Bears4Ever_34

Unacceptable performance by the special teams so far today. Great start for Cutler!

O-Line hasn't looked good to start. Allen is blowing by Bushrod.

The Bears should win this game on paper, but with the NFL, you never know. I think I know enough to say the difference in this game will come down to AP vs Jay Cutler. Bears win if they take AP out of the game, and or get a stud performance from Cutler.

In the link it says he was fined for lowering his head on a defenseless players body. I'm sorry, but in no way was that player defenseless. If you watch the entire clip, the guy was already making a move to turn up field and just flat didn't see Bostic coming. It should have been a fumble, too.

Gotta love the NFL-- Clay Mathews: 15k for a dirty horse collar tackle 3 yards out of bounds that could have caused serious injury to the QB who was not in the field of play. No ejection though. Jon Bostic: 21k for a perfectly legal hit to the chest on a receiver who had already made a move to turn upfield I'll never understand it.

I'm sensing a disconnect between what I posted and your comprehension of it. Your last sentence doesn't even make sense. I used Tebow and Newton because they were the first quarterbacks who used the read option 3 seasons ago when it took the NFL by surprise. Kapernick, RGIII, and Russell Wilson took it to another level last year when the package expanded. Now about half the teams in the league are using it in some way or another.

It's called the read option, hence the "option" part of it, meaning there are choices that involve both running and throwing. The quarterback can take it and run, he can give it to the RB, or in some cases he can fake it and throw it down field. The 49'ers used a lot of their play action stuff out of that read option package in the game against GB. I don't know how ESPN keeps track of those type of plays, but they weren't watching the same game I was. I don't see why people think something so difficult to defend is going to be stopped, just because. It's been 3 years since Tim Tebow and Cam Newton started running this play, and it's still working better than ever today. We can say it's been figured out when teams stop using it. People like to compare the wildcat to the read option, but it's a bad comparison because you had RB's who couldn't throw. With no passing involved (or at least no passing that warranted respect), it was only a matter of time before it got figured out.

That'd be wrong. 7 rushing attempts doesn't mean 7 read option plays. There were more times where the ball was handed off, and times where the quarterback pulled it back and threw it down field. What are you trying to argue at this point? It's beyond clear that it hasn't been figured out yet, and now there are even more teams that are using it as part of their package.

The pass protection looked fantastic in the 1st quarter, but began to break down as the game went on. I thought they were pretty careful in having Vick run around though. Most of the time the options were to hand it off to McCoy or throw it down field. Definitely something to keep an eye on as the weeks go by. Fair points. That is part of the formula for success against the Chip Kelly offense. I don't think you can beat them though relying solely on defense. If you're going to beat the Eagles this year, you better have a good offense yourself. They are going to score points as long as they keep this tempo up. They'll have more opportunities to score. What we didn't see happen last night, and what I'm curious to find out moving forward, is how worn down the defense gets in the 2nd half defending this team. The Eagles were up by so much early on that they slowed everything down by the end of the 3rd quarter, which allowed the defense to get rest. If they kept the foot on the gas pedal, they probably could have turned the game into a joke. Not sure how good their team is yet. They may be a playoff team. I think the offense will put up points, but the defense will not be able to keep up, and that will be their downfall.

The penalties the Bengals committed were completely avoidable if they knew how to play with discipline. They're the kind that you can't live with. The penalties on Bennett happened within the flow of the game that aren't as easily avoidable. It's like when Nhdamakong Suh takes out a dudes knee to negate his team's pick 6. Just don't be an idiot and you get 6 points. Same thing with the Bengals. Don't shove a guy when he's out of bounds or get in a fight with an offensive lineman when the game is still on the line and you give your team a chance.

So you're going to use the first game RGIII comes back from ACL surgery as evidence for how the league has figured out how to stop the read option, and then ignore what just happened with Philadelphia? The 49'ers ran a bunch of read option stuff yesterday. Kaepernick just didn't take it and run with it much at all. He threw it or handed it off instead. That's why it's called an option. It's the threat of not knowing where the ball is going that's killing defenses. I don't know why people think it's all of a sudden suppose to just go away. Now if they all threw the ball like Tim Tebow.. Then I could see it.

They slowed the tempo down and played not to lose in the 4th quarter. As far as figuring the Eagles out, unless you can tell them to stop running the no-huddle I don't see what there really is to figure out that teams don't already know. The read option was supposed to be figured out, but I'm still waiting for that to happen. Only way to combat against the tempo is to sustain long drives yourself on offense, which is the same thing teams try to do against the Saints. A lot easier said than done.

It's not a negative attitude, it's called perspective. If it weren't for the costly brain-dead penalties the Bengals committed, and the miss managing of timeouts at the end, it could have been a different story. Robbie Gould's FG would not have happened had they not been gift wrapped the field position, thanks to Dre Kirkpatrick for being an idiot. That's huge. I give the Bears credit for finishing the game strong, but I feel like they were pretty damn fortunate as well. Most teams aren't that stupid and undisciplined. If you take my entire post in context, I tried to paint an honest assessment from both viewpoints, the positive and negative. There were reasons to be concerned just as there were reasons for optimism.

The Eagles are putting on a clinic. This is scary good.

20+ plays already and it's not even halfway through the first quarter. I am fascinated by this at the NFL level.

I was going to post that Long pic earlier. Can you say, "Culture Change?" Guy is a beast. Burfict is a pretty imposing dude himself but Long makes him look like a little kid.

I learned: - The Bears offense has a long ways to go. In the first half, they looked like one of the worst teams in football. 96 yards of total offense, and the defense couldn't get off the field on 3rd downs. The 2nd half was much better. - Defensively, I am concerned. The defensive line wasn't generating any pressure, which was putting Tillman, Jennings, and the rest of the secondary in a bad spot because they had to play perfectly, and they didn't. AJ Green torched them all game long, and they didn't seem interested in tackling either Eiffert nor Gresham when they caught the ball. - The offensive line did much better than expected. They weren't perfect, but they more than sufficient. Didn't hear Geno Atkins name being mentioned at all in this game. Kyle Long and Jordan Mills look like the real deal so far. If it weren't for the Bengals channeling their inner Detroit Lions and committing some moronic 15 yard penalties in dire situations, the Bears might not have won this game. Luckily, Cutler made some big plays in the 2nd half that won us the game after a bad interception that could have easily thrown it away. Overall, the Bears showed glimpses of how good they can be if things click on offense. I think it's a very realistic possibility that the defense will fall out of that elite category by the end of the year, and it could be enough to keep them out of the playoffs. It will take a few more games to get a clearer picture of what this team is all about. They did just enough to win today against a pretty solid team. All of a sudden, the schedule is looking a little better right now with Minnesota and Pittsburgh looking pretty vulnerable after their week 1 losses.

LOL! What a dumb ass penalty. BEARS WIN!

Credit to McClellin for that pressure. Anderson almost picked that off! So close..

There's a nice finishing drive! Now they better freakin hold the Bengals.

There's the trademark Jay Cutler idiotic interception that changes the game.. Unbelievable.

OMG the defense got a stop!

Good response from the offense! Now if the defense would stop somebody..

I'm not sure what looks worse today, the offense or defense. The Bears look like they'll be getting a top 5 pick this year with the way they have played so far. Horrendous!

Yep. Looks like the same old Bears to me so far, except a little bit worse on defense. Bengals totally outplayed the Bears that half, yet only lead by 4. If the Bears get any type of pass rush, they have a chance to win, otherwise, it is going to be a long day.