Moving forward: Seattle at Chicago Official Game Thread

[Boston Boxer]

i don't like it when they get too cute on offense.  3rd and short...just let Howard run the ball.  Pass rush is relentless and the the whole team looks quick!  

[bowlingtwig]

29 minutes ago, Boston Boxer said:

i don't like it when they get too cute on offense.  3rd and short...just let Howard run the ball.  Pass rush is relentless and the the whole team looks quick!  

Totally agree. So far it's been almost all Robinson. I want to see more running with Howard. That will open up more guys on the outside

[bowlingtwig]

I hope trubisky can reign it in some in the 2nd half. To many mistakes and huge risks. He's lucky to not have 3 picks. Thank God for this defense. The Seahawks oline can't even pretend to block them so far

[Connorbear]

Great to see Miller get his first TD.  He's going to eventually be huge for this team. 

Peace

[bowlingtwig]

I'm not impressed by our DBs. To many times I see them running down field and they never turn there head around. If fuller is looking back he at least breaks up that TD

[ASHKUM BEAR]

12 minutes ago, bowlingtwig said:

I'm not impressed by our DBs. To many times I see them running down field and they never turn there head around. If fuller is looking back he at least breaks up that TD

How bout that! Hell yeah 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

1 hour ago, bowlingtwig said:

I'm not impressed by our DBs. To many times I see them running down field and they never turn there head around. If fuller is looking back he at least breaks up that TD

Almost identical play that Rogers pulled the week before when he started that comeback . I’ll have to say I’m not all that impressed with Fuller this year . Was starting to think Amukamura was looking old and slow until...the pick six.  I’d say for now they’re manageable . 

[AZ54]

Trubisky played poorly.  This is the first time I think the pressure of being the QB got to him as he focused too much on getting the details right.  Which means he's thinking too much, a bit late on where he should be on his reads, and just not throwing the ball as naturally as he's capable of.  Mistakes by others on offense set them back in the 3rd quarter but that late drive was outstanding.    We are seeing pieces of what this offense can be, it's going to take awhile for it all to come together.  

[bowlingtwig]

The offense is still very much a work in progress and we might not see what it's fully capable of until mid yr. I can always hope for 2 weeks when im there lol. The defense seemed to lose there edge. Like last week they were gassed in the 2nd half but the big time pick 6 really sealed things up. But that front 7 is downright scary. Can't wait till everyone is good to go fully

[BearFan PHX]

yup, Trubisky showed it last week too. Right now the game is too fast for him. He is also showing all the traits you need, and the lightbulb could come on at any time, but right now, it's still too much for him at times.

The offense is showing tho, sustained drives etc, but dumb mistakes are holding them back.

Defense looks ferocious and when Roquan Smith wakes up in a couple weeks it's gonna be ridiculous.

It will be fun to watch the team grow, but the offense looks like a baby predator right now. It looks cute sometimes showing the moves that will be deadly some day, and then it will trip over its own tail too.

soon?

[Bears4Ever_34]

Always good to get the W, but Trubisky's performance continues to worry me moving forward. He just does not look like a competent QB to me. It's rare for a QB to fix poor pocket presence. As long as he continues to look this rattled out there, teams are going to blitz more and more throughout the year, which, of course, could lead to more turnovers. 

I think Nagy needs to do a better job of getting Jordan Howard more touches throughout the course of the game to settle defenses down a bit, as well as Trubisky. Also, where is Kevin White? I saw Bellamy out there. I think I only saw KW lined up one time all game. He had a nice pre-season. I'd like to see him given more of an opportunity to stretch the field. 

Defensively, that was another dominating performance for 3 quarters of the game, but I still feel uneasy about this team plays against teams that go no huddle. Since Rodgers started running it in the 2nd half last week, the Bears have yet to keep a team from scoring touchdowns against them. Once Wilson went to it later on in the game, the Bears defense turned pretty ordinary. I know Prince made a game saving pick 6 in the 4th, but as great as that front 7 looks at times, the secondary looks a bit shaky to me. Kyle Fuller still hasn't learned to turn his head around to defend passes downfield. If I were the other team, there is no reason not to run no huddle, and I would start taking more shots down field to challenge these DB's. 

Luckily, next week is AZ, which SHOULD be an easy win. Maybe that could get this offense back on track and get them to settle in. Trubisky did play a little better in that 2nd half, but if the Bears are going anywhere this year, he needs to be MUCH better than he has shown early on in these first two weeks.

[Stinger226]

first things first, WE WON THE GAME, we have a dominate defense. They look tired in the last quarter but the NFL is always going to take a few weeks to get up to speed because of practice rules in the off season. 

Positives- D and is going to get better. We would like to think every play is awesome but the truth is the other team will make some plays. 

                  I like the offensive mentality of not being predictable. As far as consistency, we will be a different team in the middle of the season than we are right now. Everybody stated that and now that we are going through those growing pains, it is like a surprise .

                 Allen Robinson is the real deal, a true #1.

Negatives- We did not run the ball very well which goes back on the Oline. Need to fix that.

                    MT is a work in progress. He has some good plays and then bad. I still think the arrow is pointing up until it doesn't. To me , on his bad throws, I do not see him setting his feet. 

                     

last year we hailed D. Watson and if you look at these first two games, it is not so pretty.

Mahonnes is the latest comparison but I think that is unfair. He has the same system and sat on the bench to learn his first year. He has excellent targets. The good thing , the system that is making Mahonnes look good is here now, but will take some time to get it smooth. If MT looks like this in week 8, then we can question him but a little early to be Nelly negative.

[AZ54]

30 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

first things first, WE WON THE GAME, we have a dominate defense. They look tired in the last quarter but the NFL is always going to take a few weeks to get up to speed because of practice rules in the off season. 

Positives- D and is going to get better. We would like to think every play is awesome but the truth is the other team will make some plays. 

                  I like the offensive mentality of not being predictable. As far as consistency, we will be a different team in the middle of the season than we are right now. Everybody stated that and now that we are going through those growing pains, it is like a surprise .

                 Allen Robinson is the real deal, a true #1.

Negatives- We did not run the ball very well which goes back on the Oline. Need to fix that.

                    MT is a work in progress. He has some good plays and then bad. I still think the arrow is pointing up until it doesn't. To me , on his bad throws, I do not see him setting his feet. 

                     

last year we hailed D. Watson and if you look at these first two games, it is not so pretty.

Mahonnes is the latest comparison but I think that is unfair. He has the same system and sat on the bench to learn his first year. He has excellent targets. The good thing , the system that is making Mahonnes look good is here now, but will take some time to get it smooth. If MT looks like this in week 8, then we can question him but a little early to be Nelly negative.

I watched the KC game, at least a good portion of it.  For those of us who watched him a lot in college, Mahomes is still himself and it will show up sooner or later.  For now he is surrounded by talented players who all know the system.  The Steelers defense was often horrible in pass coverage with blown assignments or missed tackles and he took full advantage of it.  When you watch some of the highlights you see Mahomes was often off-target but his receivers made a good adjustment.  Kelce's TD catch was way behind him, there's not many TEs who can make that adjustment.  I'll wait to see how Mahomes handles being under pressure an entire game and throwing into tight windows before acknowledging he has truly shed his big-boom big-bust approach.   For now there is zero doubt he's a year ahead of Trubisky running this offense and it shows.  

 

 

[jason]

4 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

last year we hailed D. Watson and if you look at these first two games, it is not so pretty.

Mahonnes is the latest comparison but I think that is unfair. He has the same system and sat on the bench to learn his first year. He has excellent targets. The good thing , the system that is making Mahonnes look good is here now, but will take some time to get it smooth. If MT looks like this in week 8, then we can question him but a little early to be Nelly negative.

Um...Watson's stats are better than Trubisky's (other than comp %), and Watson looks FAR more confident as an NFL QB. Trubisky still looks like a frantic rookie a lot of the time.

[Pixote]

I'm getting a bit tired of all the excuses for Mitch's lack of improvement. I see little difference in his play this year from what we saw last year. I don't care that it is a new system. He is still making the same foolish mistakes. After constantly hearing the Bear's coaches and management try to come up with excuses for Cutler's failures in the past, I'm sorry, but I don't want any more excuses, I want production. I want proof that we aren't wasting our time with another QB who will be nothing more than a journeyman backup.

[AZ54]

28 minutes ago, jason said:

Um...Watson's stats are better than Trubisky's (other than comp %), and Watson looks FAR more confident as an NFL QB. Trubisky still looks like a frantic rookie a lot of the time.

Did you watch Watson in week 1?   He didn't look particularly calm in the pocket.  I have yet to see anything of his week 2 performance but given his head start in game experience nobody should be surprised that he's ahead of Trubisky at this point.  Especially considering he has the benefit of being in the same offense in year two.  

https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/sports/article/Health-not-translating-into-victories-for-now-0-2-13233941.php

Watson, who was making his eighth NFL start after missing the last part of his rookie season with a right knee injury, said he should have thrown the ball away instead of running around looking for a receiver. He found DeAndre Hopkins for a 31-yard completion to the Tennessee 21, but time expired before the Texans could run another play.   "I tried to take a shot," Watson said. "We didn't have any timeouts, and they guarded the sideline very well, so my instincts took over and I tried to get the ball and time ran out."

this week yet.  

[Stinger226]

My point on Watson was last year he looked like all world after his run and this  year he looks more like a work in progress. I am not sure any of us have seen a QB be developed before. Let's have a conversation towards the end of the year about where his growth is. In 2 years when we compare Watson,  MT and Mahonnes, we may have a better perspective on who they are.

[AZ54]

2 hours ago, Pixote said:

I'm getting a bit tired of all the excuses for Mitch's lack of improvement. I see little difference in his play this year from what we saw last year. I don't care that it is a new system. He is still making the same foolish mistakes. After constantly hearing the Bear's coaches and management try to come up with excuses for Cutler's failures in the past, I'm sorry, but I don't want any more excuses, I want production. I want proof that we aren't wasting our time with another QB who will be nothing more than a journeyman backup.

I'm not even sure what to say if you think the offense he ran last year, and his play, was as complex and compares to what we've seen so far this year.  That none of that matters to a player's, or really an entire offense's, development and then group it all into "same mistakes".  Last year under Fox the complaints were all about how Trubisky needs to throw the ball to learn.  Now he throws from the pocket and he's supposed to have it all down.  This past week I put up Carson Wentz' stats for his 13-16th starts in the same offense. 

In his 14th start Wentz threw 22 of 42, 170yds, 52% comp rate,  0 TD, 1 INT.  

In his 14th start Trubisky threw 25 of 34, 200yds, 73% comp rate, 2 TD, 2 INT.  

In his 14th start Russell Wilson was 14 of 23, 205yds, 60% comp rate, 1 TD, 0 INT   not exactly foretelling of his future success.   

Nobody knew Wentz would figure it out in his second season.  Nobody knew Russell Wison would either.  We don't know if Trubisky will but it seems clear that quite a few games are needed in this offense for QBs to get comfortable with it.  Beyond Mitch's issues, there are several other things on offense that need to improve like the run blocking.  At least the snaps weren't an issue this past game.   

The fact Trubisky has led TD drives in each of his first two games tells me that when he's comfortable with the plays he does well.  Those are scripted and he has days to prepare for them.  As soon as we go off script he's uneasy with his reads.  We'll see if that improves as he becomes more familiar with the playbook, how his receivers run those routes, and how that fits into the coverage.  It's just way too early to write him off.  Fortunately for Mitch, Nagy knows that and has plenty of experience bringing along new QBs in this offense including Patrick Mahomes.            

[Alaskan Grizzly]

3 hours ago, Pixote said:

I'm getting a bit tired of all the excuses for Mitch's lack of improvement. I see little difference in his play this year from what we saw last year. I don't care that it is a new system. He is still making the same foolish mistakes. After constantly hearing the Bear's coaches and management try to come up with excuses for Cutler's failures in the past, I'm sorry, but I don't want any more excuses, I want production. I want proof that we aren't wasting our time with another QB who will be nothing more than a journeyman backup.

Same here Pix.

I was going to respond to AZ about this matter but saw your response and felt compelled to add my two cents because my thinking is similar.  Comparing Trubisky to Watson and Mahomes right now is not fair to Trubisky.  Going back to their college years both Mahomes and Watson had 2.5 (nearly 3) years as starters where Trubisky didn't get that distinction until his Junior (and final) year.  In all the games played Mahomes was 857 of 1349 attempts for 11,151 yards with 93 TDs and 29 INTs.  Where Watson was 814 of 1207 attempts for 10,168 yards with 90 TD's and 32 INTs (its also noted that he ran for an additional 1934 yards and scored 26 TDs - and played in two NCAA championships; winning one).  Lastly although he too had a three year career, Trubisky's total accumulation was 386 of 572 attempts for 4,762 yards with 41 TDs and 10 INTs.   Good, bad or indifferent; Trubisky simply hasn't had the same level of experience that these other guys have had.  You pair that with his lack of participation in this year's preseason and it's pretty obvious (at least to me) why he seems to be struggling.  He simply doesn't have the 'stick time'.  

I'm still flabbergasted why Pace did what he did to get Trubisky but as many here have pointed out, he's our man.  Similar to the rest I'm hoping (wouldn't say optimistic) Trubisky works out.  So far I find myself feeling like all we did was get ourselves another Cutler...and that pains me to think that way.  

[jason]

1 hour ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Same here Pix.

I was going to respond to AZ about this matter but saw your response and felt compelled to add my two cents because my thinking is similar.  Comparing Trubisky to Watson and Mahomes right now is not fair to Trubisky.  Going back to their college years both Mahomes and Watson had 2.5 (nearly 3) years as starters where Trubisky didn't get that distinction until his Junior (and final) year.  In all the games played Mahomes was 857 of 1349 attempts for 11,151 yards with 93 TDs and 29 INTs.  Where Watson was 814 of 1207 attempts for 10,168 yards with 90 TD's and 32 INTs (its also noted that he ran for an additional 1934 yards and scored 26 TDs - and played in two NCAA championships; winning one).  Lastly although he too had a three year career, Trubisky's total accumulation was 386 of 572 attempts for 4,762 yards with 41 TDs and 10 INTs.   Good, bad or indifferent; Trubisky simply hasn't had the same level of experience that these other guys have had.  You pair that with his lack of participation in this year's preseason and it's pretty obvious (at least to me) why he seems to be struggling.  He simply doesn't have the 'stick time'.  

I'm still flabbergasted why Pace did what he did to get Trubisky but as many here have pointed out, he's our man.  Similar to the rest I'm hoping (wouldn't say optimistic) Trubisky works out.  So far I find myself feeling like all we did was get ourselves another Cutler...and that pains me to think that way.  

Same. Only, Cutler proved he could be a stud in Denver, but got to Chicago and got worse because he was behind a horrible OL for several (most) years with the Bears. Right now, Trubisky hasn't even proven he can be Cutler.

And to be quite honest, the comparison is scary for one other reasons: interceptions. Trubisky could easily have 2-3 more interceptions this year already. He sails a few per game, and it's just a matter of time before one of them is a crossing route that goes into a Free Safety's hands. Also, the out route he threw this past week was a stupid throw, barely complete by inches. It was awesome to be sure, but it was also the type of risky throw that leads to more INTs.

[Pixote]

He is having trouble with accuracy downfield. The main reason is poor footwork. Overthrowing Gabriel who was wide open or under throwing Robinson winding up with an INT as a result. Both were a result of poor footwork. His poor footwork almost led to a third INT against Seattle but fortunately the defender missed by inches of getting a pick six and Howard got a short gain on a reception. Poor footwork is something he showed last year. It doesn't seem to me it has improved this year. If you cannot complete passes downfield in Nagy's offense, there is a serious problem. You can get away with poor footwork on short passes, most of the time, by shear arm strength. When you go downfield, you need to have good footwork to be consistently accurate. So he's had 14 starts. How many reps in practice? How long does it take to learn this?

IMO, the main reason for Cutler's failure in Chicago was poor footwork leading to INTs. He never learned. Will Mitch?

I like Mitch, and hope I see the improvements you anticipate. However, if he doesn't improve his footwork and field vision, he will always struggle.

 

 

[BearFan PHX]

I think we all agree that Trubisky's game, as a whole this week, was not good enough. If you had a journeyman free agent like Mike Glennon with that performance, you'd can his ass. I think we all see that.

But there is no franchise QB available to just go pick up. You've got to grow one.

And here we have Trubisky, showing flashes, talent, long drives, and making mistakes, along with a new staff and new receivers.

Am I making excuses? Nope. Trubisky as he was this week is not good enough. The whole offense isn't good enough.

But seeing as how they all JUST GOT HERE, it seems prudent to give them a few more weeks and see what develops.

I think the smart money says this offense looks a LOT better at the end of this season. But if it doesn't, then we can talk about that then.

Right now, this is what you've got, and it's too early to say.

If you're a fan, it's a good time to cheer and root for them to improve.

[AZ54]

14 hours ago, Pixote said:

He is having trouble with accuracy downfield. The main reason is poor footwork. Overthrowing Gabriel who was wide open or under throwing Robinson winding up with an INT as a result. Both were a result of poor footwork. His poor footwork almost led to a third INT against Seattle but fortunately the defender missed by inches of getting a pick six and Howard got a short gain on a reception. Poor footwork is something he showed last year. It doesn't seem to me it has improved this year. If you cannot complete passes downfield in Nagy's offense, there is a serious problem. You can get away with poor footwork on short passes, most of the time, by shear arm strength. When you go downfield, you need to have good footwork to be consistently accurate. So he's had 14 starts. How many reps in practice? How long does it take to learn this?

IMO, the main reason for Cutler's failure in Chicago was poor footwork leading to INTs. He never learned. Will Mitch?

I like Mitch, and hope I see the improvements you anticipate. However, if he doesn't improve his footwork and field vision, he will always struggle.

 

 

Poor mechanics and inaccurate passes like those seen in this video?   

 

[Stinger226]

When you look at MTs development , you can pick out the good things you see or you can find things to criticize. The Bears have been bad for so long it seems that a lot of you look for failure because that is what were use to . I swear you cheer for failure so you can say look at me, i was right. This team is not the same as other teams we have been use to. It is at the stage where it is to about to take the next step and be on the winning side of a record. Pace has made many mistakes to get to this point in a total rebuild of the team. I also might add he is did many good changes also. We get one of the best 3 defensiveness players in the league and instead of enjoying the ride, you want to complain we paid to much. I see us on the verge of being a very good team. For some it seems like it has to be instant success or the whole plan is failure. When we finally get on the right side of winning, they will be people on here than complains about how flawed it is . If you want to be debbie downer all the time , good luck with that, but I am going to enjoy the ride. We win a game and so many on here want to pick everything a part. If perfection is what you seek, I suggest you pick a different sport because you won't find that in football.

[killakrzydav]

Mitchell had looked like dumpster juice so far this year. I'm very happy to have the opportunity to be 2-1 after this week though.