lemonej

I might be mistaken but last season Forte had 60 plus receptions but,I don't remember many of them being from screens.OTOH when Garrett Wolfe was in the backfield last year they threw a lot of screens his way with limited success.AP also seemed to be used in this capacity as well as on draws last season. I think the reason that the screens worked so well last week was the fact that they were run with Forte in the game and the formation the Bears used with 3 WRs and a TE. The fact that the niners were attacking the Bears help the play succeed and Ron Turner not calling it more is typical of his style of play calling. Most successful teams will run a play until you stop it.

Thats an intriguing idea and then you should have a better thinker on the field and Urlacher is better in coverage IMO. Every year the Bears defense throws a rookie into the fire and evey year the opposing team goes after them. This year it has been Alfalava and even though he is a second year player Bowman who essentially is a rookie having only played one game prior to this season. Urlacher at SS and Manning deep would be real interesting. If you walked a safety that size down in the box teams would have to take notice.

Agreed. When Garrett Wolfe is in the game on 3rd and long I'm almost certain a screen pass is coming and when AP is in the game in the same situation I would look for a draw play.The only play that is different from years past is Hester in the Bears' form of the "Wildcat". When Forte fumbled on 2 consecutive plays after only fumbling twice all of last year,you think that formation didn't tell Atlanta what was coming? Every time they play action on the goalline and throw to one of the TEs they have been wide open.

We could go over every play one by one and find something that was wrong but the defense and Lovie's calls had nothing to do with turnovers in the redzone by our offense.

Benson looked like Forte does now.BTW he blackballed himself with his antics off the field and lack of production on it. Like it was said the Bears traded TJ to give this guy the ball and he couldn't man up. He was fine as long as there was another guy carrying the load. He is just another bad 1st round RB pick the Bears have taken recently(Salaam,Enis). They have gotten more mileage out of the guys they have gotten in round 2 (A-Train and Forte).

I would ask him to reduce his salary next year especially if they can draft a young guy that can make an impact at the position. Since Pisa has played for Lovie before, I could see them giving him a shot at the middle if he comes back healthy next year. He's got that mean streak I like and the fact that he played in last weeks game with a tear in his knee proves he's the kind of psycho we need in the middle of the field. The cover 2 needs a MLB that can get deep and come up and smash someone in the short zone making a catch and plug the whole on runs. For all his freakish athletic ability Urlacher has never been great at the point of attack and he doesn"t punish guys who catch balls underneath. The 2 best examples of cover2 MLBs are Jack Lambert and Hardy Nickerson.

Just sayin' How can someone who catches the ball so well on kickoffs drop so many potential picks?

While Iam pulling for the Bears to compete this year it looks like they are rebuilding on the fly right now. Not only could Harris be gone but the acquisition of Gaines Adams says Ogunleye or Mark Anderson could be gone also. Alex Brown I believe will still be under contract and with the youth they have added to the line via the draft, I could see guys being allowed to leave from the D-line. If the choice is between Anderson and Wale I think the Bears will choose Anderson because of age and price.

LOL The thing that I'm confused on is for some reason Dan Pompeii found a scout that says he plays to his players strengths. If thats so,why is Garrett Wolf running between the tackles instead of getting a few plays that allow him to get to the edge and utilize his quickness?Its because Turner is stubborn just like his brother Norv and refuses to change. The Bears are eunning the same running plays they did when Lewis Tillman and Raymont Harris were in the backfield and the same passing plays they ran when Jeff Graham and Curtis Conway were the WRs.Darren Sharper's comments add some validity to the article but the fact that he is obviously looking for a career in TV leads me to believe he says the right things depending on what media outlet sticks a microphone in his face. Remember his quotes leading up to the Saints-Giants game about wanting revenge because they didn't sign him? At his age and the salary he would command most teams would pass on him. IMO he wanted to be in that NY market to try and secure his future in TV.

Guys add me to the list of the McKie haters. When guys like Tony Richardson and Lorenzo Neal were available I was hoping the Bears would grab them because of their ability to be punishing lead blockers. This OC has fallen in love with collecting TEs but has yet to properly utilize them in this offense this year. I thought from what I saw at TC that Olsen was going to be used more like an H-back to help create mismatches and be a lead blocker for Forte like he did last season. On most of Forte's big runs its not a result of devastating blocks by McKie but more on the line and Forte's ability to hit the hole in a timely fashion.

I just remember how teams started adjusting to his throws in Turner's offense because it was rare that Orton would ad-lib on the field. So far you have seen Cutler improvise often during a play this season. I remember when Orton tried to improvise he got injured last year scrambling towards the sideline. Once D-coordinators knew he was stationary they were rushing him up the middle because he couldn't avoid the rush.

Good Memory 1A was the memorial service after his passing and Dan Hampton with mic in hand saying that he would tell his children he knew Walter Payton. No matter how hard I tried the tears just flowed from my eyes as he spoke.

You're right and this is where the labels of Game Manager and Gunslinger come into play. Though some QB's like Orton don't like the tag Game Manager coaches like Mc Danials likes this type of QB because of his wanting to have his fingerprints on everything. Once teams take these first 5 games and break down what throws that Orton seems to make the most we will see how well McDanials scouts himself.

Ok guys here's my list in order: 1) John Huarte 2) Henry Burris 3)Kent Nix 4) Gary Huff 5)Larry Rakestraw 6) Rusty Lisch 7) Greg Landry 8)Cade McNown 9) Mike Phipps 10)Turk Schonert

I'm with you NFO and I also think we should keep an eye on Bowman who has all the talent in the worl but tends to get dinged up a bit.

S7 this is the same media scrutiny that was taking "The White Glove" to all of Cutler's early press conferences watching facial expressions or whatever just to make news. Mc Danials IMO is a bit arrogant in the same mode as Lane Kiffin, Eric Mangini and others who have had limited success prior to becoming HC's.

Nfo I just want to add why I think Wade was let go,He made the same catches that he makes now but what he had that Lovie Smith seems to take issue with is critical turnovers. I believe that he has a similar issue with young players that are oft-injured. This may be the reason why players like Bradley,Gage,Dusty and JD Runnels were given releases or injury settlements. I personnally saw Davis practice at TC and he was brutal. He along with Adrian Petersen are two guys Lovie probably has a special fondness for and Davis may be reaching AP's status as one of the guys that Lovie may find a place for as long as he is the HC. This is just speculation on my part but if I had a street FA that failed at one position(DB) why would I keep him around unless I like having a bunch of "Underdogs" on my team. If you look at our roster this might be what the thinking is.Some of our key players came here unherald.

Hey NFO I see this the same way you do and can't understand if you have 7 or 8 guys on the line of scrimmage why you would play zone behind it when the pressure you may generate would cause a QB to get rid of the ball quickly and if you are playing man coverage you may be able to make a play on the ball. The other thing that bothers me is when on those same 3rd and long plays you see a CB release a WR without the safety there to back him up. Why is this still happening after this staff has had this scheme in place for so long?

Garcon is actually in his second year out of Mount Union.

I remember Payton returning kickoffs in his rookie season and leading the league in that statistic.My favorite memory was on an NFL Today interview with one of Payton's first O-lines when they all said in unison "We must block for Walter.We have to block for Walter and We will block for Walter."This interview was conducted by Brent Musburger when he was the host of the NFL Today on CBS. The group was Jeff Sevy,Revie Sorey,Noah Jackson,Dan Pieffer and Bob Newton(I'm not sure on this guy).

McMahon hurling his body around came to mind as did Elway in the Super Bowl but, lets not forget Randall Cunningham's head over heels helicopter early on in his career with the Eagles.

I did some digging and found the WRs drafted by JA and 3 of them are directly connected to Turner:Bennett, Airese Currie and Mark Bradley. The team didn't get much production from any of these guys in their first year and of the 4 WRs drafted before these the team got better first year production from just about all 4 prior to Turner.Berrian,Wade,Gage and Elliott. Of the 4 Elliott is the only one that is no longer playing in the league. So the Bears have drafted 7 WRs under JA and 5 of them are still playing in the league with only one still with the Bears.Of the 4 that got away Wade is the only one who I believe Lovie dismissed because of his constant turnovers on punts, kickoffs and some receptions.So who made the call on letting Bradley,Gage and Berrian go?JA,Lovie,Turner or Drake?We will never know because of how tight lipped this organization is and how the local beat writers don't ask questions like this when interviewing coaches.

This pattern with Bears' WRs that they draft is puzzling. Every year a WR that is drafted by the Bears is basically useless.The common denominator is Ron Turner.It really appears that he prefers veterans over rookies and Johnny Knox is an exception to this trend.

I thought it was just me.I have always felt that ESPN has an east coast bias. When Iam trying to watch the ticker just to get a score that is important to Chicago teams it seems that a commercial comes and you wind up starring at the ticker for another half hour just to get that score. As for the Cowboys being America's favorite team,I just don't believe that and the reason is simple. Here in Chicago we have diehard fans of our teams but, quite a few fans are front runners which simple means they pull for winning teams in professional sports.With the Cowboys lack of success in the playoffs,I believe fans would not vote them as the top team over perennial Super Bowl participants like New England and Pittsburgh or even the Giants.

I was under the impression that Pisa played MLB last season for the Rams and was their leading tackler.Couldn't he play the middle for us at least on running downs?