balta1701-A

What are the things that the Bears' receivers stink at? Do those issues line up with Moss's skills? Moss's skill, as far as I can tell, is going downfield. Have the Bears had issues with guys going down field? We're not talking about a WR who's going to turn around and help his QB out when the pressure comes, or a WR who's going to do a better job blocking, or a WR who's even going to get open over the middle. He runs one pattern, the fly route, and sticks his hand up when he's got his guy beat. If Cutler can't stand up long enough to connect on that fly route...what good is Moss?

Like it or not...the phrase "yes we need O-line BUT..." immediately makes me disagree with your post.

Because the Bears' should be idolizing the 49ers and their 2 wins.

The 3-3 Redskins come to visit the 4-2 Bears, although the Bears haven't looked good at all their last 3 games. The Redskins are coming off a close loss at the hands of the Colts, where Manning was able to move the ball effectively both in the air and on the ground. Winning this game going into the Bye Week is actually quite important in terms of the playoffs.

I'm not sure I'd agree they're the worst 4-2 team in the league right now. Yeah, they've been awful the last couple games, but here's a counterpoint. Houston, for example, has given up more yards per game than any other team in the league, and they're tied with Jacksonville for 2nd worst points per game defense. They have a quality offense, but be honest; they're probably not a 4-2 team right now unless a referee calls a phantom pass interference penalty in the 4th quarter last weekend on a play where Andre Johnson clearly pushed off. The Bears are in trouble, but they still have the 3rd best scoring defense in the league and the 8th best yards-defense in the league.

On almost any other foul I might agree with you. On something like hitting below the belt, or horsecollars, whatever, you'd get more agreement from me. On a lot of the hits to the QB that get penalized, I'll agree with you. On pass interference I'll agree with you, last weekend was a great example of the problems with that rule as well. But this is one issue where I'm going to put my foot down and say no. You can question specific plays, but take a look at the Harrison ones again...what's the one thing in common with both of them? Harrison has his arms to his side on both of them. He's in "human missile" form, leading straight ahead with his helmet. He is not trying to tackle the guy, he's not trying to strip the ball, he's trying to knock the guy out. The one guy that might have a legitimate case is Robinson from the Eagles/Falcons game, because I'm not convinced there that he led with his helmet, and I do want to see how that appeal turns out. The ones you just highlighted though, and the Meriweather hit, those were obvious. If you want to say they're weakening the league by calling too many pass interferences, we can have a good discussion and probably find some common ground. But pass interference doesn't do the long term damage that this type of hit does. You ripped guys like Merrill Hoge yesterday for focusing on this rule, but really, look at what happened to that guy; he didn't get the appropriate treatment for a first concussion, went back out, got a 2nd, and wound up nearly dying. His heart literally stopped in the locker room and he had to be resuscitated. He had to re-learn how to read. He took that much brain damage. This is a unique style of injury. Every time you take one, the damage compounds, and you don't always see it immediately. These guys are leaving the league after a few years of these impacts and finding their brains turned to mush. Yeah, you can only do so much to stop it. Yeah, the linemen take impacts on every play. But none of the other things that happen compare to being hit in the head by a guy in missile form. You're never going to eliminate them totally, but there's a difference between playing the game with some risk and allowing people to go headhunting. It's a real easy thing to avoid for the defender too. All you have to do is try to tackle the guy rather than trying to knock the guy out. Go with your head up and your arms forward, try to wrap the guy up. If you hit a guy hard that way, but you're obviously trying to tackle the guy, there probably shouldn't be a suspension (unless there's something obviously egregious happening there, like an obvious headbutt thrown in). If the league imposes this correctly, then the suspensions should come in lowered head, arms down, nothing but a hit close to the head format. If you're not going to have your arms out, then you ought to hit low, because otherwise it's just a jarring impact.

You know what team could really use Chester Taylor? Green Bay.

No, but he made darn well sure no one called him a pussy. And that's the reason that bugs me. "You can't take that hit? You pussy! You just want the league to bail you out. Get your ass back out there." That attitude is a big part of the problem.

BTW, here's a good example of why I think calling this "pussification" is ridiculous and frankly offensive.

Easterbrook

Isn't that pretty much what happened on the Heap play though? A blatant cheap shot for which the response is going to be a fine and not a suspension?

So if you're playing a rival and there's no suspension for a hard hit other than a fine, why wouldn't you nail every guy you could? If you could knock Aaron Rogers out for a month, you'd kill Green Bay's chances at the division. Like you said...Jackson won't score the upcoming week. You take out Rogers with a cheap shot, and he can't throw any touchdowns the next few weeks. Seems like there's a pretty big reward there for hurting someone, with no penalty that hurts your own team, and you just spelled it out.

Because the guys who took those hits last week have so much brain damage they've forgotten what type of people they are.

One thing worth noting is...it's actually bad football. It looks cute on the highlight reels when you nail a player hard, but that's a really crappy tackling method. Give y'all an example. Guys like Urlacher and Briggs are considered excellent linebackers, yet I can't recall very many/any instances of them taking cheap shots on exposed recievers. Same thing with guys in the Bears' secondary; Tillman, Brown when he was there, etc. The guys on the Bears do something fundamentally different here. They try to tackle people. When you're launching yourself head first at a guy with your arms at your side, you're not making a legitimate effort to tackle the guy. It's a terrible way to tackle a player; if the player sees you coming at all, he steps to the side and you miss, or at best you get a glancing blow, and he can still run another 30 yards. The reason why we see these types of cheap hits focusing on the QB and the WR is that they're the only guys who are put in a position where they can't see it coming; they're turning away from straight efforts to advance the ball and thus their blind side is exposed. If you try to tackle Chris Johnson with a big helmet first hit, he's going to the end zone and you're going to look stupid. If you actually want to tackle a guy, you don't launch yourself at him, you keep your head up and get your arms forward so that your arms get around the guy. The Bears defense does this very well and I'd say they have to be well coached at some level to do it. They may miss a tackle because they're trying to strip the ball, but they're not missing a tackle because they want a good highlight. The real bad ones are poor technique and they really don't succeed unless they hurt someone.

There is never anything ignorant about going for best talent available/hoping for random luck in the 6th round.

Just because concussions happen other ways doesn't mean you need to allow a method that does nothing but get people injured to continue. Simple question in reply...can you watch the hit by Merriwether of the Patriots on Todd Heap and honestly tell me you don't think that was a cheap shot? That hits like that are at another level that really should be dealt with? That Todd Heap is a pussy? I will of course grant that it's possible that the NFL will enforce this rule stupidly or too stringently, and people who shouldn't be suspended could get in trouble, but that doesn't mean that hits like the one above should be responded to with a small fine. Cheap shots like that can and do end people's careers, and it's not pussification to stop those.

There's another good one. Take a look at Justin Morneau, he had a non-serious looking impact in baseball and he missed 1/2 of the season, in no small part because he's had concussions before. Guys like Troy Aikman have had their careers end on concussions that take years for the symptoms to go away, and sometimes they never do. You think Gaines Adams's death hurt the Bears, how would the Bears do if Cutler took another blow from a guy launching at him and dealing him a career-threatening concussion? Now that he's had one, the chances of another one have gone way up, as have the chances of a more serious one.

Gimme a break, pussification? "Yeah, I didn't want to have my brain turned to mush by 5 years playing WR. Pussy!" How would you feel if the Bears lost a game or two because they lost say, Hester, on a hit like that, and their punt return game was hampered? Or even further, how would you feel if next week, Hester's career ended on a hit like that? You can do a hard hit without causing a concussion, and Hell, most of the hard hits are ineffective methods of actually tackling a guy anyway since you're not wrapping the guy up in the process.

The Bears are 0-for-25 on third down in Jay Cutler's past two starts and 4-for-45 in his past four.

1/2 of his logic here is correct, the other half is completely missing. The Bears should have, and probably well did know that their line was going to be a problem in TC. However, he offers zero useful suggestions for anything. The headline says "Should have pushed them harder in TC". Really? How on Earth does he know that they weren't pushed hard? It's entirely possible that things like Williams's injury could have come from being pushed too hard. This article is just a guy being cranky. That's all it is. He has a right to be so, but there's no earth shaking revelation there.

Bah, looking for precedent right now is going to get you into trouble. Not only would I say we have an unusual number of contractual holdouts for this point in the season, but we're in a really unusual place where the 2011 season is totally up for grabs and no one seems to have a clue what contracts and the salary cap will look like for 2012. It's new ground in a lot of categories.

Wait...so the first person criticized that the Bears don't know how to go for the jugular when they're up and instead put it in neutral to just win, then the second poster responded that yeah, they needed to put it in neutral last week and they didn't know how. ?

Well, when you think about it...what are the Bears likely to spend their first round pick on this year if they draft for need? They're going after an O-Lineman, either a Right Tackle or a Left Guard, since they have a young LT already (Even if you don't like Williams, he's several years away from where you'd stop and replace him with another 1st round pick). You deal for him, you get a guy who's very unlikely to be an outright bust, whereas you draft a lineman in the 2nd and you've got a 50/50 shot. The question is finances. In a capped league, you have to stop and ask yourself whether it's not only worth the 2nd round pick that you'd spend on an O-Lineman anyway, but it's worth the value of the contract extension. Since the league is uncapped right now that could help...but at some point you do have to expect the return of a cap, and a deal signed right now could seriously hurt you.

Here's the list of guys who have put together QB Ratings of 0. Grossman's first half against the packers, last game of 06, is on there.