Let's take a beat...

[madlithuanian]

We are all victims of horrifically run years in the past.  So, many can have an inclination to micro-manage and see so many issues and problems w/o seeing the big picture.  I'm guilty of it for sure.

That said, I really just wanted to take a step back and count our blessings as a Bears fan.  Besides our storied history, great city, and rabid fan-base...what we are seeing now with this team I think it truly special.

1.  We have a HC that's got potential.  And he's up-front and honest with the media and fans.  He's likable.  He's surrounded himself with some good assistants too.  Especially on the OL.

2.  We have a DC that is excellent.  Fangio has provided this team with consistency on the D side of the ball.  He's got pedigree and has made the most out of what we've had for years.

3.  THE D!!!  Holy Halas Batman!  This D had gone from a top ten...to arguably the best in the league!  And we're not even up to speed yet!  The preseason was non-existent and (maybe) our 2 best players weren't around for camp.  Roquan and Mack have added so much.  And they appear a little gassed late in the games.  But, I think they are getting better each week.  Oddly, the bye week might be a blessing being early.  The D-Line is on time!  Goldman is playing the nose so well!  Hicks is a beast!  And RRH & Lynch look solid.  The LB corps is arguable the best we've had since 85.  Even the 200's only really had Url and Briggs.  Hunter was solid, but not Mack, Floyd, Trevathan and Smith!  This is a group so fun to watch!  The secondary is still our weakest link, but the front 7 make their job easier.  Fuller's had some errors, but it's 2 games.  Amos and Jackson have also had errors...  But I think those errors will start turning into positives soon.  They simply need more time on the field.  

4.  The positive turnover on O.  A-Rob, Burton, Gabriel.  All positive upgrades from the last...decade?  

5.  Tried and true on the O.  Jordan Howard is the man.  He's not been asked of much yet.  But I think that'll start the change.  Additionally, the OL is solid.  Kyle is healthy and Whitehair is doing better than last season . Yes, we still need to upgrade a bit.  But the guys we have, plus Daniels down the road should be more than acceptable.      

6.  The potential of Tru.  We can all poo-poo last season with no coaching or WR help...or the last 2 games .  We've seen flashes.  Not spic flashes.  But solid flashes.  We've also seen some rookie mistakes.  Our wagon is hitched to this horse.  So, comparing to Watson, Mahomes, or anyt-one including Joe Montana is kind of irrelevant.  He's our future.  At minimum for 2 more seasons. At max, for a decade!  I hope it's the latter.  Experts and many here said growing pains and the roller coaster ride is expected for this season with the new game plan and that he's simply not had all that many starts in college or pro.  We need to give this time.  Be upset when he messes up.  Be happy when he excels.  But, enjoy the ride.  It'll be bumpy.  But, I have a feeling, after about week 8, we will see what Nagy and other feel they have in him.  Tru is very likable and I can't help rooting for the guy.  This is a project. 

7.  MACK!  Yeah, I already mentioned him in item 3...but...MACK!   Seriously.  Wow.   The Chicago LB tradition continues!   This guy's impact is just astronomical!  That said, this season, it doesn't push us tot he SB.  But it sure as hell pushes us into legit contention for a wild card.  Vegas has us barely at 7 wins before he came around.  I think he's worth 2 more wins.  We go 9-7.  There's potential for more...or less.  But, imagine that D with another year under Fangio's system w/ an acclimated Roquan on top of it?  And probably some new blood as well.  

8.  Expectations raised.  As mentioned, Mack increases expectation.  But it doesn't swing it into the stratosphere.  We should be better.  But, we must temper that with knowledge that the O will take some time.  Between new play calling, Tru's grooming, and all else...it'll take some time.  The difference is that we have an amazing team to watch every down, every game, every week!  This is fun again!  

I'm going to the Tampa game in 2 weeks, and couldn't be more excited!  

Let's go Bears!

 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

Dang you Mad and your eternal optimistic ways!!!!  What does a Bear fan have to gripe about if not for its teams’ failure?  

But I hate to say it...you’re right.  There is an awful lot of good going on in Halas Hall these days.  When I saw Nagy break the team on ‘family’ before saying “that’s the only thing that matters to me”, I knew we had us a keeper.  And now he’s adding the disco ball to the locker room when they win?  Just like the Cubs?!  Great stuff. 

Ill try and do my best to minimize my gripes but will be ready to dish my disappointment if I truly am.  Until then...a tip of the hat, good day and cheers!

[BearFan PHX]

hooray for optimism! youre right!

[ASHKUM BEAR]

Glass always half full here. I think that lightning strike at the start of the GB game raised expectations so high that when the Bears fell back closer to reality, disappointment set in. Fans needed a reason for that feeling and you find faults to lay blame. Well, I'm all in for the ups and downs. I'm willing to let Tru settle in because he has been antsy. Antsy because he has high expectations on himself. Wait until he finds the ice, that's all he needs, and he can make strides. The great thing is we may have one of the most exciting Defenses the NFL has seen...in the first halves of games so far lol. My lord, they are going to win many games alone. If we stay healthy, get Shaheen back to get Sims off the field, good things will happen.  Cheers to a new season and ?⬇️

[madlithuanian]

On 9/21/2018 at 3:18 PM, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Dang you Mad and your eternal optimistic ways!!!!  What does a Bear fan have to gripe about if not for its teams’ failure?  

But I hate to say it...you’re right.  There is an awful lot of good going on in Halas Hall these days.  When I saw Nagy break the team on ‘family’ before saying “that’s the only thing that matters to me”, I knew we had us a keeper.  And now he’s adding the disco ball to the locker room when they win?  Just like the Cubs?!  Great stuff. 

Ill try and do my best to minimize my gripes but will be ready to dish my disappointment if I truly am.  Until then...a tip of the hat, good day and cheers!

Cheers!  

[AZ54]

Having been at the game I went back and watched the television broadcast I recorded.  After the game most of what I read was how awful Trubisky was.   After watching Ben Roethlisberger and Ryan Fitzpatrick for a few hours I spent some time comparing Trubisky to them.  Everyone is going to get their knickers in a twist over this but Trubisky didn't play that poorly.  There were about 5 plays I'd like to see him either make a better pass or read on.   

The sack/fumble?  Two hands on the ball and Kyle Long blows it big time on his block and then, with Trubisky moving outside the pocket to the left, Long can't even push the DT behind the play.  It wasn't too long ago when that kind of blocking merited its own thread after the game.  

The one play he absolutely blew the read on was the double blitz off the edge in the red zone.  He should have hit Cohen on that one.  Yet later in the game with a similar edge blitz he makes the right read and goes to the hot route but the ball gets tipped and is intercepted on a diving play.  

The first deep pass to Gabriel should have never been thrown IMO.  He was clearly double covered and not open.  I still feel like Nagy is pushing for the big plays.  I'm not saying that's the wrong idea either because A) you have to let the DBs know you can and will go there and B ) Trubisky and the WRs have to get the timing down in games.  That play to Gabriel had zero chance of being complete IMO and he threw it over the top of everyone where it wasn't likely intercepted.     The second deep throw to Gabriel he should have led Gabriel to the left side of the endzone and could have had a TD.    Sometimes as a QB you lead the WR to the open area instead of just leading the ball on the route as it's being run.   He's got to learn that.    Late in the game it was obvious to me real time that Gabriel eased up on the route when he got hit hard.  I see so many criticize Tru for that and wondered that maybe the replays didn't show that but it was there on both replays.   

The deep throw to Robinson right in front of me!  Definitely left that ball short.  This week Robinson comes back into the picture and prevents the INT.  Actually if the DB doesn't keep his left arm down that's a big catch.  There were a couple of other throws late in the game I didn't like and again, it seemed Trubisky was trying to find the big plays instead of taking what the defense gave him.  

The thing is I find these same type of plays each week from almost every QB.  Yet we have fans calling Trubisky the worst starting QB in the NFL even preferring QBs like Cousins and Keenum.   That's completely ignoring the many good plays he made in the Arizona game.  More hypocritically they ignore the bad throws the other QBs make.  This hysteria is becoming it's own feeding frenzy.  Yet people conveniently move the goal post.  First it was why can't he be like Dak?  Then Dak's not playing good but man why can't he be like Watson?   Now Watson is 0-3 this year and has had some struggles so we're onto Mahomes and oh, look at Darnold.   Wait, by week 3 we need to drop Darnold but let's add Mayfield.  Can we toss in Josh Allen too because he only needed 15 pass completions and 196 yrds to beat the Vikings?     

There were many perfect throws against AZ hitting receivers perfectly in stride starting with the first completion to Miller where he was able to add on about 7 YAC.  I'm not saying he's a finished product yet, there are plenty of things to work on and we need more downfield completions.  The whole premise that all offensive struggles are Trubisky's fault, and especially that he's the worst QB in the NFL, is simply ignoring much that has gone right.  It's not his fault Cohen keeps mis-reading blocks and cutting the wrong way.  It's not his fault Kush, Long, or Massie miss blocks.  There are issues among the entire offense to work out especially the Oline blocking in the run game.  He needs to speed things up in his mind.  If he can get to the point where the ball is coming out about a half second quicker I think we'll be in a good spot.  I think that will improve the downfield accuracy too because he'll be throwing it on time.  Hopefully this will come with more reps but IMO it's just way too early in this offense to give up on him.    If we're in the same spot in Week 17 then the conversation will be different.  

The Tampa game will be interesting because their D will play similarly to what Arizona did.  They have Gerald McCoy instead of Chandler Jones and they we're showing heavy fronts and blitzes throughout the Pittsburgh game.  I want to see how Nagy and Trubisky handle things this time around.  

    

 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

8 hours ago, AZ54 said:

The thing is I find these same type of plays each week from almost every QB.  Yet we have fans calling Trubisky the worst starting QB in the NFL even preferring QBs like Cousins and Keenum.   That's completely ignoring the many good plays he made in the Arizona game.  More hypocritically they ignore the bad throws the other QBs make.  This hysteria is becoming it's own feeding frenzy.  Yet people conveniently move the goal post.  First it was why can't he be like Dak?  Then Dak's not playing good but man why can't he be like Watson?   Now Watson is 0-3 this year and has had some struggles so we're onto Mahomes and oh, look at Darnold.   Wait, by week 3 we need to drop Darnold but let's add Mayfield.  Can we toss in Josh Allen too because he only needed 15 pass completions and 196 yrds to beat the Vikings?     

The Tampa game will be interesting because their D will play similarly to what Arizona did.  They have Gerald McCoy instead of Chandler Jones and they we're showing heavy fronts and blitzes throughout the Pittsburgh game.  I want to see how Nagy and Trubisky handle things this time around.  

AZ, as unfair as it may seem; when you're picked #2 overall in the 1st round a lot of comparisons and expectations will be made.  I personally think it worthy given that fact alone.  I'm not sure I've seen anyone here say Trubisky is the 'worst QB' in the league.  Most of the 'experts' in the NFL rank him somewhere in the middle. 

Make no mistake, the two factors that kept the Bears in the game last week against Arizona were the defense and Arizona.  Trubisky did some to get the ball moving but at best I think we can call him a potentially solid game manager.  Except for the turnovers.  Those alone could kill us.  Sure we can blame Kyle Long for knocking the ball out of his hand to cause a fumble or Sims for not being in the place where Trub threw the ball (short - resulting in INT) but the fact is, Trubisky has been directly involved in most of the Bears turnovers to this point.  If he can clean that up and his long game, we might have something.  Until then we don't really know what he's capable of. 

On the lighter side; and pardon my comparisons, but Peyton Manning started his rookie season for Indy in 1998 and despite throwing 26 TDs to 28 INTs with a 71.2 passer rating that year, he had a pretty successful career overall.  There's still hope for Mitchell.   

Speaking of TB, I'm intrigued too by what lies ahead. Will it be Fitzpatrick or Winston?  McCoy (OC in AZ) called a pretty successful game plan to keep the Bear's D at bay for most of the first half of the game.  Will Koetter do the same? 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

And here are Trubisky’s passes from last weeks game:

 

[AZ54]

50 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

AZ, as unfair as it may seem; when you're picked #2 overall in the 1st round a lot of comparisons and expectations will be made.  I personally think it worthy given that fact alone.  I'm not sure I've seen anyone here say Trubisky is the 'worst QB' in the league.  Most of the 'experts' in the NFL rank him somewhere in the middle. 

Make no mistake, the two factors that kept the Bears in the game last week against Arizona were the defense and Arizona.  Trubisky did some to get the ball moving but at best I think we can call him a potentially solid game manager.  Except for the turnovers.  Those alone could kill us.  Sure we can blame Kyle Long for knocking the ball out of his hand to cause a fumble or Sims for not being in the place where Trub threw the ball (short - resulting in INT) but the fact is, Trubisky has been directly involved in most of the Bears turnovers to this point.  If he can clean that up and his long game, we might have something.  Until then we don't really know what he's capable of. 

On the lighter side; and pardon my comparisons, but Peyton Manning started his rookie season for Indy in 1998 and despite throwing 26 TDs to 28 INTs with a 71.2 passer rating that year, he had a pretty successful career overall.  There's still hope for Mitchell.   

Speaking of TB, I'm intrigued too by what lies ahead. Will it be Fitzpatrick or Winston?  McCoy (OC in AZ) called a pretty successful game plan to keep the Bear's D at bay for most of the first half of the game.  Will Koetter do the same? 

There was someone here who posted he was the worst QB in the league.  Plus I scan some other boards but don't post there because there are far too many idiots.  There are some very strong sentiments among some Bears fans that Chase Daniels is better than Trubisky.   Anyway, I prefer the discussions we tend to have here.  There are a lot of people who have never had to learn a new offense with new WRs who seem to know everything about becoming a good NFL QB.   NFL Game Pass has increased the amount of Monday Morning QBs in the world.     

For sure we're coming out of the first quarter of the season at least 2-2.  If I'm Nagy, for the bye week I'm telling Mitch to take a short vacation and get completely away from football for a few days.   This kind of paralysis by analysis is bad for an athlete and one way to get it out of your system is to just completely walk away for a bit and then come back to it.    

[Alaskan Grizzly]

1 hour ago, AZ54 said:

There was someone here who posted he was the worst QB in the league.  Plus I scan some other boards but don't post there because there are far too many idiots.  There are some very strong sentiments among some Bears fans that Chase Daniels is better than Trubisky.   Anyway, I prefer the discussions we tend to have here.  There are a lot of people who have never had to learn a new offense with new WRs who seem to know everything about becoming a good NFL QB.   NFL Game Pass has increased the amount of Monday Morning QBs in the world.     

Admittedly I would be one of those that think Daniels could run the offense better than Trubisky ... right now.  And that opinion would solely be based on 1) he (Daniels) looked effective in the pre-season and 2) He (Daniels) has had experience in this style offense.  A large part of my feeling about this is also being disappointed in Nagy not getting Trubisky more experience playing in the pre-season.  To me that may (or may not) have helped clean up some of what we’re seeing.  But as they say; ‘coulda, shoulda, didnt’.  I understand that Trubisky is in place for better or worse.  And barring a cataclysmic meltdown by him for which even the D can’t recover from, I’m ok with it.  Which brings me to the last bit...

1 hour ago, AZ54 said:

For sure we're coming out of the first quarter of the season at least 2-2.  If I'm Nagy, for the bye week I'm telling Mitch to take a short vacation and get completely away from football for a few days.   This kind of paralysis by analysis is bad for an athlete and one way to get it out of your system is to just completely walk away for a bit and then come back to it.    

This is absolutely a great idea.  I hope Nagy uses it.  

[Stinger226]

How does MT progress sitting on the bench behind Daniels? I think Daniels would perform better but the whole purpose of this year is to develop MT. With Mack coming it makes us better so that means the development of MT is trashed? No matter how good our D is , we will not make it to the SB until MT gets to his high point as the QB.

[BearFan PHX]

2 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

How does MT progress sitting on the bench behind Daniels? I think Daniels would perform better but the whole purpose of this year is to develop MT. With Mack coming it makes us better so that means the development of MT is trashed? No matter how good our D is , we will not make it to the SB until MT gets to his high point as the QB.

this is correct. even if Daniels is the better QB right now, then neither of them is good enough to lead the team to a Super Bowl win. yes Trent Dilfer notwithstanding, but to LEAD.

And so the future is with a Trubisky who is better than Daniels will ever be, and of course better than he is now too.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

This whole 'waiting for Trubisky to develop' is a loaded proposition.  We don't really have a clue what that will be due to not having much to go on from his collegiate career, aside from his senior year and what he did in HS.  As I pointed out before even Peyton stumbled out of the blocks when he started with the NFL.  But I think we can all agree that his collegiate career was rather impressive.  Another  train of thought would have been to have had him sit and wait while he gets more opportunity to learn the offense.  Would've Daniel been more effective and had us at 2-1 at this point?  No one can say.  But realistically neither has Trubisky.  Again its our D that has kept the team in the thick of things so far. 

My question to those that want to go the 'wait and see' approach.  How long do you give him?  8 games, 16 games, 2 seasons, 3 seasons? 

[madlithuanian]

2 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

 

My question to those that want to go the 'wait and see' approach.  How long do you give him?  8 games, 16 games, 2 seasons, 3 seasons? 

He gets this season and more than likely all of next.  Unless it's somehow off the rails.  

[BearFan PHX]

1 hour ago, madlithuanian said:

He gets this season and more than likely all of next.  Unless it's somehow off the rails.  

I agree. obviously there will have to be growth, but this whole offense is a multi year installation.

the good news is that Nagy in his first year, and Pace dont particularly care what we think, if they think they're on the right path they have the time and space to see it through to their own satisfaction.

 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

7 minutes ago, BearFan NYC said:

The good news is that Nagy in his first year, and Pace dont particularly care what we think, if they think they're on the right path they have the time and space to see it through to their own satisfaction.

 

Well based on what AZ said earlier with regards to what he’s seen on other boards, several non-experts (aka fans) are losing patience with Trubisky.  That is not a unique issue based on a few articles floating around that I’ve seen.  Most of the posters here are exhibiting the optimism and faith (misguided or no) and believe Trubisky will eventually trend in the right direction.  

[BearFan PHX]

1 hour ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Well based on what AZ said earlier with regards to what he’s seen on other boards, several non-experts (aka fans) are losing patience with Trubisky.  That is not a unique issue based on a few articles floating around that I’ve seen.  Most of the posters here are exhibiting the optimism and faith (misguided or no) and believe Trubisky will eventually trend in the right direction.  

yup i agree. when i say "we" I meant the Chicago Bears fan base, not this board in particular, although a few are guilty

Watch today's Nagy press conference, it pretty much says it all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYS73IejeLQ