BearFan2000

The guy has been MIA in the offense for the most part till he was involved a few times this week. In past seasons he was our go to guy. Is it that Kyle's comfort level with Olsen is higher than his comfort level with Clark? Or is Des just not as sharp this year. He had what could have been a very boneheaded mistake by getting the ball punched out at the end of that reception. He owes Davis dinner for saving his arse by following the play. Just seems like he's been non-existent for the most part. I had thought they'd lean on him more then they have.. and maybe he had a slow start but is coming on.

I bid on and won an Xbox Elite from eBay. Tracking number only states that shipping information is received. $232.50 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...em=160292499102 As of yet I don't have any Xbox 360 games other than the obvious Madden 09 any good game suggestions? Also will I be able to play my old Xbox games on the new system?

I agree on never wanting to look past a game but the Lions are the official black hole of the NFL. On good thing about Williams going to Dallas.... well actually two things, first we won't have to watch this idiot stretch his arm out signaling a first down wether they are ahead or getting pummeled by 40 points twice a year. Second is that he's left one sinking ship to jump onto another. They already have one Prima Dona WR whining about not getting the ball, now they have two Prima Dona's whining about not getting the ball and they gave up picks and cash which the picks are a waste anyway as Detroit will squander them. I think it would be a good opportunity to rest them again. Ok to let them practice but let them get completely healed and ready. Besides our young guys could use some more live game reps. We're going to need Tillman, Vasher, Hester, and Lloyd the next week when we play Tenn. Actually no real need to lie just be honest we are giving them an extra week off to rest and get healthy and get our young guys some more experience. Anyone with half a brain should be able to figure out the reasoning and strategy that if there were a game you could afford to give these guys a week off it would be against the Lions. My guess though... if they are healthy they'll play.

it sure is. Not just here in Chicago. Look at Dallas getting owned by freakin' St. Louis, The packers beating up on a Colts team that looked pathetic. Three weeks in I was way ahead in the margin pool and now I'm 35 pts behind first place. I've picked some real dogs lately in both the regular pool and the margin pool. Now it's going to be two weeks before there's another Bears game..... I will say though as banged up as the D is the bye week couldn't have come at a better time.

Agree as well as we were throwing the ball and scoring on offense I never quite felt comfortable particularly in the 4th Qtr. It seemed as well as the offense did we could never pull away because the Defense would allow them to tie it up. When we were up 17 in the 4th and then we gave up a FG, then a TD, the whole time I was thinking screw run time off the clock we need points we need padding. I had visions of us giving up that 17 pt lead and losing this game. The only time I felt remotely comfortable was when we first went up 17. But we got conservative, I wanted us to keep pushing. just under 8 min in the game is not the time you decide let's just run as much clock as possible. On Minny's TD drive I thought they wasted an awful lot of clock to do it.

That is what makes it funny. They barely beat Detroit and they discount us blowing them out. They beat a NO team who tried as hard as they could to give that game away. Then they talk smack. I love it. They just can't handle it.

Who'da thought that 7 games in that the Offense would be carrying the defenses jock strap? And we're 4-3. Very well could be 7-0.

I'll say this, and I'm sure I'm not alone. When Orton was named starter and our Defense being healthy to start the season I had visions of 2005 again where offensive possessions were basically an extra restroom/snack break. I expected dink and dunk and running the ball. Relying on defense and special teams to win games. Orton has really impressed me. 7 games in he has looked very consistent and has shown improvement. There was a time when I looked at Rex and Kyle and thought that Rex's ceiling was much higher than Otron's but his problem was that his basement was much lower and you could never tell where he was going to be on any given Sunday. Orton was the safer of the two but less exciting. Well, I think I may have sold Kyle short. It looks like he has learned a thing or two while being on the sidelines and he's not just managing the offense, he's leading it. And he's doing without much talent around him. Well Done Kyle, keep it up. Today it was Offense and Special Teams keeping us in this game. If we could have played even solid defense we may have blown them out. Instead every time we took the lead it seemed the defense let them come right back and tie it. THe game was tied what 4 times? Three of those ties came right after taking a lead over the Vikings. I didn't want this game to turn into a shootout. The offense wasn't without it's flaws. Quite a few drops particularly TD drops two by Booker though he made a great play later on. On the running game I'm begining to wonder if it isn't coached that the RB run to where the hole is supposed to be whether it's there or not. Forte's best runs were when it looked like he tried that but said screw it and ran outside. Teams know we have no creativity in the run game and if we run it it's almost always straight up the gut. I've said before and I'll say it again we must get more creative in the run game. We display no imagination there. The passing game being as successful as it has been with who we have to throw to is nothing short of amazing. The line has done a good job keeping Kyle clean and giving him time and he's done a good job stepping up in the pocket. His mechanics are by far head and shoulders above Rex's. I'm begining to think his reading of the defense is above Rex's as well. I've blasted the Defense but I also have to give props to the secondary particularly the guys who I thought may become victims today. McBride, Graham, and Hamilton, Bowman. Three of these guys came up with big picks. None bigger than Bowmans to effectively end the game. Peterson only really got off one big run of 54 yards and a TD where he made Payne and then Brown look silly. Take away that run and he puts up less than 100 yards. It seemed like the D stepped up more in the second half but they still need to play all 60 min. Our inability to keep them from answering our scores for much of the game kept them in it. It was a wild game and I don't know if I can take many more like that where it's so crazy it's hard to remember the details. But to be 4-3 entering a much needed bye week. The Colt's are ticking me off now. I had hoped that last week they got their groove on and would pummel the pukers but yet they are loosing...... bastards.

Neither is Turner but he plays one on TV

Congrats!!! Teach him the ways of the force and that packers are in fact yucky

Agree with the first point. With the fake handoff and play action two good things can happen. If you only have 1 yard to gain and a stacked box if they do manage to cover the WR/TEs your QB should be able to pick up the yard needed. But the Bears.... we hand the ball off to our slowest ball carrier who then runs into the pile of bodies for a loss or no gain. Our O-Line is simply not good enough to call that play. I haven't watched the game yet but I don't need to know that is very stupid thinkinging to squib kick it. 11 seconds left and you are leading by less than a FG you kick the thing deep force them to chew up time returning it and then make them earn FG range. But by kicking a short squib you surrender field position at a time when field position is most critical. Beyond that they have a very solid FG kicker and you need to do everything you can to keep it out of his range. I couldn't agree more about your last point as well. We've seen this for a long time now. Our secondary is not agressive and we allow pretty much anyone to come in and pick us appart. Are we that afraid of the big play that we completely sell out to defend that by doing a bail out technique. What makes it worse is we rarely bump and run there's too often a 5-10 yard cussion from the line of scrimmage. So the DB is already surrendering a short completion allowing them to move the ball at will. To make that worse our safetys (even the great Mike Brown) are usually late getting over. So when the DB passes off the reciever the gap is too big and we give up larger chunks. With our non-existant pass rush the QB has time to pick and choose what he wants to do. It's just maddening to watch. We need to abandon the cover 2, it has been exposed and has ran it's course. We need to be more agressive on defense.

If Tommie stays down on the ball earlier in the game instead of trying to get up and run with it and fumbling himself causing a double change of posession. Result if he stays down we have the ball and snuff out a FG (which is what we lost by). Actual result they get a brand new set of downs, forcing the D to have to hold them in the red zone again after sucessfully doing so. They did in fact hold them to a FG but could have surrendered a TD which would have put this game out of reach. As pointed out in several other posts our 3rd down defense and offense hurt us. The D coulnd't get off the field. They held them on 1st and 2nd down but let them off the hook on 3rd and long. We made Matt Ryan look like a freaking all star yesterday. Not taking antying away from Ryan I thought he was the most pro ready QB coming out in this past draft, and the kid has skills, but we made him look better than he was. On offense we weren't very good at converting our 3rd downs. I only got to see the first half so I can only comment that far till I watch the second half. All in all this was a game the Bears should have won. Poor play in many areas caused this game to come down to a last second FG and yet another W turned into an L because we didn't finish. Once an accident, twice a coinsidence, thrice a pattern. We have played 6 games thus far and in those games three games we dominated from begining to end, two games we dominated for 3 quarters and choked at the end, and one game we played like crap but got a lead and then choked that away. This team deserves their record or do they?

Can't get the clip to play. I click play then it goes blank and all the buttons for the other clips grey out.

I argee, at this point the O-Line has held up better than I had expected so I hope they or he doesn't get so antsy to get back that he isn't 100%. IMHO there's no need to rush this but it is good to hear.

I agree with what's been said in this thread so far. Forte's numbers did look awful low in. But there are reasons. 1. Detroit was determined not to let us run all over them they feared the run more than the pass and we lit them up. 2. Forte barely sniffed the field in the second half if at all. Second half was mostly Jones, and Wolfe. 3. I don't know that there was a lot of creativity to our run game. It seemed almost all our runs were between the tackles and Detroit was getting good penetration. So it was tough sledding. If the passing game continues to be effective and improves that will make it a lot easier to run On Orton, I think he's shown improvement as the season has progressed. Remember his last extended action was in 2005. He's spent most of his time holding the clipboard. Early on in the season it seemed like throw beyond 10 yards was adventure and we were lucky if it was anywere within 5 yards a of the intended reciever. Over the coarse of the first 5 games he seems to be showing most of his improvement in his accuracy beyond 10-15 yards. He still struggles with the deep ball. But given his improvement to this point I think that might come around again. Once he can hit the deep ball from time to time it should loosen up the coverage. Right now I doubt anyone's concerned about the deep ball because so far he's yet to come close to completing it. I was impressed with Olsen yesterday also. What I saw yesterday is what I had envisioned when we drafted him.

They are missing out on a golden revenue opportunity. Just looked at Tulane's sports shop and the only football jersey is a solid green one with the number 1 on it. It would seem like they'd at least have an option to order a custom jersey.

Fitting that he gets to wear a striped uniform

well, you know we stop doing what's working because they are going to adjust to it. This staff has no killer instinct. When you have a team down you keep the pedal down and put the onus on them to stop you. You don't just abandon something that's working because you assume they are going to adjust and stop you at some point anyway. kind of damming when you admit by doing this that teams make adjustments yet you often refuse to. That said the no huddle was a great move as 1.) it was out of character for the Bears and the Eagles weren't expecting it. 2.) a team that is famous for it's exotic blitz schemes can be somewhat neutralized with a no huddle to minimize personnel changes. It wasn't a hurry up no huddle but rather a more casual no huddle but still it was more aggressive than the Eagles were likely expecting. I do hope we use the no huddle more on occasion. How long did it take before we actually implemented this new thing called the shotgun formation?

Also, a guy who's been a goat often particularly the last two games. Vasher makes a huge tackle and keeps the WR from reaching the sidelines and the clock runs out as they can't get to the line to spike it. They'd have only had time for a hail mary anyway even if he had gotten out of bounds but great job to make sure he doesn't and doesn't give them a chance to take a shot at it.

I agree The original angle first replay angle second replay angle. As you can see the ball is down by his stomach. So what looks like the ball from the overhead angle is something else. third replay angle Having just watched it again I have to say that Briggs made that stop possible. He dove accross the line and stopped Buckhalter's forward progress then Brown hog ties him and puts all his weight into pulling him back from the goal line. Great team play about the only one not in on that tackle was Payne who dove for him in the backfield and missed.

Rodgers got hurt, he did return but I thought they pregame guys tonight nailed it. Green Bay has put all it's eggs into the Rodgers basket. If he goes down they are in a serious do do.

Major kudos on that Goal line stand. kept it a 4 pt game and then the offense gets a critical first down to milk the clock. I don't care who you are 17 seconds, no timeouts and ball on your own 39 and needing a TD is pretty darn bad odds. I honestly thought the offenses ineptitude in the second half would be to blame of tonight's loss. A critical drive for a FG late to make it a 4pt game and they finally finished one. The game was not without it's flaws. Orton has to secure the ball when the pressure is getting to him. A few of the sacks were due to him holding the ball way too long. After the interception return by pane gave us 1st and 10 just outside their 10 Orton wastes little time in giving right back on a horrible throw to a double covered Clark who wasn't even looking for the ball. But for Kyle it was a tale of two halves. 3 TD passes in the first half and he looked sharp. Then in the second half the offense looked more like the unit we've grown to hate. Hester again made one of his stupid decisions to try and return a ball that he should have let go into the end zone. But instead on a 60+ yard kick he nets a -8 yard return and we instantly surrender field position. All in all there was good and bad but I'm glad they found a way to finish. Just think if they had done that the last two weeks we'd be 4-0 and have a strangle hold on our division without yet playing a division foe. We'd be in control of our own destiny. We have a share of first place and for as bad as the past two weeks were to be tied for the lead in the division should give this team some confidence to keep it up. Frankly I 'm puzzled at how bad our division actually is. The Lions.... well, you expect that. The Vikings to me are the biggest surprise. I didn't buy the hype completely but thought they'd be better than they showed. Green Bay loosing to the Bucs well, that's justice LOL.

"we get off the bus running the ball" “Last week, we won as a football team and everything went right for us. Today, it felt like the total opposite.” “We have a kicker that's hit some bad balls, and he has to get it right.” “We had opportunities but we couldn't put it away. We've got to find a way to win.” “We just want to play good football. We don't want to beat ourselves.” “Cedric is a good football player,”

I seem to have the opposite effect other than the Indy game. The last two weeks I tuned in to see us winning only to watch us collapse. Sunday night's game I may just set it to record and watch the next day. Maybe the trick is that if I watch it live from start to finish we might win. But if I tun in during we'll either collapse or continue to lose. The Bears are also 1-0 in games I've attended at Soldier field though the game that my Dad and I attended in 2001 vs the lions was a win only because Hansen couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when he had chance after chance to win the game with a FG

I'm going to say I agree with you and this team shows that they have some pride left and will put up a fight. Will they win I wouldn't bet on it but but it wouldn't surprise me either. It sounds cliche but this is simply the most important game of this season. If they fall on their face against the Eagles it will put them in a tail spin that I doubt they can recover from. If they come out and "shock the world" and take it to the Eagles and win then it can go a long ways towards setting the tone. A team that would be 3-0 were it not for two 4th Quarter collapses redeems itself in prime time and wins a game no one gave them a shot to win. The effect might be similar if they lose but play hard and make Philly earn the W. This game can set the tone for the rest of the season. I seem to recall a Giant's team last season that looked awful at this point but had a turning point in their season and and if I recall they won the super bowl. Now before you all jump me and have me admitted for kool-aid OD. I'm not saying we are anywhere near as talented or as well coached as the Giants are. But 3 games into the season is too early to write the season off just yet. The Bears know they are good enough to have been 3-0 at this point. It should anger them to no end that they aren't. That is different than being 1-2 and being extremely lucky to have even won one game and really deserved to be 0-3. There's a difference between knowing your record should be better than knowing you just are that bad. Proving it on the football field is what matters and so far they haven't, Their chance to turn it around in a big way is this weeks prime time matchup.