BearFan2000

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.

I can think of one. Bobby Engram. We let him go and he went on to have a fine career with the Seachickens

I've had some time to cool off but that game was very close to being the last straw. I'm much calmer that day I'm surprised I didn't destroy something. I was furious. Once in a while blowing a late lead will happen but two weeks straight. Only way they're getting to the super bowl this season is if they buy tickets. Next weeks game vs the Eagles will tell us a lot about this team. They think they are a contender, well, contenders don't lose back to back games where they had double digit 4th Quarter leads especially to weak teams. If they come out and get blown to smithereens by the Eagles in a weak effort you can stick a fork in them, they are done. However, if they put up a fight and even somehow win that game then there may be hope. The Bears will likely be 1-3 after the Eagles game. However if we win it evens our record at 2-2 then we head to Detroit to play the kittens and could head to Atlanta a 3-2 ball club. Atlanta to me a wild card they are 2-1 and have looked respectable, then we have Minny who is an enigma, then we get detroit at home. Let's say we sweep Detroit and split the two between Atlanta and the Queens (can't say which one we would beat). After 8 games we could be 5-3. We start the second half of the season at home vs the Titans, and then on the road against a solid Green Bay team. If we loose those two we are an even 5-5 then we get some relief after a tough couple weeks by heading to St. Louis to take on that juggernaut bringing us to 6-5 we then travel to the metronome to play the queens could be a loss evening us out again at 6-6. We then have three straight home games vs Jagbags, the saints, and the pukers. Let's say we win 2 out of those three. 8-7 heading into the season finale vs the texans they are a better team than many give them credit for. A win here and we finish 9-7 and earn a wild card playoff birth. it's not out of the realm of possibility. Again the game against the Eagles will be a critical game. If we loose that then we are playing catch up the rest of the season. Win it and we have a chance to keep the ship afloat and make the playoffs. Last year we didn't win back to back games till late in the year and spent nearly the whole season below 500. I think the only times we were at 500 were at the start of the season 0-0 and after week two when we followed up the loss to the chargers with barely beating a bad KC team to even the record at 1-1 from that point on I think we remained sub 500.

The Bears can't even manage the basics let alone wrinkles. I'm not sure we could execute a pop warner offensive play book. We should have jumped out to a 14 point lead (that's what real NFL teams would do given the way that game started) but this is Chicago so we end up with 6 points. So instead of a jumping out to a two TD lead, we manage a one score lead. Which they promptly answered with a TD and the extra point giving them a lead and confidence in a game that had been dominated by the Bears. For most of the remainder of the first half the offense does nothing but but wast opportunity after opportunity till just before half we have a promising drive that again stalls and we settle for a FG. trailing 9-14 at the half. Second half the offense gets a clue and mounts a comeback and puts us in the lead by 10 points and then goes into autopilot for the remainder of the contest. The defense does it's part and allows a quick 10 points to tie it up and force overtime. The offense has a few cracks at it in OT but seems to be following the pattern of the first half ineptitude and produces nothing. How many OT games go inside 6 min left in the OT session? What does that say about both teams? The penalty on Tillman was a horrible call he was barely even involved and if anything he was trying to break it up and he gets flagged. On Orton's Grossman imitation where he threw right to the defender. The best block the Bucs got was the ref getting in Orton's way as he was trying to chase it down. Had the ref not interfered it's possible Orton gets him out of bounds before he gets to the end zone and the D at least has a chance to hold them to three. But nope, the ref is right in the way and Kyle has to get around him to try and make a play. The bears lost this game not the refs. Sure we got screwed a couple times but we did more to sabotage a win ourselves than the zebras did. The two above instances were to me the only times we can say we truly got screwed by the refs. That alone should not result in a loss were they at critical points in the game? Yes. But it should never come to not getting this call or that call or having this penalty or that penalty. We blew so many opportunities in this game. As I said in the beginning of this post if we jump out to a 14 point lead out of the gate that can completely change the outlook of the game. But if you are getting dominated and are only down 6 points it gives you confidence. If Robbie makes that field goal we would have had a 27-14 lead and that 10 points would have been too little too late. Fact is we got beat by a bad team... what does that make us?

I agree the whole team did their part to lose this game. The offenses ineptitude got us 3 first half field goals, 1 red zone IN, 1 INT returned for a TD we trail at halftime 14-9. First half the Defense did a darn good job given they would get a stop and then be back out on the field 4 plays later. Second half the Offense started to come around and put up 15 points to open up a 10 point lead. 3 min and change we had posession and the lead. All we had to do was eat up as much clock as possible and if need be make one more defensive stop and it's game over. But we fail to acheive either objective and give up 10 points in less just over 3 min. We then move to overtime and the Defense at this point is gassed. We manage to play to a stalemate till about 6 min and change left. Maynard does his part and pins them deep. The defense steps up and makes a stand forcing a 3 and out till we get ref'd and they wind up with a first and 10 at about the 30, they then go into the no huddle and our gassed defense is sucking wind and desperately trying to salvage the game but it's no use and they win on a chip shot FG. Bears are now 1-2 on their way to 1-15 and a first round draft pick.

We are giving both those teams a run for their money. I have about had it. I'm tired of getting up for a game we should win today was the day we were supposed to be 2-1. I'm getting sick of trying to psych myself up only to be disappointed by yet another failure. Someone convince me that we won't go 1-15 this year. I just need to walk away I'm too pissed to even think about this team right now.

To quote Butthead. This sucks more than anything has ever sucked before. We had them down 24 -14 with just over 3 min left and couldn't finish the deal. We let them drive at will and put up 10 unanswered points to force over time, then we nearly gave them the win in OT if not for the grounding penalty then we pin them deep, stop them then get a stupid freakin personal foul, that gives them a fee first down then we let them drive the length of the field give them a chip shot FG to win. We are 1-2 and should be 3-0 but we can't get out of the way of our own stupidity. We suck worse than any freaking team in the leage. We are a sick joke of a team I'm getting sick of watching this crap.

Agree, it doesn't quite fit the album or it's namesake songs. If it was named anything else I'd probably not make any connection to The Unforgiven or the Unforgiven II. The piano intro threw me but I've grown to really like that song. But it is the odd ball track out of a very fast and heavy album. But even Ride the lightning had it's ballad in Fade to Black. I wasn't sure what to expect with the new album. Would it be another disappointment. So much hype about getting back to their roots but they said that last time and we got St. Anger which could have been called St. Chaos. I saw Some Kind of Monster and thought "they are done." The band that were the masters of metal were going down in flames. Seeing videos of them now the group seems to be having fun again and are more cohesive than they've been in a long time. Rick Rubin's done a great job at helping refocus them. The other relief has been that Jame's vocals don't sound like the tortured animal that they did in St. Anger and in many of the live performances I've seen on youtube. Gone are the painful vocals, paint can drums, cruddy production, etc. Back are the shredding solos, fast tempos, real drums, solid vocals, harmony guitars, crushing riffs, crazy tempo changes. It's kind of like listening to Lightning, Puppets, and Justice for the first time. You have to listen to it a few times not because your trying to force yourself to like it but to absorb all that's going on. Rubin's comment about them getting back to the essense of Metallica is a fitting way to describe the album. There's a little bit of everything in here. IMHO it's probably closest to the direction they were heading with puppets before Cliff died. The next album should be interesting. Just hope it's not another 5 years. They aren't getting any younger and neither am I LOL.

He left the game on a cart with a rib injury?

That second Olsen turnover was not a forced fumble. Olsen lost control of the ball all by himself. Harris was in the area and held him down so his teammate could pick up the ball but he didn't force the fumble. I'd have to see the first one again to be know for sure but the announcers were sure giving him all the props. That's not to say that he sucks or that he doesn't deserve credit he has turned out to be a solid player. Cutting him was a mistake and it was even worse when we then had musical safties due to injuries.

We should have kept Polite and cut McKlutz

The miracle catch in 2001 vs the Noners was David Terrell. That brought us within 2 pts and then Anthony Thomas ran it in for the 2pt conversion to tie the game at 31 all. But point taken. I hope that it is a defining moment of the season in a positive way that wakes everyone up that they all have to do their part and contribute. That we had the lead and momemntum and then snatched a loss out of the jaws of victory. Today should be a wake up call that we can't get a lead and just sit and coast and hope you can ride out a win. The offense went into a shell and and when they needed to step up they failed. Olsen is a recieving TE which means he should be used to catching the ball and being tackled he needs to secure the ball. Once you might be able to forgive but twice in one half on plays that looked very similar. This cost us points and in turn cost us the game. In close games everyone needs do their part. Mistakes in games like this are magnified and become turning points in a game. Till that point we had just scored off of an awsome INT by Tillman and had Carolina on their heels. We were moving the ball then Olsen caughs it up and they score 10 straight points. We are now on our heels and they are gaining confidence on each play. The tired Defense surrenders a TD and just like that we're down 3 with just over 3 min remaining and we had two offensive possessions where we did nothing. The last posession we had good starting field position and only needed to get into FG range to tie it up and we couldn't even do that.

I blame them all, each and every one of them. This defense deserves better. They and the special teams have to play a flawless game for us to even have a fighting chance and that is ridiculous. We kept running the same plays that failed over and over. I thought Shoop was dumb, Turner's giving him a run for his money. Orton can't hit the broad side of the barn on the deep ball, and he wasn't much better with the short game.... He is Shane Mathews. I thought to myself on those long balls Rex probably would have completed a few of them. Forte was having success and then we stop feeding him the ball when we are trying to hang onto a lead.

I lost count of how many wasted plays that we ran in the second half. That stupid quick throw to the WR for little or no gain, the Long moon ball that never got within 5 yards a of the receiver. It's like what was working in the first half we completely avoided in the second half. It was maddening to watch. Then the two big Olsen turnovers killed us late. We gave them 10 pts. The defense gave up the winning drive but had we not given them 10 pts off turnovers before that it would have been a moot point. This was one of the more aggravating games I've watched in a while. We were in control of the game and then gave it away. We should be 2-0 but Honestly with that Effort we deserved to lose. I called it game over with over 12 min left unless our Defense scored cause we sure as hell weren't' going to get it done on offense. I knew I had to pay for having my Irish win 35-17 against Michigan.

Anyone else digging the new Metallica album? This is everything St. Anger was supposed to be which failed miserably. I think of Anger as the potential good album that never was. Finally Metallica is sounding like their old selves again. Just wondered if there were any other fans on this site. I'm working on an acoustic cover/interpretation of The Day That Never Comes that I intend to record in Garage Band. Some this stuff would make nice background music for some Bears highlight footage.

"Moma says football is the devil"

My vote is in, or should I say votes. I'm voting from a couple different computers at work and will vote again when I get home. Bump this thread and vote early and often

Definitly don't miss the moose droppings. And as for Berrian he got his cash, guess it's true money doesn't buy happiness it only rents it. Kinda makes the Vikings front office look stupid paying all that money to Berrian without having anyone to throw him the ball.