Vikings at Bears - Week Whatever - Official Game Thread - MNF Maybe

[adam]

Bears have a bunch of players injured and on C19 list. Minnesota leads the league in sacks but allows the 4th most yards (only behind NYJ, HOU, and SEA), and is in the bottom 8 in pts against. 

Bears are at home and Cousins is 3-9 in primetime on the road (last win at Soldier Field lol). 

The only positive is ARob, EJack, and Goldman are not playing. Those are additions by subtractions. Hopefully, Ifedi or Wilkenson can play at RT. 

This team is a mess, from the top to bottom. Hard to pick them to win in these conditions.

I am just hoping for a solid game from Fields with no turnovers.

Vikings 31-17

[Alaskan Grizzly]

If we could see some evidence of passion for the game top to bottom that would be nice.   Watching Detroit take it to Arizona reminds me how crappy a team you can be and still play like you give a damn.

And spare me the ‘trap game’ BS.  AZ has everything to play for.  Detroit has been playing balls out most of the season, they’ve just not been able to get it all together…yet.  

[Alaskan Grizzly]

To add to your ‘everyone has COVID’ string, CB Johnson and Safety Gipson out meaning all secondary starters are out tomorrow.  Yay. 
 

 

[AZ54]

Eddie is back.  I'm not as down on him as you are but agree he hasn't been as dominate as he used to be.  Still he's made some good plays here and there in the last few games.  I still hope we might get one or two more back before the game.  

[adam]

6 hours ago, AZ54 said:

Eddie is back.  I'm not as down on him as you are but agree he hasn't been as dominate as he used to be.  Still he's made some good plays here and there in the last few games.  I still hope we might get one or two more back before the game.  

If he wasn't making top 5 Safety money, I wouldn't be so tough on him. 

It is interesting that the Bears had as many players on the C19 list as WFT, yet the MNF game wasn't moved. 

[BearFan2000]

17 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

If we could see some evidence of passion for the game top to bottom that would be nice.   Watching Detroit take it to Arizona reminds me how crappy a team you can be and still play like you give a damn.

And spare me the ‘trap game’ BS.  AZ has everything to play for.  Detroit has been playing balls out most of the season, they’ve just not been able to get it all together…yet.  

Seeing the way the Lion's players are still fighting hard even the way their season has gone win/loss wise tells me they may have found a coach who can turn that team around.  They've been in nearly every game, but just have come up short.  There have been some bad Detroit teams who at this point have given up.  This team hasn't. 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

CB Graham is a keeper. As are Quinn and Grant Sr.

 

[Stinger226]

Shows you have incompetent's this coaching staff is when it takes a flu outbreak to find a practice player that can play. At least he should have had a chance to play before when Vidor didnt work out. Graham may be a keeper.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

Fu#k the refs. 

FWIW despite the total mess the team is in, they are playing balls out. Just like the Lions have been.  Good on them. If they lose it’s not because they didn’t try.  

[AZ54]

17 hours ago, adam said:

If he wasn't making top 5 Safety money, I wouldn't be so tough on him. 

It is interesting that the Bears had as many players on the C19 list as WFT, yet the MNF game wasn't moved. 

Should have said Goldman.  Sorry I've written off Jackson so he often drops out of sight out of mind like his coverage skills.  

[AZ54]

3 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Fu#k the refs. 

FWIW despite the total mess the team is in, they are playing balls out. Just like the Lions have been.  Good on them. If they lose it’s not because they didn’t try.  

We have a lot of high character players on this team to pull off that effort tonight.  We need to fix some spots but this is not a complete overhaul.  

Loved the way Roquan was hitting Cook all night.  Wanna play MLB/ILB for the Bears?  That's what it should look like.  

We need to re-sign Ogletree.  He is not necessarily what you want as a starter but I sure don't mind him coming off the bench when needed.  Love his enthusiasm for the game.  

I'm giving all the DBs credit, even Bush, they played outstanding given the circumstances and their talent level.   Early on the announcers were showering praise all over their WRs and QB.  That didn't end well.   

I'd like a second helping of Tevin Jenkins too.  I'll forgive him for defending his QB and then hitting back after a Viking player clearly reached out and hit him first.  I know his night wasn't perfect but on just 1 week of mostly walk-through practices that was one heck of an improvement.  Someone is going to be putting together a highlight reel of some of his blocks tonight, at least I hope they do because there are some blocks that will be fun to watch.  There was one inside running play where Montgomery had nowhere to go so he ran off the RG into traffic.  Jenkin's man tried to scrape down the line to make the tackle and Jenkins just rode him about 7 yards downfield.  They took some others with them too and with the push from the other Oline Montgomery ended up with a 5 or 6yd gain.  When he got it right and got his hands on someone that was it.     

 Justin Fields was disappointing most of the night.  I'll give him a bit of a pass since he had some WRs he hasn't worked with much (Newsome).  Once we lost Grant it seemed the juice went out of the offense.   Grant is another player we need next year.  

Horsted caught a TD.  He made a good special teams tackle too on punt coverage.  Why isn't he on the field more? 

Did y'all catch Louis Riddick making a pitch for the Bears GM job?  No way to know if Pace is staying yet but I could live with some combination of him and Riddick running things.  Give Riddick Football Operations, keep Pace in the GM/Player personnel scouting department where he does his best work.   Let Riddick manage Pace and the new HC.   If Pace goes I'd still be ok with Riddick.  I think he has a good eye for both talent and performance/effort on the field as well as the play calling/strategy aspects of the game.  I don't think he's afraid to say what he's thinking even if it hurts someone's feelings.  We need that in the organization.  

 If he came on board I'd be willing to be he'd want a say in the coaching staff (not just head coach).  On that front, I think he'd even interview Desai after what he saw tonight.  Riddick already has front office experience and I think he'd covet the Bears job:    

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Riddick

"In December 2020, various sources reported Riddick was being interviewed for the GM vacancies for both the Houston Texans and Detroit Lions.[5]

[Stinger226]

I agree with everything you said. I think Jenkins has gotten shoved into a bad spot and all is issues is due to lack of practice. He has the physical presence  and attitude to have success  at OT.  Pace has found some gems the last few yrs. Graham looks like a potential starter next yr. I think Mooney could end up being a #1 WR, we just need to get a big WR to complement him. (no AROB) Fields looks confused and makes so many mental mistakes. I think he could be a franchise QB but these games arent doing much for his case. Riddick would be a good choice. I think Pace moves to president of football operations ( Phillips job) and then we could keep most of the scouting dept instead of complete turnover. Hires a new GM and then the GM hires the coach. A new GM would keep Pace in check on the stupid moves he has done. Quinn now has 16 sacks, just think how next yr will look with a healthy Mack. It would be nice to keep Hicks but his injury history will prevent him from getting a big contract and dont think he would take chump change here but would go somewhere else and get a 2 yr 12 mil contract. We have pieces but have to get the right coach to make this a hopeful future. 

[adam]

Nagy called the plays, which is why the offense was so chaotic. For the most part the offense was intact outside of ARob, who was worthless anyway, so no excuse for basically scoring once with so many trips into scoring position. I thought Jenkins played better, the holding and false start were ticky tack calls and are not always called. I liked that he stuck up for Fields.

Why has Graham been stuck on the PS all season with Vildor and Burns playing as bad as they have been? That is a mystery. Graham looked really good, tackled and supported the run really well. 

Fields needs to take better care of the ball and needs to get rid of the ball. Hopefully, that will come with reps, but he took a couple of sacks that were avoidable if he just threw it away.

I am done with Kmet, he can't catch the football. Horsted has more TDs this season than Kmet has his entire career. Make Kmet the blocking TE, then don't resign him.

The Bears kept Graham over Patterson, think about that for a second.

The WRs after Robinson are all smaller guys under 190 lbs. Mooney and Byrd are complementary players. The Bears need some bigger bodies. 

No one was helping Fields, too many dropped passes, even Herbert did. Monty fumbled too. 

I won't even get started on the refs, but 10 pts came from bogus calls, several on 3rd Downs to keep the Vikings drives going. They scored a TD on one and a FG on another. The Bears probably kick some FGs if they are not down 2 TDs. Could've been a GW drive at the end. It is amazing how a few bad calls flip the entire game. 

 

The defense held Cousins to 87 passing yards, Jefferson to 47 receiving yards, and Cook to 89 yards (3.2 per carry) and still lost. This was the ultimate Nagy game. He should be fired for this alone:

 

[AZ54]

Imagine if Nagy could get out of the offense, with 80% of the starting roster on the field, what Desai got out of the defense with ~35% of his starters.  If you start getting into the depth rotations those numbers get even worse for Desai.    

[adam]

2 hours ago, AZ54 said:

Imagine if Nagy could get out of the offense, with 80% of the starting roster on the field, what Desai got out of the defense with ~35% of his starters.  If you start getting into the depth rotations those numbers get even worse for Desai.    

This team might only have 2 wins if not for Desai's defense, and they would probably have 4 more wins with even a bottom 1/3 offense. This offense is so bad it is hard to quantify. 

I still cannot believe they held the Vikings to that output when the offense and Special Teams gave the ball away 3 times. 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

The question I keep seeing repeated is ‘where has CB Graham been all season behind players like Burns and Vildor’?  I can’t help but bring up once again, if Desai is so good at what he does and given his background as a defensive back coach why he didn’t recognize it sooner?  Was last night a one hit wonder?  His college tape looked promising.  I hope what he showed us last night was a sample of his base ability . 

[adam]

12 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

The question I keep seeing repeated is ‘where has CB Graham been all season behind players like Burns and Vildor’?  I can’t help but bring up once again, if Desai is so good at what he does and given his background as a defensive back coach why he didn’t recognize it sooner?  Was last night a one hit wonder?  His college tape looked promising.  I hope what he showed us last night was a sample of his base ability . 

He didn't play in 2020, and he didn't impress in the preseason. Once the season starts, game evaluation becomes extremely difficult, especially for PS guys. The coaches are more worried about the 53-man roster at that time. So my assumption is it was that he was not up to game speed by the time they got an extended look. 

Either way, he is up and on the active roster. Hopefully that wasn't a one-game anomaly and he can pair with JJ for years to come. That makes addressing the secondary much easier, get a true SS.

[AZ54]

9 hours ago, adam said:

He didn't play in 2020, and he didn't impress in the preseason. Once the season starts, game evaluation becomes extremely difficult, especially for PS guys. The coaches are more worried about the 53-man roster at that time. So my assumption is it was that he was not up to game speed by the time they got an extended look. 

Either way, he is up and on the active roster. Hopefully that wasn't a one-game anomaly and he can pair with JJ for years to come. That makes addressing the secondary much easier, get a true SS.

We need a Mike Brown type at Safety to bring some leadership, energy, and accountability to the secondary.  That's difficult for us fans to discern in the scouting process.   

[Alaskan Grizzly]

3 hours ago, AZ54 said:

We need a Mike Brown type at Safety to bring some leadership, energy, and accountability to the secondary.  That's difficult for us fans to discern in the scouting process.   

Hindsight being what it is, I wish Amos was still with us. He’s “that” guy.  

[adam]

11 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Hindsight being what it is, I wish Amos was still with us. He’s “that” guy.  

Crazy to think everyone, including me, fell for Jackson over Amos. It was thought Amos was a product of the situation and wouldn't play as well with lesser players around him. Funny that it was Jackson all along. 

[jason]

15 hours ago, adam said:

Crazy to think everyone, including me, fell for Jackson over Amos. It was thought Amos was a product of the situation and wouldn't play as well with lesser players around him. Funny that it was Jackson all along. 

Disagree, slightly. Jackson is the far better physical player, but apparently lacks the drive needed to be a leader. As a result, Jackson has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. 

[AZ54]

3 hours ago, jason said:

Disagree, slightly. Jackson is the far better physical player, but apparently lacks the drive needed to be a leader. As a result, Jackson has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. 

I think that's fair.  When i watched them live in a game in AZ Eddie Jackson't athleticsim stands out among all players on the field.   He just has to decide if he's going to use that to his advantage or not.  So far it appears not.  

[adam]

8 hours ago, jason said:

Disagree, slightly. Jackson is the far better physical player, but apparently lacks the drive needed to be a leader. As a result, Jackson has a lower floor and a higher ceiling. 

Omg yes, I agree. Jackson has the tools to be one of the best safeties in the league, his work ethic is just bottom barrel. Amos was and is a steady contributor.