adam

Crazy how one play changes the outlook. If he makes that catch, we probably win the game, and he plays a big part down the stretch. He drops it and we lose and he sucks. He ran pretty good unless he was hit in the backfield. Once he can hit those deep cutbacks when the defense is overpursuing, he is going to be very dangerous.

Kickers miss, too many variables, especially at Soldier Field. Gould is still a great kicker and his miss didn't decide the game. Our defense's inability to stop Minnesota late, the Punt Return TD, and Langford's drop were bigger factors in the loss.

Sure but you have to read the entire rule. See below: SUPPLEMENTAL NOTES (1) Avoiding the kicker is a primary responsibility of defensive players if they do not touch the kick. (2) Any contact with the kicker by a single defensive player who has not touched the kick is running into the kicker. #2 clearly states any contact with the kicker without touching the ball is at least the 5 yard variety, there is no wiggle room or interpretation there. O'Donnell still had his leg up in the air.

Not that it matters now, but O'Donnell got run into and there was no call. There is no incidental contact on punts or kicks, should've been the 5 yard variety. Besides some bad play, we have not gotten any favors from the refs. We had the punt in Seattle that "didn't" hit the Seattle player, and the Tate TD against Detroit (amongst other non-calls). To me that has to be factored in, because we are not good enough to overcome bad play AND bad officiating.

Wow this defense is bad. After letting up the huge pass, we then let AP get 9 more to make it a chip shot? Ugh

We just need one stop now.

Cutler just ran over Harrison Smith lol.

Complete garbage call against Acho on Bridgewater's embellishment, then Griffen can tee off on Cutler after the ball was clearly out and no call. wtf

I hope it is for at least a 4th. Here was the compensation for FA's based on APY: 3rd/4th: $8,198,308 APY 4th/5th: $5,703,872 APY 5th/6th: $4,300,752 APY So I assume Forte would sign for between $4-5 million next year, so we would more than likely get a late 5th in terms of compensation. The crazy part is the team that we trade him to would essentially get the comp pick instead of us (if they don't re-sign him), so we are trading Forte and the comp pick (more than likely a 5th) for whatever we get. So I would hope it is at least a 4th.

Very true, he is definitely on the decline. I would like to see more of Langford going forward.

Yeah, I think Forte's situation and the amount he is offered from the Bears will be in direct relation to how confident they are in Langford going forward. Forte went from 4.6 to 3.9 YPC from 2013 to 2014 and is right at 4.0 this year. So the first dip already occurred. If he takes another dip and drops under 3.9 by the end of the year, then yeah, we can't pay him $5mil a year because the trend will more than likely continue. We only have one more game before the trading deadline (Nov 3rd) and if we were not planning to re-sign Forte, I would rather trade him to a needy contender for more value than he will get as a comp pick. Same goes for Young, Houston, and Bushrod.

Yeah, I basically agree. I think the difference will be in how the team prioritizes the needs going into FA and then the draft. QB - I don't think this is a team weakness or a need for at least the next couple of years. Cutler is only 32 and signed thru 2020. He seems really comfortable in this offense and will only get better. There is also low cap risk after 2016, so I don't think we target a QB in 2016 draft. RB - Forte is going to be the big question mark going into 2016. I tried to look for RB's who entered Free Agency at 30 or 32 to see what type of deals they got: AP - 30, 3-$42mil Gore - 32, 3-$12mil Sproles - 31, 3-$10.5mil Forsett - 30, 3-$9mil Williams - 32, 2-$4mil So AP is the anomaly, especially since he was out of football a year (so you could technically say he got his at 29), but either way, if Forte's camp wants something closer to AP than Gore, there is no way. Forte averaged $7.6 over 4 years, but I can't see him getting that going forward. I would be open to a 2-3 year deal in the $5mil range though (it would be a pay cut), I just don't know if Forte would accept that. My question is, with Forte being such a huge percentage of the offense, can we afford to just cut sling without seeing what Langford can do? My biggest concern on Forte: http://espn.go.com/blog/nflnation/post/_/i...ff-after-age-27 WR - As long as we can sign Alshon to a long term deal and White comes back and produces like a first rounder, I think we are good for the next 5-6 years at that position. TE - Bennett is signed thru 2016 (age 29 season), and is currently the 6th highest cap hit on the team. I don't know if he is worth that much money. He has flashes but has been somewhat inconsistent this year. Also, as everyone knows, a lot of Cutler's INTs have gone Bennett's way. This is not something we need to address this offseason, but could potentially be something we look before 2017. OL - I like the team's mix of vets and young players. I think we need to either draft a stud OT, or another OG and go with Leno and Long at the bookends. Definitely need to draft in the first couple of rounds though. DL - With the shift to 3-4, we have less DLinemen but each one of them is that much more critical to team success. I like Goldman and Jenkins, but it looks like we need to get an impact 3-4 DE as one of our top priorities this offseason. LB - I actually like our OLB's and think the combination of McPhee, Acho, Houston, and Young is good but we need to get younger here. So I expect we draft an Edge Rusher/OLB early. The ILB's are questionable and I haven't seen enough consistency one way or another to form a solid opinion of them. Jones looks good one play and totally lost in another. SMC looked solid but not great before the injury. I still think we need an impact ILB to anchor the front-7. DB - I am just going to lump all DB's into the same category as we seem to play with 5 DB's a lot. To me, the league is moving in this direction and you really need 5 strong DB's. I think Amos and Porter are the only keepers out of that group right now and we will need to pick up another Safety and 2x Cover Corners this next offseason. Returner - I know we were spoiled with Hester, but having a primary returner who is an emergency backup at WR or CB is a need. I feel like we have neglected this phase of the game ever since we allowed Hester to walk and the kickoff were changed. However, we probably don't have the luxury (like Seattle) to draft like this. So for TLDR: 2016 offseason acquisitions: 1x OL, 1x DL, 2x LB, 3x DB as the priorities. So those are 7 priority needs, if we can get 3-4 of them addressed in free agency, then we would have a chance to go BPA in the draft.

What happened? Goldman developed faster than expected? Has to be off-field related somehow. Surprised they couldn't work out a trade or anything. Very odd.

Yeah, if we got 5 starters in one draft, that would be awesome. Potential to have a completely new core in 2 years if you add guys like Long, Alshon, Fuller, SMC, Jones to the younger core conversation. If we can be that successful in next year's draft, we will finally start to see sustained success. What I like is that we have the financial freedom to bring in a couple more key FA's (like McPhee), lock up some of our own to long term deals (Long, Alshon), and pay some guys who have produced on one-year deals (Jenkins, Acho).

I forgot about him as well, could be a good guy for kickoffs.

Since I was counting backwards from worst to first, here are the remaining qualified QBs, which is the top 10: Derek Carr 1.85% Eli Manning 1.70% Russell Wilson 1.67% Josh McCown 1.60% Brian Hoyer 1.53% Drew Brees 1.44% Alex Smith 1.43% Aaron Rodgers 1.10% Andy Dalton 1.04% Tom Brady 0.52% That puts Cutler 12th. This is the amount of interceptions thrown per attempt, which is the best ratio when using INTs.

Cutler is currently 19th with a 2.30% with 4 INTs out of 174 pass attempts. That equates to 1 INT every 43.5 attempts or 1 INT for every 26.5 completions. Winston 4.61% Manning 4.22% Luck 4.22% Fitzpatrick 4.09% Stafford 3.80% (should have one more) Foles 3.55% Cousins 3.51% Tannehill 3.50% Bradford 3.33% Mariota 3.11% Taylor 2.92% Bortles 2.89% Flacco 2.83% Kaepernick 2.81% Bridgewater 2.74% Mallett 2.72% Palmer 2.59% Newton 2.55% Cutler 2.30% Rivers 1.98%

Gould continues to move up the charts, now in 37th all-time for FG's made with 258, with 7 more he will pass Lou Groza and Neil Racker, and tie Kevin Butler for 34th. Robbie is now 51st all-time in XP made with 358. With his 14 point game, Robbie passed Ray Wersching, Kris Brown, and Gino Cappelletti for 41st all-time. Depending on how long he plays, he has a shot to break into the top 10 before he retires. With 8,211 rushing yards Forte passed MJD, Priest Holmes, Gerald Riggs, and Roger Craig against Detroit and is now 42nd all-time. He will pass Hershel Walker with 15 more yards and Earnest Byner with 51. His 12,129 yards from scrimmage puts him in 56th all-time and he will pass Charlier Joiner with 40 more yards. Cutler is now 39th all-time in completions, passing Jake Plummer (go figure) and needs 38 more to pass Rich Gannon for 38th all-time. Cutler is still 47th all-time with 190 TDs and needs 2 more to tie Bob Griese for 46th. With 28,980 passing yards, Jay passed Len Dawson and Rich Gannon to move into 48th all-time, next up Brad Johnson (74 more yards).

My problem is with the "complete control" statement. Fuller clearly has his hand on the ball when only one foot is on the ground and before the end zone, so Tate would have to run out of the tackle or go to the ground with full control to make it a TD catch. He did neither. Obviously the frame by frame can't capture the movement, but control is not maintained until he would be defined as a runner at frame #6. Two feet doesn't equal runner, otherwise Royal's catch and fumble would have stood as a catch and fumble.

NFL Rule on player possession: ARTICLE 7. PLAYER POSSESSION Item 1. Player in Possession. A player is in possession when he is inbounds and has a firm grip and control of the ball with his hands or arms. Item 2. Possession of Loose Ball. To gain possession of a loose ball that has been caught, intercepted, or recovered, a player must have complete control of the ball and have both feet or any other part of his body, other than his hands, completely on the ground inbounds, and then maintain control of the ball until he has clearly become a runner. A player becomes a runner when he is capable of avoiding or warding off impending contact of an opponent. If the player loses the ball while simultaneously touching both feet or any other part of his body to the ground, there is no possession. This rule applies in the field of play and in the end zone. Someone please tell me how they could overturn that play with this wording of the rule? Tate only had one foot on the ground and was not across the plane of the end zone when Fuller had his hand on the ball (not COMPLETE CONTROL). Then as you can see in the 4th frame the ball is already coming out, and becomes even more clearly visible from frames 5-8. So at what point could Tate avoid or ward off impending contact? Also, the same rule applies in the field of play and end zone (which I did not know). That actually makes it even worse. If this happens in the field of play it is an INT, but because they say the play stopped once Tate had 2 feet down is complete garbage. Check out the pic below (massive picture alert):

Not a single official called it a TD, just look at the views that both officials on the sideline had: That guy has a clear view of the play right down the goal line and never signals a TD. There is another official with the same view from the close side of the field.

Coaching D (too conservative with lead, Red Zone, missed fake punt, and clock management) QB B (the red zone pick was bad, but not 100% on Jay, Alshon ran a horrible route and didn't really attempt to make a play on the ball) RB C (Forte didn't do much with the touches) WR B (Alshon, outside of the INT, had a great game and should've saw a few more targets) TE D (Bennett had too many drops) OL B (Played decent, but not many running lanes, and Long's penalties hurt) DL D (Non existent pass rush and McPhee penalty extended drive) LB C- (Didn't hear too much either way, but too much open space in middle of field (where ILB's should've been) DB F (Got torched by Stafford, old-man Megatron, and Lance freaking Moore)

The Good: 1. Nice to see Alshon back, 8-147, 18.4 AVG, and a TD is a nice 1st game back. The OK: 1. Cutler threw for 353, and looked good most of the game, but made a huge mistake in the Red Zone on that INT (at least the INT wasn't thrown to Bennett). With a FG on that drive, we win the game in regulation. He overthrew Forte on a guaranteed huge play, and didn't have the best accuracy at times, but more of his incompletions were due to drops than they were bad passes. 2. The offense scored 34, but left way too many points on the field. Gould kicked 3 FG's under 30 yards, so we potentially left 12 pts off the board there. Forte and the run game couldn't get anything going and his 89 yards on 27 touches is nothing to write home about. Langford had the one nice screen pass but otherwise only gained 10 yards on 5 rushes. Wilson only had 2 catches. Long had some uncharacteristic penalties after some solid play the last few weeks. I didn't hear much about Leno or Grasu, so I am assuming they had decent games. 2. The Special Teams - for how bad they have been lately, they did not allow any ridiculous returns, created 2 turnovers on punts, and Gould was 4-4 on FGs. I expect O'Donnell to kick better indoors, especially when he is known for huge punts. Now the worst play of the game on ST was the missed fake punt which undoes a lot of their good. How could you not be ready for that or at least play to defend against one? When special teams only accounts for 10-20 plays a game, you should be able to perform at a higher level than we are right now. Mariani didn't have a bad game, but he had a chance to advance the punt in OT when he caught it on the 22 with 10 yards of space, yet he literally gained 0 yards and didn't do the offense any favors there. The Bad (this will be long): 1. The defense just looked bad overall all game. Our coverage was horrible, and I don't know why any of our guys don't turn to look for the ball, ever. That TD to Tim Wright was bad, and I didn't realize Lance Moore was actually an NFL WR anymore, but McManis changed that. The front got no pressure and McPhee's late hit on Stafford extended their drive. To me our defense comes down to scheme and talent. We are in a new scheme and the talent level is not high enough to play it and we don't have some guys in natural positions. Still clearly a work in progress. What is alarming to me is the number of big plays we gave up. Coming into this game, I think we had only given up 1 play over 30 yards. Today we gave up 4. When your top 7 in tackles has McManis, Reynolds, and Jones-Quartley in it, you know you have issues. Backwards Hat Stafford threw for 405 yards and 4 TDs on us. Grinder rests..... 2. Bennett had a terrible game and had multiple drops. He only had one or two nice plays, but with 11 targets, he has to be more productive. 3. Coaching - a lot of blame to go around here. Fox had horrible clock management near the end of the game, and Gase got ultra conservative with the lead and Alshon Jeffery without a target on that 3 and out in the 4th killed us. Also, his play calling in the red zone is Trestmanesque, I don't know what he is doing and I don't think he does either. He had multiple drives that were awesome where he had new plays and formations that kept Detroit on their toes, but the Red Zone can't be overlooked. The Special Teams coach should be fired on principal as that fake punt alone. 4. Officials - quite possibly the worst officiated game I have ever witnessed. We had every variety of blown calls you can ever imagine go against us. We had an INT overturned into a TD for Detroit, a phantom face mask penalty on Acho that extended a drive, an overturned catch on Royal (which would be a catch if Tate's was), then a review on a close measurement in OT on the Bears but not one on the Lions on the next drive. Then in plain view of the QB rolling out, Willie Young is clearly held as he tries to close on Stafford (which gave him extra time to make the long throw). McManis was picked in the middle of the field on a long pass to Moore. I could go on and on. We won the turnover battle 3-1 and the sack battle 2-1 and still lost. To me this points somewhat to other factors. With a score this close, the officials gave Detroit just enough to allow them to squeak out a win (payback for their blown call in Seattle?). All in all a completely deflating game going into the bye. If we win, we go in 3-3 and a lighter schedule awaits in the last 10 games. A loss and we are 2-4 and essentially playing out the next 10. We would have to win 8 of our next 10 to have a shot at the playoffs. With this defense, that is hard to see.

Please check Admin forum, I performed an admin action today and would like to discuss.

I liked it the old way, 2 feet down with clean possession inbounds and it was a catch, everything after that was not under interpretation. Was their intent, did he make a football move, did he make the catch through to the ground? However, you are right, I have no freaking clue what a catch is anymore. It seems like that is now a completely subjective call by the officials.