Why isn't coaching getting most of the blame?

[Bears4Ever_34]

We made it to the superbowl last year with Lovie, Turner, and Rivera as the main coaches. Now, this year we lose Rivera and bring in Babich and on paper this current team looked better than last years. As we all have seen, this team has regressed from years previous and there are reasons for it but It seems everyone is overlooking the coaches, and blaming it on the offensive line, and Cedric Benson.

 

Remember this summer? Remember John Clayton reporting on ESPN that Hester reminds him of Steve Smith with his receiver abilities and the way he has looked in camp? Remember hearing about how Olsen's athletiscm and his play making ability will help Rex Grossman immensely? I also remember hearing how Adam Archuleta was going to be our big run stopper to help out Mike Brown. Where has that all gone? I give you the 07-08 coaching staff of the Chicago Bears.

 

Maybe no more than 5 times all season have the Bears looked deep to Hester and though he blew one huge oppurtunity, its rather obvious that a guy with his speed should be used as a down the field target in passing situations. Another thing with him is that whoever it is, wether it be Turner or Lovie, never ever have put him in one full series. Its always, 1 or 2 plays, then sit. That will never work because everytime he comes in on a play you hear "23, THERES HESTER" the whole defense knows where he is. Then to make things worse, he comes in and they throw a quick screen or a reverse that gets -6 yards guaranteed everytime. I can only remember one time where I saw Devin get a 10 yard gain on one of those quick pass plays. I'm no coach but I don't understand the logic of bringing in a guy for one play and then sitting him out when he was suppose to be the big play threat this season for the Bears.

 

If I were Greg Olsen I would be so dissapointed in the way he's been used this year. All the hype for nothing. I still don't understand why we continually see Clark take the deep routes while Olsen goes on the short out patterns. Olsen is bigger, stronger, and faster than Dez so he should be used as the deep guy but we haven't seen that more than a few times this year. The Packers game is the only game I can remember him going deep most of the time for big plays. The coaching staff has failed the Bears on this..

 

I don't think I have to spend to much time on Ron Turner. We all know how bad he is but I'll give you my 2 cents. We have a guy in Cedric Benson, someone who is listed as a "Power" back. Why were we running stretch plays for him? Those are for guys with great vision and quickness which Cedric has none. To give you an example, who are two teams that are known for running these kind of plays? I give you the Colts and the Eagles.. What do you notice between both running backs? Yes, they are both quicker, faster backs that have great vision and hit the RIGHT hole. You would think the Bears would have more of a variety of running plays than they do. I can't recall a lot of counters, I don't remember seeing many toss plays except for one game. There are more things to do than running straight ahead dive plays or stretches. Yet again, the coaching staff has failed us on this..

 

A team has to develop some sort of Identity, and to this day I still don't think Turner has figured out what Identity his team is. It is rather simple, your either a running team or a passing team with some sense of balance. One game Cedric got 14 carries the next he'd get 23, then back to 8 while Peterson gets 7.. Yeah there are gameplans but you base your gameplans around your identity. You don't go away from what you are. The Packers are obviously a passing team, yet they still get alot of good runs from Grant and he winds up with 100 yards before you know it. Why is that? Because they are succesfull in one area it opens up holes for the other area. If your passing alot, it makes sense to run a draw play or if your running alot, you can go play action. Simple things like that irk me while watching the Bears this season. We won games last year because we stayed commited to the running game. Do we miss TJ that much?

 

The defense I understand a little bit more than the offense in terms of productivity. Any time you lose your best play maker (Mike Brown) for a whole season and you lose a good cover corner in Nate Vasher, your going to struggle a little bit. Tommie Harris has never been healthy all year and Dusty was lost before he was in for more than a few plays. Not to mention we have an Arthritic Middle Linebacker playing through the pain day in and day out. We may have bitten off more than we can chew in this situation so I expect a bit of a drop off except I never thought we'd be this inconsistent. One week the defense plays great and the next were giving up too many big plays that costs us games. The Seattle game was a perfect example of this.

 

So all in all I believe the coaching staff is the biggest problem of all this season for the Bears. No where in hell did I expect us to have this kind of season, not with the team we had, with all the additions. I find it hard to believe that Chris Harris and Thomas Jones were the reasons we can't have a good team this year. Sure they were missed but you would think a team that just went to the superbowl could adjust and be ready for next year. Hopefully we get this all figured out before we come into camp hearing about the same players making plays in camp yet they don't see the field during the season again.

[Bearial Assault]

I also believe much of the blame can be placed on the coaching staff. I think the in-game coaching has been poor much of the year. Things like pulling Benson after he started off hot in the Seattle game just because it was in the gameplan to put in Peterson at a certain point in the game... if you've got a player on a roll, you change your plan. Particularly with a player like Benson who had a reputation coming out of college as a player who got better as the game wore on. Clock management has been subpar... I don't know how many times at the end of the half or a game we've let 20 seconds burn off the clock before using a timeout. I also didn't like how we took a knee at the end of the half a few times when there were more than a few seconds left on the clock. And don't get me started on the "we stopped doing it because they'd eventually stop it" excuse that's been used a couple of times lately. I believe that excuse or a similar one has been used to explain why we've stopped running the ball in one game and why we stopped using the no-huddle in the Giants game. I feel like we play not to lose, and those last two points are glaring examples of that mentality.

 

I also think the way they have utilized personnel has been bad at times. Playing Danieal Manning at cornerback was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my opinion. If you want him to play cornerback, let him have a full offseason working at the position. Otherwise, you just leave him at safety and let one of the guys you are paying to be cornerbacks play there. McBride has played better than his 7th round draft status would have suggested and Ricky Manning is getting paid a lot of money, so one of those two should have been in there right away once Vasher went down. I am concerned that the cornerback experiment for D. Manning may have affected his confidence and slowed his development as a safety, which is a disservice to the player and the team. I don't like how they've utilized Hester for the most part... I feel like they haven't been very creative in designing plays to take the most advantage of his talents. Screen passes with no blockers, end arounds that everyone sees coming, passes across the middle, plays like that are just putting him at risk. The hit he took in the Lions game at home could have turned out a lot worse. I also think that Olsen's talents have been pretty much wasted this year. They almost never play him when we are in the red zone, the time you'd think you'd want a big, quick target with good hands out on the field. And for him to not be in on the hail mary at the end of the Giants game? To me, that's just crazy. Finally, giving Mark Anderson the starting DE job was a huge mistake. Alex Brown is simply more a complete player, and I think Anderson would have made a much bigger impact if he was used in the same role as he was last year. Brown plays the run much better and has performed better. Anderson is getting worn down playing every down, and he's unable to get the type of pass rush he was able to give us last year. I could probably go on, but I think there a lot of player personnel decisions this staff has mishandled as well.

 

After all that, I do have to concede that the Bears have had an inordinate amount of injuries to deal with this year. However, for losing only a couple pieces of last years Super Bowl team, there should not have been this drastic of a drop in team performance. The Bears have looked extremely sloppy in several games, with numerous penalties, poor tackling, bad blocking, all signs of a problem with coaching. I hope the last 3 games will be used to re-evaluate all aspects of the organization. The coaches need to take a good look at the strategy they employ, we also need to see what some of our younger guys can do in real games. Guys like Beekman and Hass should get a chance to show what they can do... playing against back-ups in preseason games is not going to tell us much about them. Let's see if guys like them are ready to step in and be contributors next year. It'll help the front office too, giving them a better idea of whether or not we have any solutions already on our roster. It'll be an interesting last 3 games and offseason. Let's hope the Bears can get it all together.

[AZ54]

They've gotten a ton of blame from me. Keeping Ruben Brown on the field with one arm, brilliant who'd have thought of that? I know Metcalf has limitations but he's not as bad as a one-armed OG. Team after team runs right over the left side of our defense yet we never ever adjust to it. Nor do we pull Mark Anderson when he's not tackling people or sacking QBs. Let them keep running through huge holes on the right side of our D, nobody will expect that! For sure nobody will expect us to give up a record day in rushing yards to a rookie!

 

I agree on Hester, a 3rd grader would draw up the plays Turner uses with Hester. He's quick and he's fast ...get the ball to him on the run then see what he can do. I agree on deep routes but what about a simple drag route or anything over the middle after everyone has run off the DBs deep? Ced was misused all year long. Pull him after he's finally having success, yeah nobody will expect that! He has his own limitations but we could have and should have gotten more out of our running game. Wolfe was drafted to be our change of pace back yet we'd bring him in and run him straight up the middle. Yeah, nobody will expect that!

 

Lovie lost a big part of my support when he went public with his contract negotiations last summer. Since then it's been nothing but downhill for him and his coaching staff.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

I put a lot of the blame on Ron Turner and I think there is only so much Love Smith (a defensive guy) can do in the middle of the season to fix the offense. I think Lovie should have insisted on using Greg Olsen and the TE's as much as possible and he should have also insisted on the Bears sticking with a running approach and going with the hot hand (the way they handled Benson was terrible and it really didn't allow anyone to really make much of an evaluation of Ced). However, for the most part the offensive problems stemmed from the offensive line, horrid in-game adjustments (see Ron Turner), and terrible play calling (see Ron Turner).

 

Defensively I think I put a bit more on Lovie Smith because the team continuously failed to make good in-game adjustments and fundementally they were poor. Lovie is a defensive guy and while Babich also deserves some of the blame, Lovie gets it too because he knows this system better than anyone. I also think the defense has some legitimate reasons for its drop from last seasons play (injuries are a factor) but I can't blame injuries on everything. I still think this defense is top 12 good (even with the injuries) and the fact that it is amongst the worse in the league should fall on the coaching staff (and obviously to an extent the players). Babich has done a horrid job coaching/teaching and scheming good blitz packages (where it isn't obvious who is blitzing...Bears have to be the worse blitzing team in the league and they did it a lot this year). I did like the fact that Babich called for more Blitzes (but again, they have to utilize them better).

 

Special Teams - Toub is a stud, nuff said.

 

Babich is going to get another chance and my hope is that Lovie and Bob sit down and discuss things and make the necessary adjustments to get things straightened out for next season. Offensively Turner must go and while I know there will be growing pains with another OC (new system) it has to be done. I also would like the new OC to have experience with an Oline so we have a guy that can really put together a good blocking scheme (I really like Dallas Asst Coach/Oline guy Tony Sporano).

[DrunkBomber]

I think both coordinators have been getting a lot of the blame along with the offensive line.

[madlithuanian]

I think both coordinators have been getting a lot of the blame along with the offensive line.

 

Agreed. On the old Bearstalk site...I think there was a daily rant on the coaches. I know I was guity for a good portion of it!

[DrunkBomber]

I think a lot of the defensive blame should start being aimed at Lovie. He appears to be the guy behind the Tampa 2 that we keep sticking with when we dont have the healthy personnel to run effectively. As far as offense. I dont care how bad our o line or WRs have been. Ron Turners play calling is horrendous.

[bowlingtwig]

Another thing that I don't get is if we have all of these speed guys why do we use MM on so many down the field plays. They work from time to time because the D isn't looking for the slowest WR to go deep but they aren't going to work consistently enough. Great point about us never using a consistent game plan. From the old site I ranted so much on Turner because of this. Especially after the game in which CB had 60+ yards on 2 carries and we didn't stick to the run. That got me HOT.

[DrunkBomber]

Didnt Lovie Smith say in an interview after, I wanna say the Denver game, that they stopped running the ball because they were eventually gonna stop it. I could swear I heard that being talked about on ESPN1000

[DABEARSDABOMB]

Agreed. On the old Bearstalk site...I think there was a daily rant on the coaches. I know I was guity for a good portion of it!

I've just given up on Turner. It is so obvious that he is incompetent that if somehow the Bears don't fire him, I'll probably fall out of my chair out of laughter at the sheer stupidity of the organization.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

Another thing that I don't get is if we have all of these speed guys why do we use MM on so many down the field plays. They work from time to time because the D isn't looking for the slowest WR to go deep but they aren't going to work consistently enough. Great point about us never using a consistent game plan. From the old site I ranted so much on Turner because of this. Especially after the game in which CB had 60+ yards on 2 carries and we didn't stick to the run. That got me HOT.

This is an excellent point. I have on idea why Mush is running much any deep patterns. The ocassional deeper crossing pattern is fine but for the most part he's best utilized on short-mid yardage routes where he can utilize his size, strenght, and hands. He doesn't have the speed to be much of an asset on deeper plays (BB, Bradley, Olsen, & Hester are the only guys that should be involved on the deeper stuff).

[DABEARSDABOMB]

Didnt Lovie Smith say in an interview after, I wanna say the Denver game, that they stopped running the ball because they were eventually gonna stop it. I could swear I heard that being talked about on ESPN1000

I think the quote you are referring to is from the Giants game where they said they stopped running the no huddle because eventually the Giants would pick up on it and stop it. I am guessing it was Lovie being over defensive and trying to basically take the pressure off Turner.

 

I am hoping Lovie knows the situation and already has guys in mind for the offense but he knows he can't just throw the OC under the bus mid-season (because bottom line in football your stuck with the system you got once training camp breaks, sans a couple adjustments).

[DrunkBomber]

I think the quote you are referring to is from the Giants game where they said they stopped running the no huddle because eventually the Giants would pick up on it and stop it. I am guessing it was Lovie being over defensive and trying to basically take the pressure off Turner.

 

I am hoping Lovie knows the situation and already has guys in mind for the offense but he knows he can't just throw the OC under the bus mid-season (because bottom line in football your stuck with the system you got once training camp breaks, sans a couple adjustments).

ya that was it, ridiculous either way

[adam]

The offensive scheme next year will also be dependent on who the QB is. I would like to see someone a little more mobile than Grossman and Griese.

 

The playcalling on both sides of the ball has been suspect all year. I never seen a team have successful 1st down runs, then throw 3 straight incompletions, then punt - or - make consecutive passes for 1st downs, then run 3 straight times for 1 yard, then punt. Why not make them stop you first. The Bears have stopped themselves all year.

 

DB mentioned earlier, without the right players, the Cover 2 does not work. I would rather convert to a more conventional system that mixes blitzes, with man-to-man, with zone. Just change it up.

 

Letting Turner go should happen minutes after the season finale.

[Mongo3451]

Agreed. On the old Bearstalk site...I think there was a daily rant on the coaches. I know I was guity for a good portion of it!

 

 

Yeah, we were giving them Hell weren't we?!?!? I blame Lovie for not setting Turner straight after last season. My jury is still out on how the D got F'd up. My sneaking suspicion is Lovie again. Turner must go and Lovie and Babich need to shore up the D. If not, 08 will be their last season in Chitown. Perfect timing to lure Cowher out of his sabbatical.

[StrangeBears]

I think a lot of the defensive blame should start being aimed at Lovie. He appears to be the guy behind the Tampa 2 that we keep sticking with when we dont have the healthy personnel to run effectively. As far as offense. I dont care how bad our o line or WRs have been. Ron Turners play calling is horrendous.

 

You really need great safety play to run it effectively. Look at what happened to Chicago whenever Brown goes down, and what happened with Indy when Sanders came back last year. They went from being near-last place to one of the best defenses.

 

Lovie's too much of a system and game plan guy. He will rigidly stick by it no matter what.

[Controlled Chaos]

ya that was it, ridiculous either way

No....he did say that after the Seahwaks game. Fuckin ridiculous!!

 

Benson gained just 26 yards on nine carries the rest of the game, finishing with 89 yards on 11 attempts. That prompted reporters to ask Smith why the running back didn’t see more action.

 

“We probably should have given him the ball a little bit more,” said the Bears coach. “But I can’t really complain about what we did offensively. We kept ourselves in the game. If you continue to run the ball, they’ll eventually stop it. I thought offensively there was a pretty good mix.”