adam

Tannehill= perfect QB Rating at 158.3, Cutler 38.9.

That was just brutal, regardless if Holmes ran the wrong route, the DB was right there.

WTF!!!

Finally a positive play, Cutler has had very little time. Best protection all day. We need more of that.

On pace for about 11 for the entire game. Offense looks like crap though, with the missed FG, we need to capitalize and score.

This team needs to wake up.

Go Bears, sit SMC!

He was really starting to play better before he got hurt. I really hope he sticks and locks down one the starting LBs slots (we really could use the continuity).

Actually not very shocking, he has been very unproductive, is making way more than his production and has not fit in as well as they had hoped. They tried to get as much for he as they could.

I agree with the ST coverage, it is crazy. I guess it is not flashy enough. The only team with a winning record with a worse ST than us is the Lions, but they also have the #1 defense, so there is some balance there. We have the 14th ranked offense, the 8th ranked defense, and the 28th ranked ST.

Ryan QB'd a 4-12 team, that takes him out. Newton? He is a better athlete than Cutler, but not QB.

According to this site, Sharpton was the best defender on either team: http://live.advancednflstats.com/weekly.ph...6247&week=6

STAY OUT!!! and I mean that in a good way! I will also create the Game Thread again on Saturday morning.

Miller had 34 TDs to 26 INTs as a Bear, McMahon was 67-56. Cutler is 114-81. Interesting that if you add their 2 sets of numbers you get 101-82, about 13 TDs less than Cutler with 1 more INT. Wait, what about Orton, 30-27, maybe Tomczak, 33-47, Jim Harbaugh, 50-56. Kramer was probably the best at 63-45, and that ratio is still slightly lower than Cutler's. With 5 more wins, Cutler will be have the most wins as a QB in Bears history.

To me QBs are broken down into about 5 categories: HoFers: Manning, Brees, Rodgers, Brady Vets that won a Super Bowl: Flacco, Eli, Big Ben Vets that have not won a Super Bowl: Romo, Rivers, Ryan, Stafford, Newton, Smith, Palmer, Cutler Young Guns: Wilson, Foles, Luck, Kaepernick, Dalton, Cousins All others: Fitzpatrick, Bradford, Tannehill, etc To me, the 4 HoFers are the only ones better than Cutler on any given Sunday. The Super Bowl vets are as inconsistent as Cutler, the only difference is they won on some great teams. Big Ben is probably the best out of that group. The vets not to win an SB are filled with a lot of underachievers and a bunch of bad records. If a QB gets credit for a SB by a great team, he has to take the blame for a crappy team too. So Newton, Palmer, Stafford, Ryan have all been on some bad teams, so they were bad too. Cutler's worst record was his first season in Chicago at 7-9. He fits in here nicely, probably right after Rivers and Romo, and before Ryan, Newton, and Stafford. Then you have the Young Guns, Wilson won a Super Bowl with arguably the best defense and home field advantage ever. He has looked like crap this year, and if not for a 100 yard rushing day, Seattle is 2-3. Luck is the only one I would say is better than Cutler right now. So Manning, Brees, Rodgers, Brady, Big Ben, Rivers, Romo, and Luck, then Cutler. That puts him at 8 right now. If you add Wilson, Eli, Newton, and Ryan, that puts him at 12. I would say 8-12 is his spot.

I will, easier to track if you do it every week.

According to Pro Football Reference, he has missed 3 in his career. He missed one last year after a long string that was nearing an all-time record. The one before that was his rookie year.

To me the biggest difference in Cutler is the Red Zone this year, 13 TD - 0 INT is awesome. One concern is he is tied for 5th in sacks with 15, so his numbers could potentially be better with less pressure. Based on his numbers, he is a top 10 QB.

I re-watched the condensed version of the game this morning and came up with these observations: 1. Cutler: Made crisp decisions with the ball, threw them away when he had nothing (did not force), was making good animated fakes, moved well in the pocket and away from pressure, and overall had one of his best games as a Bear. He was also pretty pumped up after a few of the TDs. The only drawback was the telecast never showed him looking at a tablet or talking with coaches. 2. Young LBs: Sharpton and Greene both played a helluva game. They were in the frame on almost every single defensive play, regardless if they were making the tackle or not. Jones was probably the worst of out the three, as he accounted for a few of the Falcons bigger plays. I would love to see more Sharpton and Greene. 3. Defensive Line: Was very active, getting movement and pressure. They also had some batted balls. Willie Young is a beast, and I have to imagine teams will have to start accounting for him. 4. Best WR Duo: I am going out on limb here and saying Marshall/Jeffery are arguably the best WR pair in the league, ever, when considering all-around play. Maybe not over a career because they haven't played together that long, but when it is all said and done, these two have at least made a case. Not only can they make huge catches, but they block better than any pair of WR's I can recall. Then you add Bennett into the mix, and it is hard to beat this trio. 5. Forte: He has really stepped up his game the last few after some sub-par outings. He is running harder, and is still as smooth as silk. We have to figure out how to make the screens a little less predictable as one was stopped for a loss and another was a near loss. Other than that, another great outing from one of the best in the league. Finally got some rushing TDs. 6. DB's: Fuller is already a Superstar. What a ridiculous pick by Emery. Julio Jones was targeted 12 times and only caught 4 balls. Fuller also stripped him once which he ended up recovering. Hurst with an INT, and both Hurst and Mundy with some hard hits, which seemed to make the Falcons receivers less willing to go over the middle? It seemed that way, and there were a lot of drops. 7. Special Teams: Should be the unspecial teams. Our coverage team played a lot better this game, but the return game is horrible. Our starting field position was: 20/17/39/21/7/14/20/13/35. All three that were past the 20 were fair catches. Not a single KO return went past the 20. Our average was the 20.6 (that includes the punts). That is horrible, most teams start at their 35. This has to change. 8. Coaching: Great to see no 2nd half setback, we went into half with the lead and won the game. That is about all you can ask. I feel like we got a little conservative a little early with 9 mins left in the game. I understand the risk vs reward was probably high so they figured to play it safe. Defensive scheme against a really good offense shows promise. We just need to crack the code on our return game.

To me Cutler has not been that far off this year. Only 1-2 passes a game, but for the most part he has been very consistent. QB Ratings of 86.2, 119.2, 94.7, 82.5, 95.5, and 109.7. How much more consistent do you want? His low is 82.5, the only QB with a low game better than Cutler's is Peyton Manning. Every other QB in the league has had a QB rating below 82.5 at least once. Do you know what Cutler's TD-INT ratio is in the Red Zone? 13-0. How do you improve on that? He also has thrown no INTs inside our own 20. This was the first game that we had more yards than our opponent and won. We have led in every game this year (which is a promising note). Our Special Teams have done zero favors for both the offense or defense. We back our offense up on every kick return (bad return or penalty) and give the other team great field position. Marshall fumbled in the Buffalo loss and Forte's fumble was huge in the loss to Carolina. The defense also got gashed against the run vs Buffalo. That game and the Carolina game were the ones that got away. We could easily be 5-1 right now.

So I went down a rabbit hole tonight. Seeing Briggs on the sideline, I was looking for the Bears active leader in games played (on the field). Not counting Gould, the Bears active games leader was Garza, but after that it dropped off a lot: Briggs - 170 (t/13th w/ Dent) Tillman - 154 Gould - 147 Garza - 145 Forte - 97 Cutler - 73 Jennings - 68 Conte - 51 Paea - 45 Marshall - 38 Jeffery - 32 McClellin - 30 - If Briggs plays all remaining 10 games, he would pass Singletary and move into 9th, 2 games behind Urlacher. What I found remarkable was the gap between Garza and Forte. Almost a 50 game gap is the equivalent to over 3 years in the league. Where did all the players go: Since 2004 draft: 2004 draft - No active players in NFL (Harris/Johnson/Berrian/Vasher) 2005 draft - Orton only player in league left from 2005 draft in NFL (Benson/Bradley) 2006 draft - Manning and Hester only active players in NFL (Dvoracek) 2007 draft - Olsen, Graham, and McBride current active players (Bazuin/Wolfe/Okwo) 2008 draft - Forte only player left on team, Williams, Bowman, and Davis still active (1) 2009 draft - Melton and Louis still active in NFL (Gilbert/Iglesias) 2010 draft - Wright and Wootoon active 2011 draft - Paea and Conte on team, Carimi and Thomas still active (2) 2012 draft - SMC and Jeffery on team (Hardin) (2) 2013 draft - Long, Bostic, Greene, Mills, Washington, and Wilson still on team (6) 2014 draft - Fuller, Ferguson, Sutton, Carey, Vereen, O'Donnell, Leno still on team (7) w/ Fales on PS Forte is the only player drafted from 2004-2010 still on team (7 drafts). That is just crazy. Now I understand we traded some picks for Cutler, but I didn't think it was this bad. Now obviously, the more recent years will have more players left, but you still have to be happy with the amount of impact players out of the last 2 drafts and Jeffery only 3 drafts ago. To me, we are quietly building a strong core of youth. This is also why we got old really fast. To me this really shows how well Emery has done and literally kept this thing afloat with smoke and mirrors over the last few years and retooled on the fly.

Cutler just passed Jeff Garcia for 62nd in Passing yards, and closed the gap between himself and Rodgers to 3 yards. With 12 more completions he will pass Ron Jaworski for 54th in completions. Forte broke 7k Rushing yards for his career and is now only needs 33 to pass Charlier Garner for 57th all-time. With 157 All-purpose yards, Forte passed Earl Campbell and 6 others to move into 124th all-time and only needs 4 more yards to pass Donald Driver for 123rd. With 2 more rushing TD's, Forte will tie Gale Sayers for 4th in team history with 39. With 113 receiving yards, Marshall passed Raymond Berry and is now 50th all-time in receiving yards and needs only 18 more yards to pass Rob Moore for 49th. He also passed Wendell Davis and Jim Keane to move into 13th as a Bear. He now needs 69 more yards to move into 12th (passing Jim Dooley) in team history. With 6 Receptions, Marshall is now 7 away from passing Donald Driver and Andre Rison for 38th all-time. Marshall passed Dick Gordon and Desmond Clark and is now 10th in Bears history for receptions. He will pass Bobby Engram for 9th with 4 more. That was quick, Alshon making quick work of Bears receiving numbers, with 136 receiving yards, he jumped up into 24th all-time receiving yards passing Muhammad, Berrian, Knox, McLean, Graham, and Earl Bennett in one game. With 7 more receptions Jeffery will pass both Berrian and Graham for 35th all-time in receptions as a Bear. With his 1st sack as a Bear, Allen is now 3 from tying LT for 10th all-time. Gould hit 2 FGs and passed Chris Bahr for 40th all-time. With 7 pts, he now needs 4 pts to pass Mike Vanderjagt for 47th all-time. He also needs 11 pts to pass Garo Yepremian for 46th all-time. For team records, Gould now needs 1 FG to tie and 2 to pass Butler for the team career record. This should come in the next week or two. Willie Young now has 7 sacks as a Bear, good for 44th (tied with Hillenmeyer) and with 1.0 more, he will pass Ron Rivera, Clyde Simmons, Carl Simpson, and SMC for 38th all-time tying Bryan and Ron Cox.

Oh yeah, the entire D-Line played great. Our entire starting LB Corps, plus 4th LB was out. We started our 5th, 6th, and 7th. That is crazy. Briggs, Williams, SMC, and Bostic.

Everything fell into place again , we allowed 20 or less, scored 27 or more, won the turnover battle, and had zero INTs. When Cutler throws a pick 0-3, when Cutler doesn't 3-0. Some crazy trends. Cutler's lowest QB Rating this year 82.5, which is not bad. For the season his rating is around 98. His QB Rating, Yards, Comp% and TDs are all top ten. 1pm EST starts 0-3, 4pm or later 3-0.

Leading tacklers: Greene and Sharpton, and Hurst with an INT. Game balls to Cutler (381 yards, 68.4%, 1 TD, 0 INT, and 1 left-handed throw), Young (2 sacks) and the entire D-Line (4 sacks), Marshall, Jeffery, Forte, and the young LBs stepping up. Besides for that long screen to Smith, the defense held this explosive offense in check at home. 42 rushing yards allowed is crazy good.