record. I forget the details but If I remember right the punishment was set up to favor them whether they ended up with a good record or a bad one. As it turns out they didn't have to forfeit and they were able to count that win on their way to 16-0. Yet they will still pick in the top 10. That wasn't even a slap on the wrist my friends.

While I agree about the timing of the voting. I also agree that Urlacher's play over the last couple games has been more at the level of prow bowler. The voting on the season as a whole. Urlacher just hasn't had the impact this season as he's had in past years as a whole. While I'd like to see him voted in again I can understand why he didn't get the nod this year. I also agree that he may not participate anyway. His focus needs to be on getting back to 100% and having more of an impact on games like he has the last couple. Teams records do play a part in the pro bowl voting also, even if it's just a mental role. The players on teams that are winning will have more promininent exposure and have the spotlight. Look at guys like the RB for the Jaguars (can't think of his name at the moment) finally getting a pro bowl nod after many years of deserving it. It is a popularity contest more than a tallent contest.

Exactly, the rest of the staff should take the cue from Toub. Every game is going to be different an more times than not it won't follow your script. At any given point you have to be willing to abandon the plan and improvise. Here's where I think our coaching staff is weak. They seem to game plan and but either lack the willingness or the experience/knowlege/confidence to improvise and make the right calls as the game progresses. Our coaches seem to have a set script of plays in their heads and don't want to deviate from that. Makes me question whether they have enough of a grasp what their players are capable of executing or the plays available and therefore lack the confidence to do something different. If this is the case then It makes me also wonder if this "script" is the only plays they work on in practice that week, which would make them less confident in their players to execute plays they didn't practice durring the week. There are people I know who if the situation changes and they have to do something different they feel completely lost and have a hard time adapting when things don't go the way they are used to. It's amazing what some people will do to stay in their comfort zone. In the NFL that won't fly. Every game develops it's own flow and the key is adapting to what's happening on the field. You need to build lots of contingencies into your "plan" in case things don't go your way. The other point about Taub's calls in that game is that he found something that was working and kept doing it. He was going to force Green Bay to come up with an answer and couter act what he was calling. Green Bay never did solve the problem. Toub was more than happy to keep the foot on the excellerator. Point is don't assume that since something worked that they're going to figure out a way to stop it any way so lets stop doing it. That does so many negative things in one move. You show that you have no killer instinct. When you've got a team on the ropes go for the knockout blow. There is nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. It makes absolutely no sense to let them off the hook to regroup when you have a chance to put them away. We have lost games this year because we didnt' go for the kill and were content to sit on a lead. If you have the chance to score 21+ unanswered and burry your opponent alive... DO IT. Letting them hang around is only asking for them to come back and beat you. A lot of our sucess last season was jumping up on top of our opponents and forcing them play catch up against our defense. With a large lead our Defense got more and more agressive. Another negative is that it is a self indicting move. It shows that you are well aware that other teams know what an adjustment is and are capable of doing it. While at the same time your own staff seems to shun such radical concepts. I've said it before, and I'll say it again it is a looser's mentality. "I'm going to fail, so why try?" "Yeah it worked this time, but they're going to stop me eventually, so let's stop doing that" Winning teams force you to adjust to them, not the other way around. Dave Toub for Bears Coach of the Year!!!

The thing about that game is that while watching it, I thought I was watching last years Bears team. This is and was the most complete game this team has put together this year. There was energy, emotion, enthusiasm, and effort. Don't get me wrong the wind had something to do with the way the game went. The Packers are used to lining up 5 wide and spreading the defense and throwing mid to deep passes. That wasn't going to happen Sunday. They were stuck playing the shorter game and and relying on the run. The elements took them out of their comfort zone. We capitolized on that. That said both teams played in the same conditions. Orton seemed to have little trouble throwing the ball through the wind. The Great Favre struggled to complete passes. Packers special teams were an adventure. The thing I like about this was we didn't sit there content to eek out a win because the wheather played into our favor more than Green Bay's. After the first botched punt our special teams coach and players smelled blood and went on the attack. Making for a punter's worst nightmare. The defense fed off of that and the offense did an effective job controlling the clock. Time of posession was huge in this game. We limited their opportunities. It was an enjoyable game to watch and it showed this team still has some pride left and they played hard for 60 min. Even in the last min the D was fighting. I loved seeing this team come out and play with heart. It's so much better than the many gutless performances that we've all seen this year. Next week we finish the season playing another team who has nothing to play for. How ironic that our last game of the season we'll face the Saints and neither of us will be in the playoffs. Last time we met we were fighting it out for the NFC Championship game....

I pick momentum. In a season that hasn't gone the way any of us expected winning the last couple games here allows you to enter the offseason on a positive note. We haven't done well with high picks anyway. Finishing 5-11 vs 7-9 won't make all that big of a difference draft wise. Had we ended up with a top 10 pick who here thinks we stay at 10 and who here thinks we trade down? I woul bet we'd trade down unless we could land one of the top offensive OL in the draft. Sure the win possibly moved us out of the top ten to #11 a win next week could have us sitting at #12. I havent' really studied the mock drafts to this point since till the season's over and the draft spots are set it's hard to expect any of these to be completely accurate outside of Miami having clinched the first pick. I think we need to go OL with our first pick. Not knowing he the final draft order makes it hard to know where exactly we'd need to be to pick up guys we need. IMHO Jerry will need to be agressive in the Draft and FA. There are a lot of holes to plug on this team. Fixing the OL will help make some of the other needs not as pressing. As much as I like what Briggs brings to the table tallent wise I say let him walk. At this point there are more pressing needs for our cap dollars. Same with Brendan, he wants too much for an admitted special teams only player. We need upgrades at WR, RB OL, Safty, still need to stabalize the QB position. Too many holes to tie that much money up in guy's like Briggs, Brendon, Moose, etc. Some tough choices face Jerry this coming offseason.

Not completely sold on bringing McNabb here. I like him as a QB and as a player. Our biggest need is OL. With a QB like McNabb he's almost like having a two running backs in the backfield and one that can throw. The injuries have made him take off and run less but you are talking about a QB who is very mobile and to compliment that you need an atheletic offensive line. What makes it tough on the line is the pocket is moving. That said with our offensive line his mobility would be his best asset since he'd be able to elude rushers better than our current drop back passers. We've tried the mobile/running QB before Kordella didn't work out too well. Before you jump on me I'm not comparing tallent but rather style of QB play. A mobile/running QB requires your line to sustain blocks longer they have a hard enough time sustaining blocks for a 3 step drop. I just don't think it's a good fit personel wise unless we really upgrade the line to suit that type of QB. There is only so much salary cap to go around. Can we afford to bring in McNabb AND overhaul the offensive line? I rather doubt it unless we get lucky and stumble onto some studs in the draft and. I know we've heard reports that it's likely Donavan will be somewhere else besides Philly next season, but I kind of doubt he'll be here. I honestly don't see that happening. To be completely honest I was hoping to see some of our younger offensive linemen in the game Sunday and I'm hoping that they play this coming Sunday. We need to find out what we have in them. I don't see the logic in knowing your Oline needs to be improved in the offseason and with 4 games left in the season you are out of the playoffs that at that point you don't start filtering in your younger players to see if these young guys show promise. We had 4 games to evaluate what we currently have to see what we actually will need come FA and the Draft. Yet here we are 1 game left and of the four games we've maintained the same offensive line that we've used most of the season. Once again we'll enter the offseason with no clue if guy's like Beakman will pan out. Why do we have such a hard time building an OL? I've seen other teams virtually start groups of rookies, let them play together for a while and gel and they do fine. The thing with offensive lines is that it takes time for a line to gel they have to work together for a while. Trying a different guy one game and then shelving him makes no sense unless he shows complete lack of potential. I'm so sick of all these freakin false start penalties. We kill our own drives with stupidity. Blame coaching but the personel on the field needs to be disciplined enough to know the snap count. And the personel needs to execute. It's hard to call a game when your players can't execute. That doesn't completely obsolve the coaching it's the coaches job to prepare the players and we've seen sloppy play this year. Both players and coaches are to blame.

BearFan2000 since Da Shrine days ans still BearFan2000 but with an updated avater