Week 1 Official Game Thread - CHI @ LAR, +7.5, O/U 44.5, SUN 9/12, 7:20PM CT - NBC

[Stinger226]

10 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

This is the type of optimism I like.  I think you’re right that as long as they follow your suggested game plan (fair balance of run) we will be pleasantly surprised.  My concern will be with pass coverage but as long as Stafford isn’t allowed to get comfortable then it won’t be as much an issue. 

(Hopefully) they stop the run and force Stafford to throw. It is the underneath stuff  I am worried about. Higbee and Van Johnson. Passes to the RBs. WE need to run the ball well and things will fall into place. It always seems like games that seem so lopsided, it rarely turns out that way. Dallas was looked to be a big underdog. Houston is winning today, who thought that would happen. Having said all that, it will come down to turnovers. If we show a +2, we have a shot.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

7 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

Dallas was looked to be a big underdog. Houston is winning today, who thought that would happen

Dallas looked great the other night!  And Tyrod Taylor is playing all out.  He looks spectacular.  Or Jax is really bad.  

[Mongo3451]

I'm noticing that the teams coming out with a chip on their shoulder are faring pretty well.  Hopefully us...

[Alaskan Grizzly]

1 hour ago, Mongo3451 said:

I'm noticing that the teams coming out with a chip on their shoulder are faring pretty well.  Hopefully us...

That’s more like it!  Lol.  
 

How bout them Saints?  Who dat?!?! 

[Pixote]

Well, Green Bay got destroyed by New Orleans 38 to 3. Minnesota lost in overtime to Cincinnati. Detroit lost by 8 to San Francisco. So if the Bears should upset the Rams, we'd have sole possession of first place. 

[McGowan]

Expecting to get absolutely pounded tonight. Will be surprised if the offense crosses the 50 yd line more than once or twice. 

This is either going to be a blowout by the Rams or a low scoring tight game, depending on Mack and Quinn. 

[Mongo3451]

41 minutes ago, Pixote said:

Well, Green Bay got destroyed by New Orleans 38 to 3. Minnesota lost in overtime to Cincinnati. Detroit lost by 8 to San Francisco. So if the Bears should upset the Rams, we'd have sole possession of first place. 

At this point, I would not be surprised if we win.  Looks like the favorites came out flat today.  Bills, Titans, Vikings,  Packers,  Falcon's.  Even the Chiefs and Buc's had to take it to the very end.  Today is the day of the pissed off underdog.  Let it be ours too!

[McGowan]

Lol who was Dalton throwing to? 

[ChileBear]

And why didn't our D get on the plane from Chicago?

 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

13 minutes ago, McGowan said:

Lol who was Dalton throwing to? 

Montgomery was single covered and trailing by the guy who intercepted. Probably woulda been a TD had it not been tipped. 

[McGowan]

1 minute ago, ChileBear said:

And why didn't our D get on the plane from Chicago?

 

The Bears D is old and bad. This is a rebuild guys. All of the top players on D are aging and declining. Mack hasn't been an impact player since 2018. 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

The running game looks good so far.  Don’t give up on it. 

[BearFan2000]

18 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

The running game looks good so far.  Don’t give up on it. 

Don't worry Naggy will always go away from what works, because he's sooooo clever.    

This is getting ugly quick.  Why do we keep going for it on 4th down only give the Rams great field position are we trying to get blown out in the first quarter?  If that's the game plan it's working...

[Alaskan Grizzly]

Bears score after a nice balanced drive. Even if the Bears lose this game and continue to play as they have, they look good. As Collinsworth said if Gipson or Jackson touched down that receiver earlier in the game this could be going a lot different.  

[McGowan]

Add Eddie Jackson to Mack on the list of defensive players that haven't been good since 2018. 

[ChileBear]

21 minutes ago, McGowan said:

Add Eddie Jackson to Mack on the list of defensive players that haven't been good since 2018. 

Our DBs are going to kill us this season. Rams receivers are all alone.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

25 minutes ago, McGowan said:

Add Eddie Jackson to Mack on the list of defensive players that haven't been good since 2018. 

So far I’m not impressed with Desai’s version of Fangio’s D.  He’s just a wanna-be at this point. 

[Mongo3451]

4th and 15. Nagy just lost 100% of my respect...

[Uncle Buck]

Where to start. Well at least I can finally disregard all the preseason BS about our D coordinator. Eddie Jackson, time for you to grab some bench. I don’t care who’s the backup to him, play him, it can’t get worse than the tackling #4 displays. I suspect we are in for a long season. Oh well, only shining moment was seeing Rodgers tearing up on the sideline today.

[Bill]

Montgomery should at least gotten ten more carries.  Why limit him to what 20 carries(  He was running his ass off.

[Bill]

Maybe six posts after the first game of the season on a bears blog.  Very disappointing.  And just once I would love to hear Nanni rip him self and some of his players.   Not in a Ditka way just try and light a fire under his players.  

Fire them all!

[Bears4Ever_34]

This is a bottom 10 team in the league. It's unfortunate they are without their 1st round pick this year, because they're going to need a massive overhaul of talent here pretty soon.

All of their best guys on defense, with the exception of Roquan, have gotten older and slower. Khalil Mack is not a game changing star anymore. He's gotten worse every year he's been with the team. Eddie Jackson is so bad right now, that if he wasn't making so much money, you would seriously consider cutting him. I don't think I've ever seen a more promising young player who's career has taken such a drastic turn for the worst after the way he started out. We know how bad Robert Quinn is. Eddie Goldman is never available anymore.. There just isn't much here to be excited about, and I think it's only going to get worse when players inevitably get injured.

Andy Dalton is a waste of time and a waste of reps for Justin Fields, who I thought looked poised and under control in the limited amount of reps he got today. The OL played good enough to win, especially in the run game. Of course they lose both of their LT's in week 1. You knew that was going to happen. I thought David Montgomery was easily their best player tonight. If he's going to continue to run the ball like that, they need to feature him more in the offense moving forward.

The most hilarious part about tonight's game is the fact that Andy Dalton did not attempt a pass beyond 15 yards all game. The Bears ranted and raved all offseason about how much speed they added at the WR position, and yet, they didn't do anything to take advantage of it. Typical Bears. Typical Matt Nagy.

I think they are going to lose next week to Cincinnati at home. This season has a 2017 feel to it. Fields will be in there before the first month of the season is over. I would be totally shocked if Dalton survives through CLE. 

[Lucky Luciano]

what a game. seems like deja'vu all over again.

here is my take on the game although after the first quarter i was reading a book and occasionally watching the action...

OFFENSE: although not stellar the offense was fair to middlin. in my opinion dalton did a good job with what he had to work with. all this hate on him is unjustified. just so we can watch fields play is no reason for the heat he is getting.

the offensive line is spotty. sometimes good protection sometimes horrible. the run blocking was average to good and monty made it look a lot better than it was with some superior running.and our other back looked good also.

the receiving corp was also spotty. i did not watch this game close but the WR's didn't seem to be getting much separation. any complaints on dalton not throwing long has to do with the play calling and execution of our pass protection. the tight ends seem to also have done a fair to good job blocking and receiving.

DEFENSE: what defense? this was a dismal unit from the get-go. only hicks and smith look like they are earning their pay. the db's look atrocious. they couldn't seem to even figure out who was covering who or if anyone at all. the defensive line was not putting pressure on the qb with ANY regularity. quinn is the invisible man. mack is not much better. these two are taking up a serious amount of cap space that any ham and egger could nearly do as well. goldman? cut him. he is not reliable and another waste of cap space.

if this continues what we are getting from our defense, this season is over before it starts.

COACHING:  grade F. naggy going for it on 4th down on the 41 yd line at THAT point in the game is beyond stupid. to do it twice is inexcusable. also not going for a field goal at that point and going for a 4th and 15 is mind boggling. also why put fields in at all? all this does is disrupt the rhythm for dalton. it's stupid.

if this is be best our defensive coordinator can come up with (unless the quality of the players is so bad it's uncoachable) then he certainly is not the answer. with the way this defense plays there is not any team in the nfl that can't score enough to beat us.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

There is no doubt at this point that Nagy and really much of the lead coaching staff is getting in the way of this teams' success.  As has been true to form, Nagy feels he is the next coming of Andy Reid and believes the hype of him becoming the next offensive wunderkind.  The Rams were giving up the middle of the field all night long and for awhile the Bears were successfully eating up that space and moving the ball.  Montgomery was underutilized (with only 16 carries) but still managed to get 108 rushing yards with 6.8 yards per carry.   That's against the reigning #1 defense in the league.  Not all the running success was just Monty but the line doing what it needed to do in those situations.  The cute play-calling of having Fields come in randomly was just that, cute and a waste of time.  Outside of the 3 yard scoring run it seemed to disrupt the flow of what Dalton and the offense was trying to do.  I don't think Fields is what Taysom Hill is to New Orleans so stop using him like that.  Either he's your starting QB or he's not.  And the repeated 4th down tries?  C'mon man.

On the defense side, I said it once and I'll say it again.  At this point Desai is just a wanna-be Fangio guy.  (similar to Nagy wanting to be the next Reid).  We saw the warning signs last year when we heard Desai would be the next DC after being the team's defensive backs coach. The same positions we've seen slowly erode ever since 2018 when Fangio was last with us.  Jackson has not gotten better, his opposite SS position has been a turnstile of players in the last few years, with Fuller leaving the CB positions are a big question mark (yes I hope JJ does great things but so far I haven't seen it) and the NB?  Forget it.  These were/are all Desai's guys. The same ones he allegedly was doing such a bang up job with that he deserved to be the next DC in Chicago.  Stafford isn't nearly as good a QB as he looked like last night and that's more a conviction of how bad the Chicago  D played than anything.  That's on Desai and Nagy for putting him there. 

But after its all said and done; with GB, Detroit and Minny all losing the Bears are still tied for first place in the division.  

[madlithuanian]

1 hour ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

There is no doubt at this point that Nagy and really much of the lead coaching staff is getting in the way of this teams' success.  As has been true to form, Nagy feels he is the next coming of Andy Reid and believes the hype of him becoming the next offensive wunderkind.  The Rams were giving up the middle of the field all night long and for awhile the Bears were successfully eating up that space and moving the ball.  Montgomery was underutilized (with only 16 carries) but still managed to get 108 rushing yards with 6.8 yards per carry.   That's against the reigning #1 defense in the league.  Not all the running success was just Monty but the line doing what it needed to do in those situations.  The cute play-calling of having Fields come in randomly was just that, cute and a waste of time.  Outside of the 3 yard scoring run it seemed to disrupt the flow of what Dalton and the offense was trying to do.  I don't think Fields is what Taysom Hill is to New Orleans so stop using him like that.  Either he's your starting QB or he's not.  And the repeated 4th down tries?  C'mon man.

On the defense side, I said it once and I'll say it again.  At this point Desai is just a wanna-be Fangio guy.  (similar to Nagy wanting to be the next Reid).  We saw the warning signs last year when we heard Desai would be the next DC after being the team's defensive backs coach. The same positions we've seen slowly erode ever since 2018 when Fangio was last with us.  Jackson has not gotten better, his opposite SS position has been a turnstile of players in the last few years, with Fuller leaving the CB positions are a big question mark (yes I hope JJ does great things but so far I haven't seen it) and the NB?  Forget it.  These were/are all Desai's guys. The same ones he allegedly was doing such a bang up job with that he deserved to be the next DC in Chicago.  Stafford isn't nearly as good a QB as he looked like last night and that's more a conviction of how bad the Chicago  D played than anything.  That's on Desai and Nagy for putting him there. 

But after its all said and done; with GB, Detroit and Minny all losing the Bears are still tied for first place in the division.  

Agreed.  Why not try and bring Ed Donnatel?  He was that last coach that got anything good out of the secondary and was tied w Fangio.