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How huge was the reduction in penalties? No way we'd have won this game with 90 yards in penalties like in other games. I was holding out on judging Gould about it, but now I feel comfortable going ahead acknowledging it looks like he added nearly 5 yards to his kickoff distance over the offseason, which is awesome. It's been a long time since that was a positive for us.

I never said such a thing (unless you mean a comment about a specific game). I've said I want to see him go 4 games playing efficiently (not necessarily great) without many turnovers and without losing his cool. I'm not sure that he's done that (because of last week's pick to the Tampa lineman and this weeks' semi-meltdown in the 3rd quarter). I want to see consistancy. If he can't even do that, why should I think he can be a QB of the future? But I certainly don't want him to fail, like you. To comment about Kyle in general: Keep in mind that Hester dropped a very deep pass to Hester for a sure TD...woulda helped KO's stats a good bit. Ended up being a punt. Also, he hit multiple passes of 20 or more yards tonight, though the longest one was dropped, so that helps reduce one of my major concerns about Kyle (a little bit). Also, his first pick he was getting hit while throwing it, which is much preferrable to a bad read or inaccuracy (though Kyle held it too long and didn't sense pressure, so it's still his fault). His second pick was very nearly pass interference in that the defender blocked our TE's route on a timing pattern. That one wasn't Kyle's fault at all from what I can tell (except that maybe he shouldn't have thrown it at all if he saw that guy in the way). But as an offensive coordinator, you know that's the risk you take in implementing timing routes into your offense. His fumble on the sack was very Rex-like...didn't make me happy. Nor was his second half pocket-presence/awareness any good...and he might have had a sack or two less if he hand't held the ball so long. Ultimately, Orton seems to be unfazed by it all (success and failures), which is important if he's going to make it. Kyle did worlds better than Roethlisburger and did it with no running game, so with all things considered I'm satisfied with his play this week. He hasn't proved anything yet, but I never realistically expected him to by week 4. It's been an entertaining season so far and right now we're tied with Green Bay for the division lead. Go Bears!

I think you're right, though it could be just that he's throwing much less dink and dunk. I've been watching Orton throw the occasional laser for 4 years now, yet I've still been seeing him described as noodle armed on messageboards lately, but I guess haters will be haters.

Hey, where's Bears88? I know he's been so despondent about Orton's play lately that surely he's absolutely ecstatic for Orton now that he's killing it...you know, considering that he's such a huge Bears fan that just wants the Bears to do well and all.

On a poitive note, Orton has posted a better QB rating than the opposing teams' QB in his last 6 straight games. Unfortunately, I have to agree Orton is probably in for it this game unless Turner gets really clever about how to handle the Philly pressure. The streak will probably end with McNabb at QB, but then we wouldn't have to play the games on Sunday if all this was definite. I imagine that once the season starts, players get their best workouts from actual game time rather than practice (the starters anyway). Maybe last weeks' endurance test (they failed) gave the Bears' D a good enough workout to be in slightly better shape for 4 quarters tomorrow. I'm scared about how opposing offenses will exploit us if they figure out the 2 min. offense wears us down quickly.

Rashied Davis is a converted cornerback. He's probably never going to be Mr. Hands but maybe he'll keep improving. I'm not confident in our coaches' ability to evaluate talent at the WR position. So I want to see receivers given a chance to show it or blow it on the field. Booker's not all banged up nor is he over the hill quite yet (he's a little younger than Moose was when we got him). I'd like to see if he can still get open but first Turner has to call his number once in a while.

When was Harris last hurt? Last year he played hurt and played well. How is it that after resting for 8 months he's worse? Both the thought that we could be without his dominance in the short term and that he could never be the same player are too hard to think about. I'd rather be in denial for now.

I don't say anything about him because I can't watch the deep secondary closely enough without widescreen or Tivo. But what sticks out in my mind about him last week was that atrocious tackle (miss) in OT crunch time. Week 1 it was allowing the only TD. Other times too, though not as memorable. It would be nice if he would stop sticking out in a bad way. Although somehow I've forgotten exactly what happened on his pick last week so I guess that would be sticking out in a good way.

dabearsdabomb, if you're not the person on these boards who's been most tentative about about anointing Hester the god of kick returning, then I am, but even I can't argue with the effect Hester has on field position when the other team is afraid to kick it to him. There's a big psychological factor there for both our team and also working against the opposition. I think our guys block harder for him because Hester makes them excited about doing their job. If he's not twice as good as anyone that's come beforehand, as some like to think, then he's at least a very special player...and much of that big contract won't have to be paid out if Hester doesnt' make it as a WR. I got fooled on that, straight up predicting on this board that JA wouldn't redo a rookie contract with 2 years remaining, but JA put so many conditions in the contract that it ended up being doable.

Some exaggeration on Kyle's inaccuracy though. Reading Noots summary I was thinking "what? I don't remember getting aggravated at his innaccuracy on the medium and short stuff", so I checked it out. Kyle only missed 12 passes all day. minus 2 (at least) for outright drops, minus 2 (at least) for deep misses, minus 1 for the pass striaight to the TB lineman...and you're left with 7 incomplete passes. And unless you're claiming nearly all of those were incomplete due to innaccuracy, then likely you're looking at Orton only threw 3-4 inaccurate short/medium passes out of 34 attempts. Sounds about right considering I almost surely underestimated the drops and deep balls (on the other hand, maybe a couple of completions were only the result of significant adjustment by the reciever). Anyway, that won't win him any awards but it's good enough to win.

No, you're crazy.

I agree that overall the D didn't do bad, they did somewhat good overall, dominating part of the game and getting torn up the rest. Offense also had both 3-and-outs and impressive TD drives. Overall, I'd say the D was actually better than the O, but they're supposed to be, according to their pay grade. It's only one game. If Tillman's a man he'll come back next week with double desire and concentration. But IMO it's completely fair to say he lost the game for the Bears, which is something I usually never do since it usually means oversimplifying a complicated loss. But the reality is that while LOTS of guys made individual gameplay/coaching errors to help TB out, only one guy made an unsportsman like 15 yd automatic first down error to "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory" as others keep putting it. Thankfully, our two close losses aren't divisional.

I didn't. I took it back. 2TDs, 1 pick. no fumbles is more fair, but certainly not kind. The defender had his back turned the whole time and Orton took advantage of it. Hit Forte right in the breadbasket and the other guy stripped it away. You're arugment is seriously flimsy. Forte was too well covered to do it any other way. Now, the Booker pass was obviously underthrown, but I'm not talking about that play, and that play didn't turn a TD into a INT. Today Orton showed he can avoid pressure, run for first downs, hit deep passes, execute screens, lead long drives, recover from a serious mental error, and protect the ball. It's absolutley CRAZY to talk about replacing him after next game...unless hypothetically you've got someone clearly better and available (which you don't). We were likely one wide open Rashied Davis drop away from winning that game in overtime with Orton at QB.

The Bears O dominated the time of possesion in the regulation. There was no excuse for the Bears D to be too tired in the 4th quarter. Overtime I'll be more lenient about.

Give credit to the TB player though. He knew his team was seconds from losing and his only chance was to rough up someone in the pile and hope he could lure a sucker into a penalty. It worked. And the TB player had nothing to lose. I bet that TB player was a veteran.

Dude, you're crazy. 3 TD's and 1 pick. 22/34 and 268yds. Ok, maybe it's not fair to give orton a TD for that play where the TB player stole the ball from Forte's hands, but at least you take away the pick...and that's still 2 TD's and 1 pick, no fumbles, and he completed some deep passes too, which is something everyone wanted to see. 3rd game as a legitimate starter (not 2nd string filling in for the 1st). And he TOTALLY recovered from his meltdown. I still want to see more myself, but "one more game or else" is crazy talk.

Part of me thinks that it's wrong for the any team to win if they do something like Tillman did. That level of stupidity is deserving of more than one loss, yet we only got one loss out of it. Maybe we should feel lucky. I don't care what anyone else did. Tillman's pile on served no purpose and was blatant. I could probably count on my one hand the number of times a Bears penalty flipped a game from almost sure victory to a defeat instead (in 20 yrs of watching the Bears). Now it's +1.

Here's what I don't get. From 35-45yds out Gould puts it right down the middle every time. 80% of his kicks would be good from 55yds from what I've noticed. Stick him out there at the 49 yd line and all of a sudden it's way off target.

Forte owed Orton one, lol. Is AP mentally retarded? How many years do you have to play before you figure out blocks in the back are illegal. The kicker is that it wasn't even necessary.

I made no excuses for him flaking out. Besides that, no excuses are even necessary because he was doing fine.

Orton was doing just fine until he flaked out and threw the ball right to a Tampa lineman. Effectively, no fumbles or picks, 1 TD (forte had that ball), and right in the middle of a drive in TB territory. I've been wanting to see Orton go a few games without losing poise before I got fully behind him. He was two games towardswinning me over, but now it's like he hit "reset" and he's back at sqare 1. Oh well. Let's see if he can recover better than Rex usually does(n't). When's the last time Forte had a run over 4 yards? The Oline isn't winning out there. They're making it tough on Forte and Orton.

I also want to add that part of the reason the offense wasn't doing better was that they got bad field positon, and it stayed that way because the Bears D was playing well. If the Bears O starts at the 15yd line, gets two first downs and punts, then the Panthers O gets two first downs and punts, and that just keeps happening back and forth, ...the Bears O is going to continually start on their own 15yd line every time. A variation on this actually happened last week.

Does anyone think the 2007 Pats were only half as good at season's end as they were at the beginning? Because I seriously doubt it. What happened is the rest of the NFL caught up. My point is that you ignore one factor, Bigdaddy. Excluding teams ravaged by injury, teams get better throughout the season. We may not be completely developed right now in this offense of so many new faces, but that doesn't mean it won't come. Someone mentioned that Orton wasn't getting enough reps throwing the long ball during preseason, which makes sense if Turner was more concerned about getting Orton to execute the meat-and-potatoes part of the offense comfortably. I'm also sure there are plays Turner isn't using in games because he sees his offense in practice doesn't execute them the way he wants yet. The season is long and like every team, the Bears have things they need to work on. Over the course of the season, whether we improve more or less than the other teams will determine our post-season chances. This is why some people (like me) on this messageboard don't feel like you can evaluate a team for the year based on 2 games.

I don't wanna be callous, so I'll start by saying that I wish him the best and from what I could tell he was a hard worker who doesn't deserve the injury hand he's been played. Having said that, we're through two games and we still haven't lost anyone irreplaceable. Before the season started I pleaded the football gods for at least 4 games with all our big guns (not out for extended time). Hester'll be back in a couple of weeks and Tommie, Dusty, Wale, Alex, Mark, Briggs, Url, Hilly, Vasher, Tillman, Orton, the O-line starters, Olson, and Desmond are still good to go (if maybe a little banged up). If the Bears make it to the 4 game mark, then no matter what happens this season, at least I'll be able to say (for the first time in I can't remember how many years) that I got to see what our team was made of...rather than our team, minus 2 or 3 hugely important starters. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Payne's man caught the only TD in Indy last week. I'm not saying that disproves your statement. Just commenting.