Week 15 Official Game Thread - Bears at Vikings, DEC 16th, 7pm, ABC, CHI +7, O/U 43.5

[Stinger226]

The Bears have had the worst situations to turn them upside down. So many odd things that have messed up game play. 

[BearFan PHX]

3 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

The Bears have had the worst situations to turn them upside down. So many odd things that have messed up game play. 

right. but it can be described all in one thing. it's a lack of discipline.

we are also lacking personnel awareness. not helping Amagadje for example.

that's all on coaching.

And yes a lot of the players are not giving maximal effort either. but again thats discipline.

Caleb needs to learn to read the field faster and get the ball out too. That's been getting worse. hopefully good coaching will fix that too.

[Stinger226]

At lest they have some fight in them.

 

[BearFan PHX]

4 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

At lest they have some fight in them.

 

some do. some are half assing it.

but until we have a coach I wont make too many assumptions about how the players are behaving.

But for example, Jaylon Jones isnt wearing a captains patch in this game. He's phoning it in. Hes got a big contract, and hes been good when the games mattered. Id love to crap all over him for giving up, but I only really care how hed be next year. This has been such a sh*it show.

Cole Kmet's blocks have been halfhearted too.

[Stinger226]

Kiran has some major mistakes but he can move for a big man, seen him run downfiekd and knock 2 guys down.

[BearFan PHX]

6 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

Kiran has some major mistakes but he can move for a big man, seen him run downfiekd and knock 2 guys down.

His zone blocking was excellent tonight. He is smart and knows who to hit - the anti-Leno. But he gets beat on pass protection way too much for a LT.

Maybe you're right and he's a guard. I would trust him there more than Braxton at least. But if they bring in 4 new guys, Im not gonna complain.

[Stinger226]

5 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

His zone blocking was excellent tonight. He is smart and knows who to hit - the anti-Leno. But he gets beat on pass protection way too much for a LT.

Maybe you're right and he's a guard. I would trust him there more than Braxton at least. But if they bring in 4 new guys, Im not gonna complain.

Like you said coaching sucks when you dont give a rookie help on a big time pass rusher. 

[Mongo3451]

Tremaine Edmunds is this year's Eddie Jackson.  No physicality from your MLB is terrible.  He's always hustles to get near the tackle though.  Poser...

[Stinger226]

Swift has impressed me tonight.

[Stinger226]

Those middle passes has been open all night, at least now Caleb is looking for them.

[Stinger226]

7 minutes ago, Mongo3451 said:

Tremaine Edmunds is this year's Eddie Jackson.  No physicality from your MLB is terrible.  He's always hustles to get near the tackle though.  Poser...

He looks good running, just aint tackling anybody.

[jason]

1. Keenan Allen can leave after this year. His hands are terrible.

2. Whoever is calling defensive plays maybe should have thrown in a blitz or two in the first half when Sam Darnokd looked like Joe Montana.

3. Whoever is calling offensive plays should be fired. The schemes are unimaginative, extremely risk averse, and do not combine routes in such a way as to confuse the defense. If I didn’t know better I’d say it was Shoop.

4. Caleb is holding the ball too long when people are open, but I wonder how often they’re open.

5. Did Kmet get cut? Haven’t seen him play all game.

6. Why did they not go for the early FG? It was long but it set the tone the entire game.

7. Interim HC definitely is in over his head. 

8. why didn’t they challenge the Darnold lefty pass? I don’t think it went past the line of scrimmage.

9. Why did they give up so early? The entire 4th quarter has been like molasses. Maybe they forgot about the Redskins game and what can happen late.

10. OL still isn’t very good, but weren’t horrible. The entire offseason should be focused on FA and Draft OL until Caleb Williams can take a nap behind the OL before throwing.

[jason]

16 hours ago, adam said:

SEA might have lost Geno Smith, DET looks very beatable, and GB may rest starters in Week 18. So the Bears could have 3 winnable games to close out the season. 

If the season ended today:

WC1 MIN at LAR
WC2 GB at TB
WC3 WAS at PHI

I don't think anyone wants to face PHI, but the other two games are very winnable in LAR and TB. 

Hopefully not. The Bears don’t need to Lovie one or two of the meaningless games and ruin draft position.

[jason]

Almost forgot, Caleb Williams needs to understand everything can’t be solved with force. Every throw can’t be a fastball. He needs less Clemens and more Maddox. Reminds of a funny line:

"It is until a mosquito lands on your testicles, when you learn that force [violence] does not solve all problems" 

[Bears4Ever_34]

Somehow, Caleb made it out of that game only getting sacked twice. I guess that's the only positive from this god awful performance. There were at least 6 drops tonight, 4 from Keenan Allen. Odunze dropped a touchdown.. Caleb's accuracy was all over the place. He, again, was hesitant to take off and run for easy yardage, but his receivers did him no favors tonight. It really looks like his confidence is just about shot. He needs a win in the worst way. 

Going to go out on a limb here and say that I think the embarrassing performances are mostly over this year. I'm not sure they win any of these next 3 games, but there are opportunities for the offense to play better. 2 of the 3 are home games, DET, a dome team, missing almost everybody on defense, should be a game for the offense to move the ball. SEA will be traveling a long way for a night game on a short week, and who knows about Geno Smith.. And then finally GB might not have anything to play for and could be resting most of their starters.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

2 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

I dont like Aikman but he is pointing out Calebs mistakes accurately. Doesnt see open WRs and bad passes. He should be farther along right now but I suspect all the QB hits has him out of synk.

He’s not in a good spot and he is partly responsible for that but Poles and this staff is also highly responsible for it. 

[Bears4Ever_34]

11 minutes ago, DABEARSDABOMB said:

He’s not in a good spot and he is partly responsible for that but Poles and this staff is also highly responsible for it. 

Yeah, I'm not really worried about Caleb at all. He's been put in a horrible situation having to deal with 3 coordinator changes in a season, a head coach getting fired, a really bad OL, and having several come from behind victories stolen from him in the final moments. And even with all of that, he's been one of the best in the league at protecting the football, despite always having to play from behind in every game this season.

He has to iron out those accuracy and footwork issues, but the arm talent and intangibles are there. Don't freak up the HC hiring and we'll have ourselves a pro-bowl QB in no time.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

4 minutes ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

Yeah, I'm not really worried about Caleb at all. He's been put in a horrible situation having to deal with 3 coordinator changes in a season, a head coach getting fired, a really bad OL, and having several come from behind victories stolen from him in the final moments. And even with all of that, he's been one of the best in the league at protecting the football, despite always having to play from behind in every game this season.

He has to iron out those accuracy and footwork issues, but the arm talent and intangibles are there. Don't freak up the HC hiring and we'll have ourselves a pro-bowl QB in no time.

I agree -  built a better oline, give him improved coaching, plus just an offseason of work to learn and I expect we see major growth. 
 

But at this point - I’d rather see them start over - new GM and HC. 

[BearFan PHX]

3 hours ago, DABEARSDABOMB said:

I agree -  built a better oline, give him improved coaching, plus just an offseason of work to learn and I expect we see major growth. 
 

But at this point - I’d rather see them start over - new GM and HC. 

yup

[Stinger226]

I always try to find reasons to support whoever is running the Bears, coaching , players but the Bears are making it hard to be loyal to anybody. As one guy put it, you are measured by wins in the NFL. Failure for everyone. To measure Poles with all that has happend he should  have at leasted got us to one more win this year. His roster keeps putting up alert signs. 

The new coaches have failed but they were not put in a good situation.

Caleb has some issues but to much chaos around him to properly judge him. As far as a lot of good talent that has not looked good, same thing, they will look better under more stability. People talk about  about Caleb getting wreaked, he is to talented to have one yar disrupt his career. 

The good:      We have enough draft capital and cap space to fix most of the weaknesses.

As bad as Kiran looked he could end up being a good player. To put him on a island being named the starter the day before the game is CRIMINAL. Im not very smart and it was clear to me. 

Caleb shows signs of greatness but hasnt been put in a good position to suceed. 

Our defense has some talent on it but with Billings, Dexter, Brisker being out, Stevenson  mental case play, it can be good again. 

Swift has enough talent to look good once the OL gets fixed.  a FB on the roster would have been an asset in the run game. Johnson is our power guy and when healthy will be fine. We went from 2nd in the league last yr to 21st now. OL fix and FB will cure that. 

DJ Moore is our best offensive player, Odunze has talent, bye bye to Allen. Plenty of 3rd WRs in free agency to fix the 3 spot. Once Kmet becomes part of the game plan, he will look a lot better.

We have a good punter and kicker.

[adam]

On 12/10/2024 at 8:22 AM, adam said:

This one should be fun. It will depend on what Chicago team shows up. If the same one that has mailed it in shows up, this is an easy 20 pt win for Minnesota. If the Bears roster plays up to potential, it will be a lot closer like the first game.

However, looking at what Shanahan did to Washington on Sunday, I am assuming KOC will know how to use Jefferson, Addison, Hockenson, and Jones the same way. 

My initial thought on this is 31-13 Vikings. 

30-12, off by one lol, but about as bad as expected.  You gotta love Kmet getting one target and one reception while Allen gets 13 targets and has 3 drops. Swift can't get a yard on two separate 4th and 1s. 

At least it will be easier for the next GM to see who to keep. There is just no way Poles survives this. How many more national tv embarrassments will it take?

[AZ54]

13 hours ago, BearFan PHX said:

on a brighter note, Amagadje is looking really good.

He had his rough spots especially in pass pro with speed off the edge but he also had some really good plays especially in the running game.   I'm looking forward  to see him in a couple more games if not to finish the season as the starter.  I think I saw enough to believe his floor is at least equivalent to what we get with Braxton Jones.   After that game he should have confidence he belongs in the NFL and a  couple more games will hopefully show upside. 

[AZ54]

1 hour ago, adam said:

30-12, off by one lol, but about as bad as expected.  You gotta love Kmet getting one target and one reception while Allen gets 13 targets and has 3 drops. Swift can't get a yard on two separate 4th and 1s. 

At least it will be easier for the next GM to see who to keep. There is just no way Poles survives this. How many more national tv embarrassments will it take?

If they were going to fire Poles they should have done that already.  There is nothing more you will learn in your evaluation of him in these last 5 games.  Ownership being clueless as they are so it wouldn't surprise me to see them make a late decision on Poles and fire him.  If they want a new GM they should have already begun that search so it's wrapped up by the end of the season and the new GM can focus on hiring the coaches and then the draft.  

Scores being what they are lead to narratives but what I saw was a Bears team that is much closer to the Vikings talent than the score or records indicate.   Again coaching decisions and poor execution (Kramer lack of reporting) took us away from a winnable game.  I'm ok with it at this point what would going 3-3 over the last part of the season do for us except move us further down the draft board?   Since I was flipping over the Falcons/Raiders game at times I can say the Bears put a lot better product on the field than either of those two teams.  

I was expecting to just get run over down the middle all game long.  For sure there were some bad run defense plays but it also stiffened up at times and kept us in the game.  The DT Ford they picked up from GB at 6'5" 335lbs looked stout in the run game and made some good plays for us.  I'm not going to assign him anything more than the fact he deserves more snaps in the next game so we can see what he's got.  Amegadjie looks like he has potential but needs work.  That's a tough start on the road against a challenging defense.  

Caleb really needs an OC who will get in his face and make him work to the timing of the play.  He trended in that direction mid-year and now he's trending back the other way.  

 

[Stinger226]

35 minutes ago, AZ54 said:

If they were going to fire Poles they should have done that already.  There is nothing more you will learn in your evaluation of him in these last 5 games.  Ownership being clueless as they are so it wouldn't surprise me to see them make a late decision on Poles and fire him.  If they want a new GM they should have already begun that search so it's wrapped up by the end of the season and the new GM can focus on hiring the coaches and then the draft.  

Scores being what they are lead to narratives but what I saw was a Bears team that is much closer to the Vikings talent than the score or records indicate.   Again coaching decisions and poor execution (Kramer lack of reporting) took us away from a winnable game.  I'm ok with it at this point what would going 3-3 over the last part of the season do for us except move us further down the draft board?   Since I was flipping over the Falcons/Raiders game at times I can say the Bears put a lot better product on the field than either of those two teams.  

I was expecting to just get run over down the middle all game long.  For sure there were some bad run defense plays but it also stiffened up at times and kept us in the game.  The DT Ford they picked up from GB at 6'5" 335lbs looked stout in the run game and made some good plays for us.  I'm not going to assign him anything more than the fact he deserves more snaps in the next game so we can see what he's got.  Amegadjie looks like he has potential but needs work.  That's a tough start on the road against a challenging defense.  

Caleb really needs an OC who will get in his face and make him work to the timing of the play.  He trended in that direction mid-year and now he's trending back the other way.  

 

Im glad Im not the only one on here that looks for positive things to say.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

7 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

Since I was flipping over the Falcons/Raiders game at times I can say the Bears put a lot better product on the field than either of those two teams.  

Yeah I was curious about that.  Watching the team last night I had a feeling many of them were still trying to win . I didn’t get a feeling that Brown has lost the room just that things were so messy after the breakup with Flus they haven’t been able to get back on track. Browns meteoric rise from pass coordinator (?) to HC in a few weeks would definitely take some getting used to.  Doing so in real time I'm sure is mind boggling.  

I think even Aikman mentioned as much a few times last night. He said what Brown had to do was nearly impossible and he himself had two rough years (his rookie 0-11 season among them) before the right guy was in place to get it all right.