selection7

Hey, you're just pretending to ask a question to make a point, aren't you?? Yeah, I must've been in a hurry to phrase my pont that lazily. Try this instead. Consider that in 5 seasons Tommie has only gotten more than 5 sacks once. Wale has averaged 8.5 sacks per season over the last 7 straight seasons* (and never had less than 5). I know that's apples to oranges, but it's such a big discrepancy that it still should make some impression (since Tommie isn't supposed to be your average DT). Neverthless, I listed the Tommie Harris reference last on purpose just as an additional thought, not the crux of my perspective. *granted, 15 sacks in 2002 certainly helps out the average...but it has to factor in since on the other side of the coin I certainly wouldn't have counted out a season from his average if he had only gotten 3 sacks.

The only time Wale ever had more than 10 sacks was with the Dolphins. Nevertheless, we shouldn't forget he had 9 sacks in 2007 and almost led the defense this year with 5 (Alex had 6). Tommie Harris has never had more than 8 and Wale has done it thrice. It's pretty presumptuous to say he's done as a starter unless you're talking about how his contract figures in or you've carefully watched his play (rather than just rattling off sack stats like I just did).

It's unfortunate Orton getting hurt seemed to coincide with defenses figuring out that pressuring our WR's at the line throws of their route running and timing with the QB (moreso than other team's WR's). Was it Orton's reduced mobility hurting his rhythm or the WR's getting flustered and not getting open? Here's what I do know. Save for Beekman, our starters on OL are 29-33 years old. We can't reasonably expect to replace that all at once (Williams hopefully will help). In contrast, considering Marty Booker out of the equation as a probable starter, every one of our WR's are under 30. And the oldest, Rashied Davis at 29 years, has only been in the NFL for 4 years. The problem is that it's much easier to dramatically improve the WR corps. with just one signing than it is the offensive line, where there's 5 of them and they have to work together as a team to be good. If I had to pick one, I'd nevertheless rather have a blue chip player come in at OL than WR. (Time/no time in the pocket...it can turn a mediocre QB into a near pro-bowler or turn Peyton Manning into a interception machine. A single WR having the impact that Randy Moss had 2 years ago is uncommon in comparison, IMO. Plus, let's not squander having Forte.) The exception is if we could find a blue chip WR whose could make CB's pay for getting too aggressive at the line. Hester's speed should theoretically keep the CB's at a cushion, except he unfortunately has such a slight build for an NFL player. You'd think Marty Booker could hav filled that role with his size, experience and NFL knowledge, and having developed his route running over the last 10 years. But then, when's the last time we successfully brought in/drafted a blue chip WR or OL? Tait back in the day and not in recent history with respect to a WR (I don't think Graham/Conway or Booker back in the day quite qualify)? All our debate about roster improvements may be moot if we're being realistic. But maybe a slight improvement will nevertheless make a big difference.

I so far past tired of the idea of coddling players' development. If Danieal can't play to his abilities because leader, teacher, and motivator Mike Brown is on the roster, then Manning isn't worth having. If Danieal is all that and Mike Brown is in decline, then Mike Brown will only be a blip on his radar as he wins the starting spot and goes to the pro-bowl. Someone slap JA and tell him he never gets to talk like that again. JA already embarrassed himself once with Thomas Jones and I refuse to forget. If he thinks Mike Brown sucks, so be it, but don't tell me he has to get rid of Mike because of Manning's development. He was in his first healthy season back in 5 years and was being coached by admittedly all the wrong people (since JA fired them all, he clearly knows this). How do you evaluate him as hopeless based on that? At this point I could see Mike being intrigued enough (to take even less money) at the new defensive coaching shakeup...as well as willing to retire early if he could play maybe another season or so and end his career in Chicago. It's a special thing to be able play your whole career in one city and Mike is close.

I'm not sure I can ever remember such effusive praise for a position coach. According to recent reports, Rod will: #1 Bring energy and motivation back to the Bears #2 Be responsible for the defense's success, moreso than the DC #3 Turn our wayward freak talent Tommie Harris into the next Warren Sapp #4 Make the Chicago Bears immediately a lot better #5 Be altogether life changing..."a jewel of a man"

This'll seem like a total non-sequitur, but I read this posted on a comedy writer's blog (Ken Levine) and it reminded me of a certain situation in Chi-town. ...it's in the form of a mock Simpsons script where Mr. Burns owns a network TV channel and is referring to Christian Slater's recently canceled tv show: BURNS: Better 19 hours of Christian programming than one hour of Christian Slater. Whose bright idea was that? SMITHERS: Don’t worry, sir. The person responsible for that debacle fired three of his underlings and blamed them so it’s been taken care of. BURNS: Good! Good! I love decisive action! OK, I guess effectively Babich was in fact demoted but I still got a chuckle out of it.

Much has been made over the oddness of Angelo specifically singling out QB for upgrade in a year where QB was a bright spot, mostly because he's spent the past half decade not singling the position out. It would seem to suggest a sort of cluelessness about where we've been as a team...but I prefer to assume it was posturing to get teams to think we'll draft QB rather than what we'll really go for or to get Orton's price down on a re-up of his contract. That he refuses to even name our offensive line as a need gives it away, I agree. Also, considering the amount of money we pay our D, and considering we have D-line players that we know are capable like Wale, Alex, Tommie, and to a lesser extent, Israel, Dusty, Anthony Adams, Mark Anderson, etc. At some point you have to figure out that just pouring money into the D isn't going to solve the problem. So then if coaching is the big problem, how do evaluate your players based on last season (to know which guys to replace)?

You beat me to it. Think about it logically. If Lovie wants to basically take over DC duties, who's he going to get to agree to be a lame duck DC (in-name-only DC)? No one. But if he does take over DC duties but often needs an assistant to help him out when head coaching duties suck away his time, who's he going to get? Same problem, no proper DC wants to be the off-the-bench DC assistant. But Babich can handle linebackers really well and at least has two years of experience as an NFL DC. ...so you demote him to LB coach but leave him as the assistant DC. Since Lovie doesnt' want to be known as Head Coach / DC, he just lets Babich remain with the title. Babich has been demoted. We should be happy. Babich at LB's, Marinelli at DL, and Lovie at DC is bigtime...at least if that combo doesnt' do it for the defense, no combo with Lovie as HC ever will. Someone in another post was commenting how Ayenbadejo didn't like Lovie's hands-off approach...well, I guess Lovie agreed and is changing that for next season in a big way. At the very least it makes next season guaranteed to be interesting, if not necessarily successful.

I'm a big Lovie supporter. If Babich doesn't go and Lovie doesnt' prove me wrong by having a dominant D next year, he needs to go. Team first, not your buddy or your ego. I'm tired of it.

Buth then even a number of people on these forums were predicting 5-11, not one drive away from 10-6. Forte and Orton and (some games) the OL turned out to be better than we thought while basically every position on defense and Hester on returns turned out to be worse.

Haha. Rookie QB's wanting to play but not getting to is probably better for them in the long run though. Especially since they lack the practice 1st team reps.

I don't know who said that, but it's a bit of a lie. Lovie literally said verbatim that their would be competition for the QB position afterwards. That's all I needed to hear. I think even Tom Brady should have competition every year.

I like what I saw of Marninelli on the HBO documentary thing (or maybe it was NFL network). He's a defensive guy (right?) and that's what we need if Babich gets demoted.

Interesting write up. Especially about the WR's. I missed the first half because it wasn't on where I live and I made my way over to a sports restaurant...but I'm a little surprised by your evaluation of our offense. We scored 24 points right? If the other team had scored 24 points and won we wouldn't say "yeah, but it wasn't pretty". 24 points is 24 points, not great all things considered, but your evaluation seems harsh. That's twice as much as this Bears offense used to get before Ron Turner. Also, to continue my defense of Ron Turner (I know you technically didn't mention his name), how do we know he's not strongly responsible for Orton's success? When was the last time we had a good QB? Oh yeah, when Ron Turner was the coach. I guess maybe it's just coincidence.

My favorite quote from today's articles: "Fumbled kickoff return aside, when the 2005 or 2006 Bears put up 24 points, they did not lose. (15-0 in those two seasons when scoring 24 or more points.)" That's pretty damning for Babich. I haven't forgotten the days of shutting multiple teams out per season and holding teams to an average of 10 points...year after year. Where'd it go? Isn't our D paid twice as much as our O? Also, I understand that the columnists are disappointed, but you have to be a stone cold idiot to think that missing the playoffs by one drive and saying you don't need a massive overhaul to be a playoff team is delusional. Ironically, the columnists just end up proving they're even more delusional than the coach. Either that or they think their readers are idiots who just want to hear their own whines read back to them.

I find it hard to believe Orton had no passes over 30yds in the air, regardless, he does after today. The Chicago Bears should never stop looking for the next Peyton Manning or Brett Favre. It's their job. Nevertheless, new QB is no longer a priority. He's already better than half the starting Qb's in the NFL and he's only had one season as a 1st string starter (as opposed to 3rd string starter). Even when he has a poor day we never get a "bad Kyle" day. Most importantly, we're the Chicago Bears, and wouldn't it be foolish to hold out for a Tom Brady when we've got a Kyle Orton and about 10 other positions that need improving more? In all your desire to have an elite QB, don't forget to rejoice we've finally got a good one with a strong arm, great height, leadership, work ethic, ball protection, and poise. Negatives are there, but don't come close to overpowering the positives. Feel free to discuss it anyway.

That's really interesting to hear. It seems many refs are basing their inaction on a sort of psychological fallacy. By not calling it, they avoid deciding that Team A wins on that play, true, but they are still deciding that Team B does not lose on that play. It's as if they don't realize that either way, they are still deciding the game (just not in the most final manner), so why not get it right? Especially since regardless of whether that's a pressure situation for a ref, it's still THEIR JOB. The thing that pissed me off about Collingsworth is he kept saying that bit about needing to hold onto the ball throughout hitting the ground (to prove that the WR had enough control that simply the initial shock from hitting the ground isn't all it takes to knock the ball out), but it was as if he couldn't wrap his head around the idea that there is a vague line that decides where "throughout" lies. What if the Bears receiver had held on to the ball (while on the ground) for another 0.5 seconds? another 1 second? another 4 seconds? Where is the point where you say "OK, he caught the ball, held onto it as he was going down, hit the ground, still had the ball controlled for a period, and only then lost it...so it's a catch." If the NFL wanted the rule to be "You have to be able to flip it to the ref afterward" they should have worded the rule that way. In my mind, Collingsworth was contradicting himself because the Bears receiver clearly hit the ground and was laying there with FULL possession. It was only when the Bear receiver's thigh pads rolled up...that the ball was physically knocked out by the thighpads after he was already laying on the ground on his back with full possession for well more than an instant. Simply put, in that moment where the Bear reciever hit the ground and layed there with ball control, the player was down and the play was dead. Thighpads should have never entered the equation. I feel the same way about pass interference as I do holding onto the ball throughout hitting the ground, you don't get silly about it. If the DB didn't actually do anything to hinder the WR, then it's not interference, regardless of whether he did something that looks similar to what guys do when they are hindering the WR...if you can nevertheless tell that the WR was not hindered, the non-call should be made. It's a distinciton many refs don't seem to get. I'm amazed at how well NFL refs do considering the difficulty, so you'll almost never hear me yell about how the refs suck. But when you're looking at instant reply in slomo with 2 minutes to chat about it, is there any excuse?

Keep in mind, Nfo, if we bring pressure, the CB's need to know they can cover tighter because the WR's wont' have time for triple moves or deep routes (the safety's can still be safe though). How many of you as schoolkids would play sandlot football and during defense someone says quietly "Hey, I'm blitzing this down. Cover your men tight because he'll be getting rid of the ball."? Yet at the pro level where guys get paid a million dollars a game the Bears haven't figured it out? Babich certainly has the D playing better these last two games though overall. And weren't the Saints the #1 passing attack in the NFL?

Apparently Forte can block better than Ced. And he can obviously catch better. Forte seems to be faster. Having said that, Thomas Jones is setting team records over there in New York. Probably neither Ced nor Forte were necessary...but at least JA recovered nicely (from the Cedric Benson debacle). Hopefully JA learned a lesson and we never again take a pick that we don't have a special interest in that high in the draft when we've already got another guy who's the best we'd had in over a decade. And hopefully I never have to hear fans say "He's getting paid so much. It's time to see what he can do at first string (ignoring that if he's actually that much better than the veteran, it should be obvious in his play, he shouldn't need coddling)." Yeah, fat chance I know.

Even though his actual play today was just average to decent overall, Orton's stats were terrible. It's a good thing that Kyle doesn't put up gaudy numbers as long as we win. As long as he doesn't really stumble these last two games he's getting a new contract. It'll be much harder for the Bears to be competitive under the cap in the future if Orton were to put of All-Pro numbers in this (quasi) contract year, so as much as we might like to see him put up stats, it would be a mixed blessing.

Oh, I bet "exclusive in game action" doesn't mean they show every play, so it's only partial coverage.

I go to the NFL.com "companion live" website where it is supposed to show tonights Bear game on the web I assume (it says "Watch Thursday night's Saints-Bears game with exclusive in-game action, highlights, studio analysis, and more"). But no video plays (45 min. 'till kickoff). Will it just start working at 7:15PM? I can't find a "launch player" button or anything.

Don't look now, but even if we don't win the division, there's only 3 teams ahead of us and 2 wildcard slots. Tampa, Atlanta, & Dallas. And Dallas has a killer schedule (Philly, Giants, & Baltimore) so I would count them out, especially after last Sunday's game. Tampa and Atlanta still have to play each other so that's one guaranteed loss for one of them. Also, Atlanta plays Minny, so either Minny will win the division but help us out by beating Atanta, or Atlanta will beat Minny and help make it possible for us to retake the division. There's also other 7-6 teams, so it's still pretty unlikely, but still possible if the Bears win out. Big if, I know.

I liked that part.

Most other teams are dealing with the same problems. Somebody has to win each game. ...and also Detroit was 2 of 'em.