defiantgiant

I think this move might reflect how much the Bears are relying on a rotation. A lot of athletic defensive linemen are only really good in short bursts; that's why teams like the Giants like to have a really deep rotation on the d-line. With Tommie and Mark Anderson no longer being the impact players they used to be, I can see why we'd go with a deeper rotation. Tommie, in particular, looks to have some conditioning problems (which probably stem from the fact that he's been held out of nearly every midweek practice for the past two years,) but the rest of our line tends to wear down too. I don't know if any one guy on the Bears' line is going to have 12 sacks this year, but if we can get 5-8 sacks each out of a 6- or 7-man rotation, the line as a whole will be doing great.

Yeah, for whatever reason, people (myself included) tend to forget how many games Lovie's won, relative to the other coaches in the league. Giving him a pass on the rebuilding year in 2004, when he was basically just trying to repair Jauron's old team, he's had an impeccable record. From 2005-2008, he's 40-24 in the regular season, with two division titles and a conference title to show for four postseasons. Only one team in the NFC (I think it's the Giants?) won more games in that span. If he'd won the Super Bowl, I have no doubt that we'd be talking about him as one of the top 5 or 10 coaches in the NFL. EDIT: Basically, I think he's earned the benefit of the doubt. Let him get back to the playoffs, let him get another shot at a Super Bowl with a quarterback who won't give the game away singlehandedly, then we'll see how good a coach he is.

Sucks for Stafford - an old knee injury that he's now reinjured would worry me if I were a Lions fan. I wonder if he can just play with a brace on that knee to keep from dislocating it again. On another Stafford-related note, I think it's kind of awesome that the NFC North has 3 talented young QBs all of a sudden. Should make for some fun football to watch for the next 10 years or so.

This is right on the money. Even in a perfect world, the Tampa 2 still has a seam between the CB's coverage zone and the OLB's zone. That's why people call quick slants to beat a Tampa 2 look. However, if you're rushing 4 and lining up the linebackers relatively deep, like the scheme calls for, that slant should be in pretty tight coverage. The WR should initially be covered by the CB, then he should get passed off to the OLB as he heads toward the middle. If you attack that seam against a base Tampa 2 look, you're throwing a 4-5 yard pass into what's effectively double coverage, so any completions should be for a pretty short gain: 4-5 yards with little or no YAC. If you blitz/mug the LBs up near the line of scrimmage, though, you take them out of position to cover. The 2007-2008 defense blitzed the OLBs while playing the corners off as if they had OLB help. So there was a big hole in coverage over the middle, and teams picked them apart with passes to the seam whenever they saw a blitz. So Babich threw in a lot of fake blitzes (the "mug" look from last season) which let the LBs cover, but still put them out of position to get to the seam in time. Same result - quick slant gets 10 yards every time. I think the coverage has looked much better since Lovie started calling the plays. He's still blitzing the LBs, but I haven't seen the giant hole over the middle that was there all last season: for the most part, the corners have been playing like they don't have help when we blitz. They might not jam at the line much, but they're playing tighter when we blitz. There have been a couple of blown coverages (like when Vasher and Payne got torched by Greg Jennings) but that's not the same as the constant slants that were basically against air last year. I mean, Brian Griese threw for 400 yards on us, and I don't think I saw him complete a single pass longer than about 12 yards. He just took that 10-yard slant all day long. Also, Lovie's been blitzing on early downs, then going into the Tampa 2, WITHOUT the mug, on 3rd down and in passing situations. One of the things I hated about Babich's playcalling was that he would use that unsound, hole-over-the-middle blitz/mug on 3rd and long, when you KNEW the other team had to pass. Predictably, we'd give up 12 or 15 yards and a 1st down. Even when the Tampa 2 is working, the seam is a weakness: people are going to send a TE down that seam or slant a receiver into it, and there are going to be some short completions before the CB or OLB gets there for the tackle. It's frustrating to watch, but it's not a problem until it starts leading to opposing 1st downs. Our defense is the best in the league right now at forcing 3rd-down-and-10-or-longer: we can afford to move back to the Tampa 2 in those situations, as long as Lovie keeps playing the LBs deep so we only give up 4-5 yards on a slant, instead of 10.

I've said it before, but I think Darryl Drake does a pretty decent job developing receivers, when you consider the miniscule investment the team has made in the position. With the exception of signing Moose, we've relied mainly on our draft picks (and the occasional no-name free agent) at wideout. The wide receiver position is probably the second biggest gamble in the draft, after quarterback, but a surprising proportion of our recent draft picks have turned out to be at least decent WRs. The thing that I find the most heartening about Knox is that he's playing at all. This team, in the past, seemed way too reluctant to play young receivers. Maybe they're more confident since Cutler arrived, or maybe they've actually figured out that it was a mistake to sit their young guys in favor of the Marty Bookers and Brandon Lloyds of the world. Either way, I'm glad that we're finally treating that position like any other and putting the best guys on the field. I'm excited to see what Hester, Bennett, and Knox can do going forward.

From ESPN: "I guess we've got to get punched in the face a couple times to realize we're in a fight," defensive end Ogunleye said. I love it.

He left in the fourth and Vasher came in. I don't have any more information - he might have just been shaken up. Same thing happened in the Seahawks game, though, and I think I remember him going out in the Steelers game, too. Hopefully it's nothing lasting, but it's worrisome that he doesn't seem to be able to play a full game.

Hopefully tonight shut some people up, as far as the media goes. Forte looked like his old self: he showed some really nice quickness, made guys miss tackles, changed direction on a dime...he looked like that Matt Forte we had last season. If he was suffering from the lost preseason before, he certainly didn't seem to be tonight: 140 total yards, better than 10 yards a carry, and he's finally got that first TD. Glad to see he got it going.

Right shin, according to the Tribune. Doesn't sound like it's serious. Hester's injury was his neck, rather than his shoulder...sounds like it was just a stinger. I think both guys will probably be fine after the bye. I'm a little worried about Bowman's injury, though. He's as injury prone as they come, and he's gone out for at least a series or two in every game so far this season. He looks like the Mike Brown problem all over again: incredible when he's on the field, but he's always getting hurt. At a bare minimum, we need somebody better than Vasher as Bowman's backup. Has there been any word on Corey Graham? He wasn't terrible last season, I don't know why he can't be the #3 corner.

Garcia would be all wrong for this offense - while he might be a more accomplished QB than Hanie, he'd necessitate big changes in the offensive playcalling. Cutler enables our offense to keep taking shots down the field even when his protection breaks down; Garcia makes his receivers come back to help him out, even when the protection is sound. If you watch Garcia, he gets out of the pocket almost immediately on a huge number of plays - even if his protection is pretty solid (like it was in Tampa) he scrambles like he's about to get sacked. He makes some plays despite that, but his completions come when his receivers work back to the ball. Garcia's not bad at throwing on the run, but he's got a Brian Griese/Chad Pennington type of arm: our whole passing game would be very different if he ever had to play. I've always thought that the best backup QB is one who can run basically the same plays at your starter, even if he doesn't run them as well. From the little bit I've seen in preseason games, Hanie definitely looks like a poor man's Cutler: he scrambles well, and he still has a lot of power in his throws when he's out of the pocket. His accuracy and timing aren't on par with Cutler's, but that's why he's the backup. If he ever has to step in for Cutler (obviously, I hope he doesn't,) we could still keep a lot of continuity on offense. Greg Cosell wrote a pretty good article on Garcia and Byron Leftwich - he sums up most of the problems with Garcia's game.

Rotoworld's Evan Silva has a pretty good take on Forte's slow start to the season: "Similar to Ryan Grant last year, Matt Forte's quickness has been derailed by a lost preseason due to a hamstring injury. What should prevent Forte from having a down year like Grant's is his combo of receiving ability, superior talent, and Week 5 bye (Grant's was in Week 8). Chicago will move the ball easily Sunday, Forte will get goal-line carries, and he'll rest for the following two weeks." I think this makes a lot of sense. Forte missed a ton of practice after the hamstring injury in June, and he only had 18 carries in the preseason. As a lot of people have said on these boards and elsewhere, he hasn't looked as quick or explosive as he did last season. If it's a problem with his conditioning, rather than injury, that could be really good news. Plenty of players who start the season with conditioning issues are able to get it going by midseason, and Forte's got a great work ethic. This is a guy who used to go run sprints at 4 AM when he couldn't sleep. I'm hopeful that he'll look like his old self after the bye.

I do wonder about Hiestand. The couple of linemen drafted by the Bears who turned out to be decent (Olin Kreutz, Marc Colombo, Mike Gandy) were all before Hiestand's time. You have to ask, though, who have we drafted for him to develop? In Hiestand's time, we've only taken TWO offensive linemen in the fourth round or higher: Josh Beekman and Chris Williams. The other six guys we've drafted were all 6th or 7th rounders with no real expectations on them: Lance Louis, Kirk Barton, Chester Adams, Tyler Reed, and then a couple of scrubs I've never heard of. The jury's still out on Williams, but Beekman doesn't look half bad. I'm not saying Hiestand's a good coach, but I think there's too little evidence to say that he's bad. Drake, meanwhile, I will totally stand up for. The Bears consistently put him in a difficult position, since they almost exclusively draft incredibly raw wide receivers, based solely on their physical potential. Here are the young guys we've drafted for Drake to develop (excluding this year's rookies, since we've only seen three games) since he's been here: The Good-or-at-least-OK Justin Gage - has developed into a perfectly good possession receiver. Bobby Wade - average, if unspectacular, slot receiver. Bernard Berrian - pretty good deep threat. Has some drops and isn't great going over the middle, but is very good at what he does. Devin Hester - already looks like a pretty decent receiver, definitely still developing, very impressive for never playing WR in high school or college. Earl Bennett - looks promising as a #2 guy. The Bad Mark Bradley - constantly injured, still too raw when he was on the field. Airese Currie - constantly injured, never played. Marcus Monk - also injured, was out of football for a year, just got resigned by the Panthers. Really, most of Drake's pupils have turned out at least OK. Bradley is the only real blemish on his record, since he was a high 2nd-round pick who went nowhere. Other than that, Drake has had two late-round fliers fizzle out, compared to the 2nd, two 3rds, and two 5ths who all turned out at least as well as could be expected. I think he's a pretty decent WRs coach, all things considered.

I don't think it's entirely accurate to say that Pisa stood him up. If you're talking about the play I think you are, Pisa came in low and put a shoulder into Jacobs' leg. It was a great tackle, and definitely way better than Urlacher getting trucked, but I don't think it was indicative of the same skills you need from a middle linebacker. From what I've seen so far, Pisa's successful on a lot of tackles because he goes very low and wraps guys up by the legs. That makes him an awesome open-field tackler, but I don't think that he'd be able to do the same thing in a small space with linemen blocking him. Regardless of the weight issue, he just doesn't seem to have that kind of power. Again, this is just from what I've seen, but both Roach and Hillenmeyer hit with a lot more force; Pisa wraps guys up and drags them down. It's not a bad thing, he's just better suited to play on the outside. I don't have any problem with your conclusion here, I just don't think it's true that he can make the transition. His physical skillset doesn't translate that well to playing in the middle. He's also a career outside linebacker, like Briggs; both Roach and Hillenmeyer, on the other hand, have a fair amount of experience playing in the middle. I know that neither Roach nor Hillenmeyer is our best linebacker - there's a dropoff from Urlacher to those two. But I just don't think that playing one of our better players out of position is the answer. Pisa's shown that he fits best on the outside, Roach and Hillenmeyer have looked (so far) much better in the middle than they did on the strong side. I think we should just leave the guys where they fit best.

If memory serves, Chris Claiborne was the Rams' MLB, then Will Witherspoon, then they drafted Laurinaitis and Witherspoon switched to WLB. Tinoisamoa started out on the strong side for St. Louis, then he went to the weak side for a season or two until they cut him and moved Witherspoon there. As far as I know, Pisa never played in the middle - he's WAY undersized to be a middle linebacker. He's listed at 230, but by all accounts his playing weight is down around 220. He's fast and he's a great tackler, but the knock on him has always been that bigger blockers can take him out of a play. Putting Pisa in the middle on running downs would be setting him up to fail - if you stick him in the A or B gap against a guard, there's no way he's getting off that block. Don't get me wrong, I love the way Pisa plays. From what I've seen so far, his range is ridiculous - it's like having an extra safety on the field. But I've never heard of a 220-pound middle linebacker being successful. I think we're better off leaving Pisa on the strong side and going with what we have in the middle, whether that's Hillenmeyer, Roach, or Jamar Williams.

Yeah, with any luck that'll stop once teams watch some film on Cutler and the receivers. The Seahawks walked their strong safety up into the box constantly, and Cutler took advantage of it. For Forte's sake, I hope he starts seeing some 6- and 7-man looks pretty soon. nfo - You're right that my last post was a little abstract, so I went to find some stats. I agree with you about Beekman, Kreutz, and Garza; the three of them are just fine. Since we haven't seen a full season of play from Williams, I guess the jury's still out on whether he's better than Tait. From my (totally uneducated) perspective, he looks better in pass pro and worse at run-blocking, but that could just be me - I'll have to wait until he's had 16 starts to say for sure. I do have some empirical evidence on Pace-versus-St. Clair, though. Pass-blocking first. I think Pace is a better pass-protector than St. Clair: St. Clair allowed 9.75 sacks last year, good for 30th in the NFL, with only Duane Brown and Jason Peters allowing more. Pace, on the other hand, only allowed 2, ranking him #4. Neither guy had a terrifically mobile quarterback, and both saw some pretty decent pass-rushers. On balance, I think Pace comes out way ahead. I might agree with you that the line as a whole is not doing as well, though: the Bears allowed 29 sacks last season, but they're on pace to allow 32 for this season. I think you're right that the pass protection needs improvement: if they keep up this 2-sacks-a-game clip, it won't be great news. Run-blocking is a little trickier to quantify, but I think that Football Outsiders' Adjusted Line Yards stat does a decent job of isolating the performance of an o-lineman from the performance of his running back. By that measure, Pace is the worse run-blocker of the two: looking at the ALY rankings for 2008, the Bears ranked 16th in the NFL when running behind St. Clair, while the Rams ranked 25th when running behind Pace. St. Clair's 4.08 ALY is way better than Pace's 3.68. Basically, a league-average running back with St. Clair as a blocker would average nearly 4.1 YPC, while the same back running behind Pace would get less than 3.7 YPC. That's pretty significant.

It sounds like McClover won't be on the radar on defense. The guy they cut to make room for him was a special teamer; I think they're just upgrading Toub's coverage unit. I like the move - McClover's great on ST and knows the system.

On the one hand, an easier matchup would put my mind at ease, given how Julius Jones was gashing our defense on Sunday. On the other hand, I don't like feeling like we won because of injuries. In the Pittsburgh game, it kind of felt fair to play the Steelers minus Polamalu since we were missing Urlacher. So I guess I hope Smith can play, but it'll be a relief if he can't. In the Redskins game, Detroit didn't run the ball nearly as well after Smith went down. Maurice Morris is a credible backup and Aaron Brown looks like he's developing into a nice change-of-pace back, but neither of them is nearly the threat that Smith is.

I agree about Beekman, I don't know what the coaching staff's problem with him is. Maybe they've got Omiyale on a long leash because of his contract and his physical potential, but if he keeps playing like he has been, they need to get Beekman back in there by midseason at the latest. Beekman's not spectacular, but he looked perfectly fine last season, and he's much, much more consistent than Omiyale has been so far. I agree that Forte has looked a little slower than last season. I hope that the hamstring from preseason isn't still bothering him. That said, from what I've seen this season, he's had much worse blocking than he did last year. I mean, we've got a right tackle with a back injury and marginal upper-body strength, whose main technique problems coming out of college were his hand punch and use of leverage. We have a 6'7" left tackle who's admitted that he's struggling to get low enough into his stance due to age/knee injuries. From what I've seen thus far, both Pace and Williams are MUCH better when they can stand up and deflect pass rushers out wide than they are when they have to get low and push a guy backward. On top of that, we've got a left guard who's still learning the position. Last year's line was awful in pass protection (although maybe Cutler could have made them look better) but they were cohesive and they were strong enough to do an adequate job in the running game. Maybe Forte could be doing better, but he looks like he's struggling to adjust to the changes in the o-line. The play against Seattle where he actually had to shove Chris Williams out of his way really spoke volumes: Forte was expecting a downfield block, Williams got stonewalled, and Forte ended up running into the back of his blocker. As much as I hated St. Clair and Tait in pass protection last season, there's no question in my mind that either of them makes that block and springs Forte.

Ugh, I hope not. Hopefully our o-line gets it together soon - Forte has had NO holes to run through so far. The group we've got this year is much better in pass protection, but Tait and St. Clair were vastly better run-blockers than Pace and Williams. I really don't think Chris Williams at RT makes a lot of sense...I'd almost rather try Shaffer on the right side and go with either Pace or Williams at LT. The pass protection would probably suffer a little, but I bet the running game would benefit. I don't know what to make of Omiyale's run-blocking. About once a game, I've seen him open a giant hole (which usually leads to a nice run from Forte) but he's clearly not doing it reliably yet. Maybe he's still struggling to get his technique consistent - there was an interview where he mentioned he was having some difficulty making the adjustment to the handwork and leverage that guards have to use. Whatever the problem is, I hope he sorts it out. We need a line that can get the job done, or Forte's going to have a bad year.

Yeah, Cutler's more than made up for his first game in the last two. His stat line for the season (even including the godawful game against the Packers) already looks decent: 65/101 (64.4%) for 760 yards (7.5 YPA) 6 TDs, 5 INTs 86.2 QB rating. Remember how the media were in panic mode just two weeks ago? After just two more games, Cutler's completion percentage, YPA, and QB rating are all back to almost exactly his career numbers (62.6%, 7.4, and 87.0, respectively) and he looks like he's on a major upward trend. To bounce back from a game that bad to an above-average stat line in just two weeks is pretty remarkable. Even considering the Green Bay game, Cutler's on pace to throw 538 times (about 10 more pass attempts than the Bears' QBs had last year) for 4053 yards and 32 TDs (although technically he's also on pace for 26 interceptions.) I know the sample size is small, but I'll take those yards/TDs any day. ...speaking of who's on pace for what, if the rest of the season plays out exactly like the past three weeks, here are our wide receivers' numbers: Devin Hester: 69 receptions on 101 targets (68.3% catch rate) for 997 yards (14.4 YPC) Earl Bennett: 69 receptions on 101 targets (68.3% catch rate) for 896 yards (12.9 YPC) Johnny Knox: 48 receptions on 85 targets (56.4% catch rate) for 848 yards (17.6 YPC) (I didn't include TD numbers, because the small sample size affects those a lot more than catches/yards. If you're curious, Hester and Knox are each on pace for 10 TDs, while Bennett is on pace for zero. Obviously, I don't think that's how the season numbers will turn out.) I, for one, would LOVE to see those numbers for the season. Yeah, there's no 1200-yard receiver, but to have three guys in the 850-1000 range would be just as good. Also, this projection makes a lot of sense given how the receiver group has looked so far. Here are a couple of thoughts: - Hester has clearly improved from last season as a receiver. His catch percentage is WAY up from last year's 56.5%, and his YPC has improved by over a yard and a half (from 12.7 last season.) A 14.4 YPC is definitely good enough to be considered #1-receiver-type production: that mark would have ranked Hester 17th among wide receivers with at least 45 catches last season. Hester's catch rate so far is GREAT, which is a really good sign, since his catching was my main concern last season. If he keeps these numbers up, he looks like a solid #1 receiver on a per-catch and per-target basis. For reference, Andre Johnson caught 67.6% of his targets last season, and he ended up with a 13.7 YPC. - Knox looks like a classic deep threat: just-adequate catch percentage, but monster YPC. For reference, last season just 5 receivers with at least 30 catches had better than 17.6 YPC. Steve Smith (18.2 YPC) is right above Knox's mark, while Calvin Johnson (17.1 YPC) is right below it. Smith and Johnson bracket Knox in catch rate, too - Smith with 60.1% and Johnson with 51.6%. By either measure, Knox will be in some lofty company as a deep threat if he can maintain those numbers for a season. - Bennett looks like a quality possession guy: his YPC is solidly average, and he's got the same great catch rate that Hester does. As a #2 receiver, I think his per-catch and per-target numbers already look pretty good. Really, I'm excited that Cutler is spreading the ball around as much as he is. The Bears got a lot of flak in the offseason for having no true #1 guy, but if Hester, Bennett and Knox keep this up, we'll have at least as much production from the group as most teams have from their #1, #2, and #3. Sure, the wide-receiver-by-committee thing might not be great for fantasy owners, but it would be just fine for the Bears' offense.

I don't know if they were on the receivers per se. I saw the same thing you did: Cutler looking to one spot while his receivers went the other way. It's hard to say, just from watching the game, whether that's Cutler's mistake or the receivers'. All you can say for sure is that they were clearly not thinking the same thing. From what Lovie and Turner said after the game, it sounds like it was a genuine miscommunication: that is, it's not wrong for a receiver to break one way or the other, it's just that the receivers and the quarterback weren't thinking the same thing. One thing I thought was pretty reassuring: I saw a clip of Cutler mic'ed up on the sidelines during the game, and he was talking to Earl Bennett after one of these snafus. Cutler wasn't bawling him out, didn't look like he was losing his composure at all. He was just telling him which way to break in which situation, very matter-of-factly. I'm sure they'll work this thing out pretty soon.

My point, really, was that the wideouts weren't being guarded. I mean, Bennett had seven catches, and both Hester and Knox got behind their defenders in single coverage. If the Steelers play the pass the way the Packers did, zeroing in on Olsen, I think we just keep going to the wideouts until they adjust. It's been posted before, but the Bears' receivers haven't had that many yards in a game since 2002. I'll take that every week, as long as the interceptions stop. You're right about Forte, though. I think Cutler's still figuring out what he can do in the passing game. There have been some bright spots (the TD he threw to Forte in Denver comes to mind) but it's not like Orton, who threw to Forte about five times a game. That'll come in time, I think: Forte's too good a receiver not to feature heavily in the passing game.

Yeah, exactly. Also, several of the major screwups came when Bennett/Knox/Des Clark were using one set of scramble rules (break off the route and come back to the quarterback) and Cutler was expecting them to do the opposite (keep running downfield.) Scramble rules are a situational thing that wouldn't usually warrant a huge amount of concern; I think the Bears just need to rework that part of the offense so that it works with all their new personnel. I'm sure that Chicago's old scramble drills were heavily influenced by Orton's limited mobility and less-than-stellar throwing on the run; all the Bears' receivers seemed to think they were supposed to break off short and starting coming back to help out the QB. By the same token, I'm sure Denver was OK with Cutler taking some risky shots down the field in scramble situations, since he had Brandon Marshall to go up for a jump ball. Lovie and Turner just have to get everybody clear on what the rules are now. Really, if the offensive line hadn't struggled so badly picking up the Packers' blitzes, the scramble rules wouldn't have been an issue at all.

BigDaddy, I definitely agree with you on the defense; I thought Vasher turned in the only poor performance of the game. Everybody else, by and large, lived up to expectations. Even the backup linebackers looked decent. I have to disagree on one point, though: To be fair, Green Bay was playing a 2-4-5 nickel on almost every pass play, mainly so they could consistently keep two guys on Greg Olsen. To make things worse, one of the two was always Charles Woodson. If you're a TE and you're getting shadowed by a team's best corner all night, plus another DB/LB thrown in for good measure, you're not going to light it up. Also, if Cutler and the receivers can get on the same page consistently, teams aren't going to be able to do that to Olsen. Even with all the misfires between Cutler and the wideouts, Hester had a career-high game in receiving yards (so did Bennett and Knox, but that doesn't really count) and a lot of that was the price Green Bay paid for taking away Olsen. As Cutler works things out with the receivers, that price is going to get steeper and steeper, and eventually teams will have to start pulling coverage off Olsen. Then I think we'll see him make some of those plays we saw in training camp.

Football Outsiders' injury expert is saying Urlacher will miss 4-6 weeks. He's going to need surgery for the dislocation. No timetable for Tinoisamoa's injury, but Rotoworld reports that it's a PCL sprain. It'll depend on the severity, but I'd expect him to miss at least 3-4 weeks. I'm pretty glad that we have some quality depth at linebacker, because we could easily be missing two starters until the bye week.