BearFan2000

We literally have nothing to lose by trying out kickers over the bye. What is Santos' health status?

Agree and you hit on one thing that cannot be taught and that is desire and dedication to his craft. I remember them mentioning on the pregame that he was the first guy out on field before the game. You can look at his career to this point and his dedication and preparation are hard to miss. Even when he wasn't the starter at NC he prepared hard like he was so when his number was called he was ready and made plays. He's humble and puts a lot on himself to get better and works hard. That can't be taught you either have that in your character or you don't. On top of being a very talented and mobile QB I believe this will pay off well for him and for us. I can see him being the type of QB who stays hungry despite success rather than someone who'll just rest on his abilities or success. The drive to get better should serve him well. He has much to learn but he seems eager to do so.

It was a gut wrenching loss that given that if a few plays here and there went differently we could have upset the Saints in their house. As it is we held Brees without a TD pass at home that doesn't happen often. We got screwed by the refs on the TD pass and and at least one of the fumbles overturned where you never saw his knee (thought it was supposed to be indisputable visual evidence required to overturn a call). Play calling and execution both hurt us. For all the great things Howard does running the ball he lacks in pass catching ability. The drop he had should have been a walk in TD. The last drive 3rd and 1 and then 4th and 1 and we don't run the ball, I would have more faith at that point at gaining 1 yard on the ground in 2 plays than trying to find a WR who's not velcro'd to a defender. Fox challenging a call that has no shot at being overturned but not challenging the Miller TD or the fumble call earlier. Like others here have said we have 0 margin for error and we make mistakes we can't afford both in coaching and in execution. What I do take away from this game is our D is legit and has kept us in games. They have really found their identity and you can see the confidence and swagger growing on that side of the ball. If we can ever get our offense up to an average or better we can start building something special here. Imagine if we had even a decent scoring offense this team could start to make some serious noise. The positive here is much of the core of our D is fairly young. If we keep infusing youth and playing at this level we could in good shape for years. Then it's up to Pace and company to improve the offense to match the D. I've been impressed with Trubisky we let him play a little more today than we had and you see things in his game that give you hope that we may have finally found a QB to lead an NFL offense. That is exciting, but we need to get him help, in the form of blocking and weapons. This offseason will be crucial. We should get Meredith back, the rest of the season is an audition to see who can emerge and prove that they could be part of the future here. With Miller done for the year and possibly done for his career. Now more than ever we need Shaheen to step up and perform and show us why we spent a 2nd round pick on him. The opportunity is there can he make the most of it now. The overall arrow I feel is pointing up, comparing this team now to year 2 under Dr Doom where we were not only not competitive but looked uninspired. Remember the mess Pace inherited. Halfway through that season I could hardly bring myself to watch anymore. I think we all want a quick turn around and it's hard to be patient it really is because we're so sick of losing. And "rebuilding" can feel more like a label or excuse for losing. But there signs that things may slowly be turning around. If we get better blocking, more weapons, and a dependable kicker to go with this up and coming D we could become a serious contender.

Definitely thoughts and prayers with him and his family it was gruesome looking and turned out to be a very serious injury. Hope he makes a full recovery and doesn't suffer permanent damage. His career at least in Chicago is probably over, good guy, hard worker, very talented. Hate to see this happen. Wish him the best in recovery. Scary when you think of the possibility of losing a limb. Possibly the scariest Bears injury since Knox was folded in half.

Sure looks that way, he has been a beast for us, and he's making life easier for our LB's, he's a force on his own but his play frees up other playmakers. Glad we locked him up for at least the next 4 years. He makes our D better.

This. While admittedly, seeing Gould be consistent this year in SF it's easy to ask "why'd we release him?" But at the time we released him he had had back to back seasons where he was struggling more and more to be consistent. Perhaps he got his mojo back, but his last couple years here he wasn't right. We signed a retread in Barth as a stop gap not a future piece. I'm sure it will be something looked at in the offseason. Dependable kickers are not easy to find/come by. There are some good young ones coming into the league, like Jake Elliot, Butker, Tavecchio. Barth has been been bad and his misses have been costly as points have been hard to come by. I highly doubt the bears look at Barth as more than a fill in till we find someone better.

This is the lineup I went with fortunately this week my opponent's team barely showed up and I'm going into the Monday night game up 75 points barring an insane performance by the Broncos D I'll win this week handily. Also fortunately 2 (and possibly 3) of the 4 teams in my division could lose this week. Which helps in the standings. If they keep losing and I go on a little run I could creep back into the running for the 4 seed. Last year I won the championship and had slump but recovered to make the playoffs and once your in anything can happen. The way I've played the last several seasons has been like Stinger suggested is you stick your best players, and overthinking the lineups is where you mess yourself up. I've been league champ twice (including last year) since I learned to stop over tweaking my lineups. I would be making changes to my lineup all week, and Sunday mornings/afternoons. The more you lose in a season the more tempting it is to second guess and try to make changes. One year I was in second place with 5 weeks left and I outsmarted myself to finish on a 5 game losing streak and miss the playoffs entirely. What I've learned is some years just don't go your way whether it's injuries, unforeseen game flows. This has been one frustrating season week after week feeling like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football and having Lucy pull it away. But that's the way it goes sometimes. One week I had a 20 point lead going into MNF my opponent had Fitzgerald who'd had 13pt and a 5 pt game and he goes off for almost 34 points The next week I go up against the guy who typically finishes dead last beat me soundly as my guys didn't show up especially Gordon who had his worst week Next week I'm only down like 8 points going into MNF and just need Diggs to get me 9 points when he'd been averaging close to 20. He gets me 1.4 Next week I'm up by 18 going into MNF and my opponent only had her kicker to go. Her kicker got her 21 points Last week in a tight matchup going into Monday night I had a good shot at winning I had Cousins and he had Wentz. Kirk had a big game but I came up three points short. It really is a crap shoot, you can study targets and touches, tendencies, which defenses present favorable match ups vs your specific player's position but game flow, and any given Sunday can flush that down the toilet.

I know this is not Bears related. Need help with my Fantasy lineup this week. 10 team PPR. My Roster QB - Kirk Cousins RB - Mark Ingram, Melvin Gordon, Chris Thompson, Dion Lewis, Alfred Morris WR - AJ Green, Keenan Allen, Amari Cooper, Stefon Diggs, Nelson Agholor TE - Zach Ertz K - Will Lutz D/ST - Panthers I'm 1-6 going into week 8. It's a must win here on out. Seems every week I have one or two guys have dud games and my opponent seems to always have at least one surprise player. I've been losing by mere points every week it's been maddening. QB, TE, K, and D/ST are a given. The logical starts would be RB - Ingram & Gordon, WR Green and Allen. Flex being either Thompson, Diggs, or Cooper and maybe Agholor or Lewis. I also put a waiver claim in for Evan Engram TE Giants that I could have Saturday could also be a flex option. I'm also wondering that since there are so many of us that do fantasy football maybe we could have either a dedicated thread for fantasy or a section for fantasy football posts here at Talk Bears.

Wasn't able to see the game due to celebrating our first anniversary in Cincy. All I have to go on are highlights and box scores. This just blows my mind 7 pass attempts.... 7!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can see 7 in a quarter, maybe a half given game flow but in an entire game??? And we are seeing this week week in and week out. Trubisky's first start they allowed him to use his abilities more and he looked better. Did they chose to take the game away from him because he threw a pick in his first start??? That says we don't trust you to learn, therefore we are going to use game plan to limit your opportunities for error despite the fact that doing so also severely limits opportunity for success. This has to be the most gutless play calling I've seen in some time. If all your going to do is hand off, stay in the pocket, take sacks, and only attempt a hand full of passes a game we might as well have stuck with Glennon as that's all he's capable of doing. You draft a kid #2 overall be cause you are impressed with his mobility, and all the good things that come him throwing well on the run then you tell him "here's your spot" don't move from there and just hand off. Once in a while we'll let you throw a pass. If not for the defense this is a loss and probably a bad one. If we don't step outside this microscopic box we've put Trubisky in we will get slaughtered next week. The D will only be able to hold up so long agains a high scoring offense like NO especially now that they have a run game to go with their air attack. I absolutely love what I"m seeing out of the D this year. Early on we weren't getting turnovers but were getting our hands on a lot of balls, those almost turnovers are turning into big plays. That is giving this D confidence. The secondary is playing better and now taking the ball away that is huge for the front 7 to be more aggressive. This D could be special, just wish we had an offense to go with it. One must ask, in what universe is this kind of offensive game plan in any way helpful to a rookie QB or a team in general. I don't care if you have Joe Montana, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, etc. back there throwing when you rarely throw you negate your QB and force your team to face 8-10 men boxes all game long because they don't fear your passing game for the hand full of completions you may get. What this teaches Trubisky is we don't think enough of your talent to give you room to succeed because we're too scared of letting you make mistakes. What's the difference between 3 and out nearly every possession and committing a turnover but giving yourself a chance to move the ball? The difference is cowardly play calling. It's not just playing not to lose it's playing scared to death of making a mistake. All this is doing is delaying his development not helping it. You have to turn him loose and see what he can do, let him make mistakes it will happen, but those mistakes can be learning experiences. And with a rookie mistakes are expected. It's like getting a brand new awesome toy for Christmas and just leaving it in the box cause you are afraid to break it.

Agree especially if he keeps this up all year especially with all the struggles at CB in recent years.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Fuller looked promising as a rookie then his play declined, how many years did we expect him to be in the cut list. This year he has no doubt stepped up his game, but that was not a known quantity when the decision was made not to pick up his 5th year. Maybe that motivated him, maybe it lit a much needed fire under him, maybe at this stage in his career he's starting to put it all together. Whatever the reason he's playing at a high level, thus far and it is a pleasant surprise. I don't have a problem with us paying him, even during this season. He needs to keep it up to truly earn it. Jeffery, wanted out we offered him a long term deal he passed it up for a 1 year deal in Philly. I have him on my fantasy team and he has not produced to the level of his hype. He just isn't a one man show. Jeffery's best play has been when he had a stud opposite him (Marshall). Now that he is drawing the top coverage with not much on the other side to keep the defenses from focusing on shutting him down. It is a sign of respect for his skills but Jeffery is a better #2 than a #1 that he thinks he is. Could we use him now? Sure, but he'd most assuredly see the same defensive focus here maybe even more so cause outside him who would defenses fear? What we need is a true #1 that can lead our WR's and help them by drawing coverage. Currently all we have is supporting cast.

Good deal, if he can get healthy in time to return this year we could use all the help "warm bodies" at WR we can get. On that thinking what would it hurt to consider bringing Cruz back? I know he had some bad drops in preseason but his veteran presence and ability to get open couldn't hurt at this point?

"Rodger" that

Wouldn't the Bears have had to designate him as IR to return vs season ending IR? Not sure you can go back and change the designation later

OMG Letterman at the Payton Manning thing he's nearly unrecognizable. I couldn't believe that was him at first lol

It is a rare thing. The only other team that comes to mind passing the HOF torch is the 49ers going from Montana to Young. The Colts could pull it off if Luck can get healthy and wind up having a long productive career there. From the time that Favre took over in 1992 after being traded from the Falcons till 2008 when Farve was traded to the Jets and Rodgers took over till present. 16 years of Favre and 9 years and counting for Rodgers, is 25 years of HOF QB play. Interestingly enough in that 25 year span they have only appeared in 3 Super Bowls (2 with Favre and one with Rodgers), winning 2 of those 3. That said Brett and Rodgers have lead them to the playoffs in all but 7 seasons in that span. It makes it harder when our own team has struggled so mightily over that span. We all remember the obligatory QB list they'd throw up every time we played the Packers to rub it in our faces just how bad it's been for us. So there is some jealousy in our Packers hate. You have to think at some point the tide will turn and maybe with Mitch it has started to turn. Don't have to spend much time reading the Packer's board to realize the grass isn't always greener. There is a lot of call for coaching and management changes, their offensive line has been an issue for the past few years and their D has been suspect. Simply put without Favre and Rodgers where would that team be? I may hate the packers, and I may not like Rodgers or Favre there's no arguing how good they were and are and what they've meant to keeping their team viable. I'll just be glad when they slip into mediocrity and have their fill of humble pie.

Good assessments of the game. It was an ugly win but a win nonetheless. Till we can pass block, or get WR's open we'll probably see more of the same. This is "run heavy" to the extreme. Of the first 25 plays 20 were runs, the trend has continued since the season started and if anything is getting more run heavy. I think we had something like 9 pass attempts in the first half.... 9???. We are neutering the offense and holding Trubisky back. Who despite the almost non existent pass blocking, WR's not getting open, and playacting that takes what he does best out of the equation. I know they are partly trying to protect him but just handing off over and over isn't really teaching him anything. But given there's almost never anyone open to throw to outside of blown coverage, and line that can't pass block, is a recipe for disaster. I think part of the approach is knowing we were facing an aggressive defensive front as we did last week, and will face another one with the Panthers. I do like that Trubisky is learning to throw it away rather than force it and risk putting the team in a bad spot. He has thus far demonstrated good composure when things go wrong. We again saw multiple bad snaps, Whitehair must have started taking suck pills this offseason he went from promising young lineman to whatever the hell that is playing center now. Is it possible to move him to guard, his poor snapping is a liability to an already crippled offense. There's virtually no margin of error on this offense so miscues like bad snaps and dumb penalties will continue to kill us. Run game, it actually amazes me how effective we've been at running the ball given teams know that's pretty much all we're going to do on any given down. This to me speaks volumes for how good a back Howard is. That run in OT on 3rd and forever to get us into field goal range was huge! The kid plays his heart out every time he suits up. Cohen did better this week of sticking to the play design. He had one freelance play that resulted in a block in the back. Big plays will come but he has to learn that not every play has to be a home run. It's like hitter in baseball swinging for the fences every time when sometimes all you need is a base hit. He'll learn that. Howard is a good one to learn from to be patient. Pick your spots, when he gets that down he's going to be a dangerous change of pace. The future random of Howard and Cohen looks bright. When watching our WR's rarely get open what keeps coming to mind is that their lack of ability to get separation is even worse when one considers we are seeing 8, 9, and 10 man fronts. our WR's scare no one and rightly so. With these stacked boxes they are facing man to man or zone coverage and still can't get open. There isn't a lot of variety in our routes in either length or pattern. I think this could also play into why we aren't getting guys open. Similar to having a QB who never moves like Glennon defenders know the launch point and don't have to think or guess they can play on auto pilot. Perhaps the same thing is partly at play here, if secondaries pretty much know where the receivers will be on any given play, it's much easier to defend the pass. Also makes the passing lanes more predictable. It's also maddening that on long down and distance we have far too many routes short of the sticks. On 3rd and long there should not be a single route ran short of the sticks aside from a RB dump off or a screen. Which come to think of it with these stacked boxes we should be running more screen plays to take advantage of teams overcommitting to stop the run. Loggains doesn't have much to work with but he also doesn't do well working with what he has. No one expects us to have a high powered offense but a little balance will go a long way. The defense was the reason we won. All those almost plays where we nearly came up with a pick, we finally got some turnovers at critical times. Especially the pick six which was a thing of beauty and such a critical play when the Ravens were closing the gap and had just cut the lead to 4 I believe and were driving it was a 10 point swing as I believe they in or close to FG range. It was a huge momentum swing. Special teams were anything but special. Forced to punt deep in our side of the field we shank the punt and spot them near midfield only needing to get about 25 yards for a shot at a game wining FG. Thankfully the D stood tall and forced a punt. Which we get the ball back deep and the offense goes nowhere till Howard saves the day. We give up two scores on special teams both inexcusable. No excuse for no one on the coverage team to touch him down instead we let him score while we look confused. I too thought it was really odd that Glennon was out there for the coin toss prior to OT. I also joked to my wife that Fox's "beard" was probably a no win no shave thing. I'm ready for Fox to be gone.

I never like seeing players get hurt. At Rodger's age that is a big injury. That said I feel absolutely no sympathy for the Packers in general. The ball almost always bounces their way. The breaks more often than not go their way when it comes to calls, lucky plays, etc. I don't like Rodger's as a person, he's an arrogant jerk, he wants nothing to do with his own family, I'm sick of that stupid smirk. For the longest time since Favre's dominance, I've said, I really can't wait till Rodgers retires and and hope that when that happens they struggle for at least a decade or two to find a serviceable QB. That team deserves to be a bottom feeder for the foreseeable future, they and their fan base could use a good humbling.

I was hoping they would bring Gentry back to the 53, but i kinda question the choice of player to cut. Why not cut Weaton who's done less than nothing vs Thomson who's at least contributed some at times. I know it's a bit of a tallest midget argument but seems like Weaton or Bellamay would be more cuttable.

Add in Diggs, Thielen, and even Rudolf. There are plenty of weapons for the Vikings. They have the talent to create mismatches and make big plays.

Not the easiest stretch of games for a rookie QB's debut with the vikings, ravens, panthers, a bit of a breather against the saints then the Packers at home. But you have to start sometime and I'm sure Trubisky welcomes the challenge. He'll no doubt make mistakes and at times costly ones, but those will be things he'll learn from. I don't feel like Mitch is the type of mentally fragile QB that will get rattled by adversity. He's shown throughout his career that he is a resilient kid. He'll learn from mistakes and will grow and get better for the experience. We do need to be patient with him because I think in the long run he will be a very good QB for us. Sticking with Glennon shows a lack of commitment to winning this season. Glennon is what he is he will never get better than what we've seen. So you either stick with Glennon and are ok getting embarrassed, or you get the rookie in there and accept the growing pains. My only concern is keeping Trubisky healthy. Our offensive line is a concern in my mind but with Mitch you have a guy who's mobile seems to have a good pocket awareness and can evade pressure to extend plays and can make plays on the run. Perhaps simply having that element will the line. With Glennon he is a statue and defenses know where the launch point is. It's been mentioned here and in broadcast about how Trubisky fits what we want to do on offense better than Glennon does. Trubisky's mobility opens up more rollouts, play action, etc. Even with the tough slate in front of Trubiskey, there isn't any film on him outside of what he showed in preseason. The pressure to succeed and win isn't going to be there on a 1-3. But we'll need patience to ride the ups and downs. The upside and potential I feel is worth it. Having him continue to sit and watch Glennon crap the bed has no educational value whatsoever. So this is the right move.

Like most here I don't think the intent was injury, and it's one of those situations where he committed to the hit and Adams position changed thus leading to a vicious helmet to helmet. What Trevathan could have done was not lead his hit with the helmet. Even if Adams stays upright it's still really close to spearing which is also dangerous. Trevathan is a hard hitting player and you love that about him. And I believe he was sincere in his reaction. Players still need to play under control and be aware of the situation. Itt's 3rd and Goal from what the 16 or so and we have him stopped well short of the end zone. There's no need for Trevathan to charge in there. If he restrained we stop them and hold them to a FG, instead it's a fresh set of downs half the distance to the goal resulting in a TD and a 4 point difference. In the grand scheme of the game it didn't matter as we got blown out, but that kind of thing hurts your team and it resulted in serious injury to Adams. Thoughts and prayers to him and his family. Fortunately he had movement in all his extremities.

like stinger said the first thing that comes to mind is when the clock hit 0's and it was over. This was painful to watch. Words can't come close to describing how awful Mike Glennon is. Is this staff really willing to sit by and watch this team go down in flames with him? Even Helen Keller could see he's not a real QB. That "performance" last night is exactly why the Bears are the laughing stock of the NFL. Wonder why no one gives us respect? look no further than 4 quarters of embarrassing football. It was gutless from a play calling standpoint, a coaching standpoint, and an execution standpoint. When this mess ended and I promptly shut the TV off, I asked myself why did I watch that whole thing? Mr. Glennon, what we've just witnessed is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever seen. At no point in this bumbling, incoherent effort were you even close to anything that could be considered a professional QB. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having seen it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Especially hard to learn anything useful while watching the disaster that is Glennon. Other than learning what not to do. After tonight there is no defending Glennon. Fear of failure stunting his growth is not a valid argument anymore. Watching this train wreck of an offense led by a sorry excuse for a qb just might. It's time for a change. We have an extended break before week 5. Watiching this team till they make the change is not good for my blood pressure. Tonight's game was beyond infuriating.

Floyd should have had a sack but left his feet and Ben is athletic enough to evade that. Ben's not an easy QB to bring down, we got to him a some key spots. I do feel like our D has grown leaps and bounds since Fangio got here. The sacks and turnovers will come. Like I said after the Atlanta game this D will keep us in games. But the offense has got to get better and help them out. Going into the season I knew the D and the Run game would be a strength and that's been true thus far. Special teams has been much improved, the offense has gone in reverse.