defiantgiant

Well, it sounds like Joe Mays is going to be back at MLB for the Philly-Chicago game, which means they'll move Gocong to the strong side and Fokou will be on the bench. Mays is a thumper against the run and Gocong is much better on the outside than in the middle. I wouldn't count on them being weak at any of the linebacker spots. Also, Sheldon Brown's been upgraded to day-to-day and says that he's going to be ready to go: it's very possible that we could be looking at Brown, not Dmitri Patterson, lining up across from Asante Samuel.

I completely agree with you that the lines are the most important part of a team, and our most glaring weakness. However, I definitely wouldn't put a good corner on the same level of importance as a good wide receiver. A stud corner is nearly as important as a good quarterback: after the linemen, they're the most crucial position and one of that hardest to "manufacture" from lesser talent. Wide receivers aren't nearly as critical, and you can take less-talented guys and fit them into a scheme, like the Dolphins have, and still get a very productive passing game. I can think of VERY few good defenses that don't have at least one stud corner; in almost any defensive scheme, you have to have one. That's actually one of my biggest problems with the Tampa-2: a lot of the scheme revolves around compensating for corners who can't necessarily cover a good receiver one-on-one. Unless you have an absolutely elite pass rush, you're going to get exposed at corner. Even if you DO have a best-in-the-league pass rush, it's not like you're better off than you would be if you had a stud corner. Best-case scenario, it's a wash. Worst-case scenario, it's the Bears' pass defense from the last couple of years.

Nfo summed it up better than I can: Cutler's mobile and can throw on the run, Forte's a great receiver, and our o-line appears to block effectively on screens, if only there and nowhere else. It's pretty easy to see why screen passes have been working.

Yeah, for real. Getting him as a UFA would be huge. The only thing I don't like is his age; I'd rather have Trueblood if only because he's two years younger. But yeah, I'd take Clabo in a heartbeat if Trueblood wasn't on the table. He and Dahl are absolute bulldozers on the right side for Atlanta. Yeah, you're right: the "pay me" shoes are probably a clue that the guy's not going to come cheap. I think he could still be worth it, though. He's young and he can cover, which we need desperately.

One second-round pick wouldn't have turned our line into Atlanta's. We took Forte #44 - the next offensive linemen off the board were Mike Pollak, John Greco, Jeremy Zuttah, Chad Rinehart, and Oniel Cousins. Zuttah's the only quality starter out of the bunch: he's a pretty good left guard for Tampa. That'd be a start, but the Bears' line still wouldn't be close to the Falcons'. Turner wouldn't have come close to 1700 yards rushing behind our group. Meanwhile, who knows what Forte's rookie year would have looked like if he'd had the Falcons blocking for him. I wanted Turner, too, but he's just not as complete a back as Forte. He doesn't have a ton of cutback ability, he doesn't catch the ball at all; he's a straight-ahead runner, and Atlanta's a team built for a power-running offense. I'd compare him to a faster Brandon Jacobs: he's fast in a straight line, a load to bring down, and great in short yardage. He's a great piece for an offense that has a complete cast around him: nasty run-blocking o-line, a game-changing wideout like Roddy White, a quality complementary back like Jerious Norwood, etc. Put Turner on last year's Bears, though, and he'd just be plowing into the line for no gain, 1 yard, etc. Same thing with Brandon Jacobs: he's great at what he does, but you can't ignore the fact that the Giants are built for power running and have all the pieces around him in place. Honestly, I can't think of very many halfbacks in the NFL that could have carried a subpar team on their backs the way Forte did last year. He WAS our running game, and most of our passing game too, all with very little help. Turner's awesome at what he does, but he couldn't have done what Forte did.

I don't know why this would be true. What do the Bears of a decade ago have to do with our current team? Those guys didn't have Matt Forte, who's excellent catching the ball and picking up yards in space. They didn't have Chris Williams, who (despite his other shortcomings) has proven to be a nice downfield blocker on those screen plays. They didn't have Jay Cutler, who can hit the screen pass very effectively. None of those guys were on the roster even two years ago, so I'd say there's a pretty good reason that the Bears have suddenly gotten good at running back screens. Now, I don't think that Forte's going to get 120 receiving yards every game if we make the screen a big part of the playbook. Obviously, defenses are going to adjust. But that's the real reason that we should be using the screen more: it forces opposing DEs and LBs to start playing outside contain. That would not only ease the pressure on Cutler, but it could also open up a little more room for inside runs, which have been a problem area. Our offense thus far has been totally one-dimensional, and defenses have been able to play us just as one-dimensionally: they sell out against the pass every single down, and their rushers just shoot right into their gaps. Mixing in a bunch of screens could give us some balance on offense and make defenses play us honestly.

I was talking about the best OTs in the event of an uncapped year. McNeill only has four years of service: he won't hit free agency unless a new CBA gets done. If we go into 2010 with no new CBA, guys have to have six years' service to hit unrestricted free agency. If there is a new CBA, there will be a bunch of decent tackles slated to hit FA: I'd like to see Jeremy Trueblood or Tyson Clabo, who are both real road-graders at RT. McNeill's a Chris Williams-type finesse LT; he wouldn't help the run game much. Also, you're right about Robinson this year. He held out for all of the offseason, and he hasn't really gotten a good start. He seems like a guy who needs a change of scenery; hopefully the Bears could sign him to a low-risk deal, make him prove that he can play like 2008 Dunta Robinson, then lock him up.

I don't know what the "part serious" part could be: the lunate bone, which Urlacher dislocated, sits right on top of the nerve that controls your entire hand. If Urlacher even moved his wrist under normal circumstances, much less tried to play in a football game, he'd risk dislodging the bone, damaging or severing the nerve, and losing some or all of the use of that hand. It might be a wrist injury, but there's a reason that he had to wear a cast up to his shoulder for it to heal right. Maybe Ronnie Lott could play with nine-and-a-half fingers, but I can't see Urlacher playing with one functional hand, can you? There was an interview with former Giants linebacker (don't remember who,) who had the same injury: he said he couldn't believe that Urlacher was able to stay in that one game as long as he did without suffering nerve damage. Also, Pace told reporters the other day that he got his bell rung and he was going for a concussion test...I think it's pretty clear what happened.

I forgot to mention this the first time around, but I totally, totally agree with you on the screens. They're the one thing on offense that has been consistently working pretty well. I think it's partly because Forte's a great receiver, but it's also that several of our linemen are actually pretty good on those downfield blocks. Kreutz and Chris Williams in particular can really set the bubble screen up nicely, and Garza's not bad at it either. I hope that, when he went over the tape from the Niners game, Turner realized that his otherwise-garbage offensive line is actually pretty effective at screen blocks. If we're going to cobble together a functional offense, Turner needs to start calling a lot more screen passes, and a lot more outside running plays that use the same kinds of blocks, like pulling-guard sweeps and traps.

I really hope it gets done this year, but I'm worried it won't: the problem is the owners, not the players' association. The uncapped year in 2010 is also a year with no salary floor, and I know there are a lot of teams in the league that would LOVE to be able to spend less money next year. The more cash-poor owners in the NFL probably want to drag their feet so they can have a year without a minimum salary floor, then start negotiating next year so that there won't be a holdout/lockout situation in 2011.

Here's the thing, though: the difference between a team that can't run the ball and a team that can isn't very much, in terms of yardage. Compare a crappy running team like the Bears (3.8 yards per carry, 26th in the league) to a great rushing team like the Panthers (4.8 YPC, 4th in the league) and the difference is a single yard per rush. You and I know that one yard is significant, in terms of separating the successful running teams from the unsuccessful ones, but it's not significant in terms of whether a coach chooses to run or pass. To put it another way, if you're in a situation where you need 7 or 8 yards, it doesn't matter whether you're the Panthers or the Bears, you better throw it. If you're consistently in a position where you desperately need big yardage, like the Bears have been so often, you're going to be throwing it all the time. It wouldn't matter if the Bears were averaging 5 yards a carry, we couldn't afford to run it when we're constantly playing 21 points behind. Look at the Bengals, who've been stomping everyone with their running game. Their average isn't very good at all: they're 22nd in the league with 4.0 per carry. But they're close to the top of the league in rushing attempts per game, so they pile up a lot of yards at the end of the day. And they can afford to run it a million times a game because they have a really solid defense and a highly effective passing game. If the Bears had the Bengals' defense and passing game, we could be effective running the ball even with a lowly 3.8 YPC.

So I've been wondering, as I'm sure a lot of you have, why the Bears have totally abandoned the run this season. It's clear that the running game hasn't been great (although the Beekman/Omiyale swap has helped immensely) but even considering that, I haven't been able to figure out why Turner would go a whole game and only call 6 or 8 runs for Forte. To that end, here's an article from Advanced NFL Stats that's very, very worth reading, especially as it helps explain the Bears' struggles this season. The author applies some very in-depth statistical analysis and economic theory to football teams' decision-making, in terms of both their run/pass ratio and their preference either for short, low-risk passes or long, high-risk ones. If you don't want to read the whole 3-part article, here are the relevant conclusions: 1.) A run/pass ratio that favors running the ball at or above an "optimal level" is correlated with winning, but that's because winning teams are usually teams that can get a lead with their passing game early and maintain it on defense, which then allows them to run the ball a lot in order to kill the clock. 2.) Teams with lots of wins tend to have good defenses and a low tolerance for risk in their offensive playcalling*. 3.) Poor defense forces teams to be more tolerant of risk, and hence to call more passes than runs and more high-risk passes than low-risk passes, when compared to teams that play good defense. 4.) Teams that are good at passing don't have to do it very often: a high average gain on a passing play allows a team to mix in a healthy number of smaller-gain run plays. 5.) #4 leads to the counter-intuitive conclusion that a team with an ineffective passing game will be forced to call MORE pass plays than a team with an effective one. Good passing teams don't have to play to their strengths, and poor passing teams have to play to their weaknesses. So how does this all apply to the 2009 Bears? Well, I don't have access to the author's raw data, nor to the relevant data for this season, but the broad principles are easy to apply. First, the Bears have a poor defense, which forces them to ramp up the risk in what was already a high-risk offense, which leads to more passes than runs. Second, their inability to get an early lead (and the frequency with which opposing teams get one) forces them to pass rather than run. Finally, the fact that this one-dimensional passing offense is easier to defend against (and thus less effective) forces the Bears to rely on the pass even more, and become even more one-dimensional. When your passing game is faltering, you can't rely on a little 2- or 3-yard run to get you out of the hole; you need the exact thing you can't get, a big completion through the air. So you have to go back to the pass even more. Basically, good defense leads to run-heavy offense, which leads to effective passing. Poor defense leads to pass-heavy offense, which leads to ineffective passing, which leads to an even more pass-heavy offense. If you ask me, that describes this season's Bears to a T. Until the defense gets fixed, we're going to see a lot more games where Forte gets single-digit carries, and a lot more opposing defenses who have Cutler's number from the opening drive onward. *The 2006 Bears are a notable exception, as they piled up a large number of wins with a good defense and a higher-than-average-risk offense: "The NFC champion Bears managed 13 wins with a relatively risky offensive balance. This is due to their boom and bust passing game (μP = 4.8, σP=15.1). This result suggests that in 2006 CHI rolled the dice often with deep pass plays and got lucky. 2007 wasn't so kind to them."

Yes and no: Briggs may have been aligned between the other linebackers on some plays, but he's still playing the Will linebacker position exclusively. The Bears shift linebackers on a few plays, such that the Will 'backer lines up inside of the other two. So while you'll occasionally see Briggs line up between Roach and Hillenmeyer, he's not really "playing middle linebacker" on those plays: they're part of the weak-side linebacker's role on defense. If you want an example of the difference between alignment and position, check out the 46 alignment the Bears used to use in the '80s. If you saw today's Bears line up in the 46, Briggs would be standing between the other two linebackers, but he wouldn't be the middle linebacker in terms of his responsibilities. The Mike linebacker in the 46 is still aligned in (more or less) the normal Mike position, and still has his normal Mike coverage/gap responsibilities, it's just that the Sam shifts all the way over to the outside of the Will, so the Will is "in the middle" of the other two. Your friend might have seen Briggs standing in between the other two LBs in some kind of blitz formation like the 46, but I doubt we'll ever see him line up as the actual MLB in our base package. He's played on the weak side for his whole career, and there's nothing to be gained by playing our best defender out of position.

The crop of offensive linemen is especially bad. The best tackles on that list are Mike Gandy and Levi Jones...yikes. The interior linemen aren't much better, either: Keydrick Vincent, Ben Hamilton, and Stephen Neal are all OK, but the youngest guy among them is 31. At least Dunta Robinson will still be hitting FA if there's no new bargaining agreement. We could use that dude.

Yeah, we have an opportunity to get Williams some starts at LT before next season. He's had some mental mistakes so far, and we definitely don't want that again next season. Better he gets settled at his eventual position now, so he's set at the start of next year.

Well, "not good at anything" is a stretch. McKie's a decent receiver for a fullback, and he's actually pretty good at blocking in the open field. But we don't call enough designed runs to the outside to make that really useful, and he's crap at the up-the-gut runs that we do call. The guy just can't knock a linebacker out of the hole. If we're going to use a fullback to lead block on those plays, it needs to be a guy who can actually take on a linebacker and clear out the gap. McKie isn't good at that, and our offense seems to call for a fullback to do a lot of it. I've said it before, but I would love for this position to be upgraded. Fullbacks don't cost anything; practically no one spends a high draft pick on one, and they don't command big salaries. It might be the cheapest and easiest way to help out our running game. I mean, Lorenzo Neal is sitting on his couch right now. Assuming he's still in shape and wants to play, he'd be a MASSIVE upgrade over McKie as a blocking FB, and he wouldn't cost much.

Connorbear, your post got me thinking, and I went and took another look at the impending-free-agent linemen for 2010 (assuming that a new CBA gets done.) After looking it over, I might have to revise my statement a little: there are a surprising number of quality guys, many relatively young, who are about to hit the market. Obviously, Angelo needs to draft linemen in the future. But there are a number of potential FAs who could help us get out of this hole we're in right now. Donald Penn and Jeremy Trueblood from the Bucs are both slated to be unrestricted free agents, and they're both young guys (at 26) which would make the pickup less of a long-term concern. Penn is playing on a one-year deal after he was an RFA last offseason. He's a very good left tackle, and has been a bright spot on a terrible Bucs team this season. I'd be very surprised if they didn't get a long-term deal done, or at least hit him with the franchise tag. However, that could mean that they have to give up Trueblood. Trueblood is a huge guy (6'8", 320 lbs.) a beast of a run-blocker and at least average in pass protection, although he has been penalized some this season. Importantly, he's been a durable starter for the Bucs: Trueblood got the starting RT job in Week 4 of his rookie year, and he's started every game since. He's a Boston College guy (played with Beekman there,) which Angelo likes, and he's from Angelo's old organization. With the Bucs potentially having to choose between Penn and Trueblood, I could see this move getting done. If we don't get Trueblood, there are definitely some other FAs who could be brought in. Both Harvey Dahl and Tyson Clabo (RG and RT for the Falcons, respectively) are going to hit free agency. They're older than I'd like at 28, but both guys are consistent, nasty, and do a great job in the run game. The Saints' RG, Jahri Evans, is slated to be a free agent, and he might be the best lineman on this list, but I'd be very, VERY surprised if New Orleans didn't at least franchise him. The Patriots could be letting their LG Logan Mankins hit FA, and he'd be worth a look, although he'll probably be costly.

Some of my thoughts on your changes: I don't think we should change Olsen's position, I think we just need to be honest about what he is. Turner keeps talking about how other teams will know what we're going to do if he doesn't keep Olsen in to block, but there are plenty of teams in the league that use a move TE or an H-back: look at Indianapolis and how they use Dallas Clark. I don't think I've ever seen that dude block, and he's very effective despite the fact that defenses know he's just a receiving TE. I'd like to see us give Ta'ufo'ou a shot. He looks like the real deal as a blocking FB. Ordinarily, I would say yes, but I'm sick to death of Angelo bringing in free agent linemen instead of drafting at the position. That's the whole reason we have such a lack of talent at the position now: when you constantly bring in guys who only have a few years left, you're selling out your future. Unless some team lets a 25-year-old RT hit free agency, Angelo needs to start drafting o-line like everybody else. Yeah, we need to stop playing guys out of position. Williams is a left tackle. Shaffer is a right tackle. Omiyale is a swingman/backup at both tackle spots, not a guard. We need to switch Williams to the left side, plug Shaffer in at right tackle, draft a right tackle to develop behind him, and restructure Omiyale's deal to something appropriate for a long-term backup. I agree with you 100%. Turner isn't the problem - he's not some offensive genius, but he's far from a bad coordinator. If we can fix the offensive line in the offseason, next year will be the first one where Turner's working with a starting-quality player at every position on the offense. I think he deserves a fair shot at success, and I hope he doesn't take the fall for this season. Yeah, I'd like to see Adams bulk up: he looks like he could put on at least that much muscle. I wouldn't mind seeing him take Alex Brown's spot at right end, and have Brown move to the left side, since he's been surprisingly good against the run this season. Anderson, I think, should stay as a nickel rusher. We've all seen what happens when he has to play every down. If there's one coaching change I'd like to see, it's an aggressive, non-Tampa-2 defensive coordinator, a la Ron Rivera. Rivera learned under Jim Johnson before he came to the Bears, and we were definitely a better defense when he was on board. I'd like to see somebody else from the Johnson/Spagnuolo coaching tree brought in to work with Lovie on the defense. I think Lovie's done enough to keep his job as HC, but he clearly has too much on his plate trying to run the defense by himself.

Shaffer's out of position at left tackle. Cleveland had to play him there at one point, and he struggled. He should be a perfectly adequate RT, though. If they keep Shaffer in the starting lineup, I'd be surprised if they didn't switch him with Chris Williams.

I think the problem with the running game isn't Forte. I'm not an expert, but from what I saw on Thursday, when he had a block he looked a lot like the Forte we saw last year. The one time I saw somebody get a decent block, Forte took it for like 16 yards. On those little screen passes out of the backfield, he had some nice cuts and made some guys miss. I think the thing to remember is that Forte is just not a battering-ram power runner. He's very tall and fairly slim for a running back, and he runs very upright: he's not going to plow through the line when there's no hole there. His biggest strengths are his instincts and vision: last season he was great at seeing his blocks develop and running off of them, and when the block was there or he got the ball in space in the Niners game, he got some big gains. When we ran him up the gut, he got massacred in the backfield. That's not a problem with the back, that's a problem with the line. I hate to harp on Football Outsiders' stats, but if you look at their o-line metrics, the Bears get very little yardage from the line and rely on a lot of big gains from the backs. The Bears' line is 21st in the league in adjusted line yards, 19th in percentage of run plays that get stuffed, and 19th in success on third/fourth-and-short/goal runs. Meanwhile, Chicago is 11th in the league in runs of 10 yards or more. Teams that have a good back and bad blockers typically have exactly this pattern: poor in short yardage, lots of runs stuffed for no gain, but a lot of long runs. This is the Bears all over: when the hole is there, Forte gets good yardage. Most of the time, however, the hole isn't there.

I think one or two years might be generous. I'd rather not see Kreutz starting next year: his snap problems have gotten even worse this season, and he's not having the same impact as a blocker. We already have Kreutz's successor waiting in the wings, all we need is a left guard to replace Beekman so he can slide over. It's a shame, since Kreutz is definitely the Mike Brown figure on offense, but just like Brown, you can't keep starting a guy based on leadership when his play makes him a liability.

There's been some speculation that he got concussed, but I think it's at least as likely that they just benched him. It's fine having Pace for depth or whatever, but the guy's clearly done: I hope they don't bring him back to the starting lineup. I think we'll probably see Williams at LT and Shaffer at RT before the end of the season.

Teams aren't playing for the record books, they're trying to win, and it's not like any of those teams are losing very many games. In fact, they've all pretty much locked up their divisions in November. Again, it's not whether they'd like to have Hester on returns; I'm sure every team would. It's whether they'd give up enough for Hester-on-returns to make it worthwhile for Chicago to have to replace Hester-on-offense. Looking at Hester's production, what would that take? Another established #1 receiver? A first-round pick? I don't think anybody's giving that up for Hester, not when you can get an undrafted guy like Clifton Smith or Josh Cribbs to light it up on returns. Maybe they're not quite as good as Hester (although you could argue that Cribbs is as good or better) but they don't cost anything, either.

As far as I know, he hasn't been suspended by the league or the team. He was limited on the injury report, but he always is. I haven't heard anybody suggesting that he'll be inactive for tonight's game. If he wanted to take this opportunity to play out of his mind and get like five sacks, that would be just fine with me.

Ha ha ha, fair enough. I'm sure there are guys who don't have fun playing for Bill Belichick, but I've never heard a Pats fan complain about it.