Bearstalk

He is a game changer. We need him out there!

I thought this was a pretty good article about the age of QBs: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14084886...bs-dominate-nfl If this holds true, and just looking at Cutler's progress this year, it would make sense to keep him around for a few more years. He is in his 10th year, and based on these numbers a QB peaks at year 12 and continues to have very solid years through year 15/16. Now obviously you can say small sample size or the numbers are bogus after 10 years because only good QBs are left in the league at that point, but that is not always the case. To me, stabilizing the QB position seems like the first and most important step to making a sustained run…

I look forward to Fangio's weekly updates. He's so straightforward with his words it's sometimes funny. His matter-of-fact approach when talking about the players is never far off from what you'd read here on the board. http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...f3-172828460cb5 ... on Houston ------------------------- "[The sacks] were huge plays," Fangio said. "Now if we can just eliminate the offsides, he'll play even more and more. But that should do a lot for his confidence, to go in there and make plays at a crucial time like that." -------------------------- From the same link the most surprising statistic I've seen at midseason: -------…

Rich Campbell ‏@Rich_Campbell 9m9 minutes ago Bears rookie OT Tayo Fabuluje has been suspended 4 games by the NFL for violating the league's policy against performance-enhancing drugs. https://twitter.com/Rich_Campbell/status/664186000613097472

Cutler is on a current run of solid play that is longer than any other time in his career. Everyone always talks to Cutler's inconsistency or the Good Jay Bad Jay, etc. Looking over his Game Logs, you can see that was indeed the case for most of his early career. However, it looks like we have entered a new era and the sample size is large enough to believe it will continue. Starting in the Arizona game, he now has 6 straight games with a QB Rating above 88, and even excluding the partial game, he has 5 straight games with a QB Rating of 88.4 or higher. Looking back at his Game Logs, the closest run was 6 games to start 2014 where he was 82.5 or higher. Before that …

Here is what we have left, if we show any additional improvement, and get some guys back off injury, we actually have a shot at the playoffs, but the next 3 games will be critical. @ STL (4-4) - winnable game, STL defense is tough, and Gurley has emerged, however, we are better against the run than the pass, so this plays into our defensive strengths, and if Forte and Royal are back, we have great shot with our offense. vs DEN (7-1) - Denver's defense has masked just how bad the offense and Manning have been. A mid-November game in Chicago and Fox knowing a lot about the players gives us a shot. If Indy can beat them, we can beat them. I expect a close game, and w…

After spending most of their air time praising the Chargers and giving them credit for fighting through multiple injuries ESPN analysts were lost when talking about the Bears, especially after the game was over. Did you know the Chargers had to play with several backup Oline players? Poor Chargers. Did you see the Chargers were missing two of their top 3 WRs? Blah blah blah... let's play some football! Oline: Not a whole lot of goodness here with plenty of mistakes all the way around but for the most part the offense was effective enough in the run game and passing game. Ducasse again lined up at LG so he'll be on the bench when Grasu returns leaving Omam…

Go Bears! Does Fox continue his AFC West dominance tonight? Does Cutler break Luckman's TD Record? Does Langford outduel Gordon? Does Mariani have a legit return? Does our Special Teams not allow a return TD? So much drama!

Ok.. not Bears related, but we had a discussion at work about college bye weeks. Do the conferences determine the bye weeks for each team? We noticed some teams always have a bye week before facing each other, and some are just random.

https://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/663840593404035072 Back to back Pro Bowls, and now cut by 2 teams in half a season, wow.

Looking good so far!

I'm watching this week's press conference's and there are a lot of questions to Adam Gase about him being a HC next season and to Fox about his assistants becoming HC next season. I'm impressed with our coaching staff and I think going forward into next season we'll see some very good things. However, right now when you step back and look at the entire league how many owners and GMs really want to pursue the assistants from a 2-5 team? Especially two assistants (Gase and Fangio) who did not get chosen last year after all the success they had at their previous jobs. I think our media and fans are way over-estimating league-wide reactions to our team. Yes, Cutl…

Not sure what to think of Ditka in a Packers jersey.

Reports are out there saying we might bring in Ball. I like it if he's brought in to be the backup. I wanna see Langford get a legit shot to start. I do like Ball though. His first year he averages 4.7 YPC which is pretty good. Sucked last year, but which is the real Ball? If he's the 4.7 YPC guy he was his rookie season he and Langford could be a good duo beyond this year. Ball is still just 24 years old and I'm shocked he's not on a team somewhere.

I'm not sure you could put together numbers in a more meaningless way than Total QBR. Rodgers threw for 77 yards with an average of 3.5/catch, an incredible 10pts on offense, and he's ranked 11th in Total QBR. That is above players like Brady who's team put up 36pts in a win over Miami while throwing for 356yds, 9.4/catch. http://espn.go.com/nfl/qbr/_/type/player-week

http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nfl/4685/matt-forte

First I have to admit the free tequila shots at the bar made this game feel better than it was. Cutler: With another Oline combination in front of him against a strong pass rush threat he kept his composure and stayed within the game plan. Overall a good game with no turnovers. Oline: I think these guys were the cause of all the conservative play calls early in the game. With interior line of Omameh, Slauson, and Ducasse I believe Gase didn't want big mistakes early and allowed the Oline time to settle in and get a feel for the inside pressure the Vikings like to bring. Later on he opened up the play calling. RBs: Forte is still a good RB bu…

SoS will be computed after this week, so these are using last week's SoS, so we may pass Dallas for 8th after the games are computed: 1. DET 1-7 (7) 2. TEN 1-6 (30) 3. CLE 2-6 (14) 4. SD 2-6 (12) 5. BAL 2-6 (4) 6. SF 2-6 (1) 7. JAX 2-5 (19) 8. DAL 2-5 (6) 9. CHI 2-5 (5) 10. HOU 3-5 (23) 11. KC 3-5 (2) We play 3 teams on this list (SD, SF, and DET), 2 bad teams (TB, WAS), 2 great teams (GB, DEN), and 2 good, but beatable teams (MIN, STL). What is crazy is we could still technically win 7 of those 9 games and no one would question those wins, and we could also only win 3 of them and no one would question the losses. Such an odd season. Cra…

Forte out for the second half. Let's see what this kid has. Thus far he has pretty good burst to the hole, a good surge at the end of his runs, but he appears to lack vision.

I hate Mariani more than any Bear player I can remember in a while. He drops punts. When he catches them he has the vision of Ray Charles on returns. And on kickoffs, despite the team not getting any sort of blocking, he returns them when he catches the ball 8-9 yards deep in the end zone. He did it twice now in this Minnesota game. It's time for the Bears to go a different direction. This dude is slow, has iffy hands, has bad vision, makes poor decisions, and did I mention he's slow? Please replace this turd pronto.