selection7

I know this is mourning Monday but... Every other game we've looked fine, though not always impressive, save for the running game. One great game does not define us anymore than one terrible game does. And our terrible loss does not erase holding the our previous opponents to 21 pts or less in every game but the Detroit one where we blew them out anyway (and still only allwed 24, not 34 or 44). Those are facts, so you have to deal with them equally when you deal with allowing Carson Palmer a 147 QB rating and getting Forte only 6 touches. I agree that giving up so much of our ability to use the draft to improve... to fix a position that was closer to being a strength than a problem looks questionable if we concede that the Bears are totally inept at numerous positions, and it's still worth debating, but I'm not convinced we're that bad. Do Alex Brown and Tillman suck? No. That didnt' stop them from having a bad game. What does that say? And our D-line had a number of sacks in the early season games. Having said all that. I am a little worried about our coaching. When players perform that far below their talent, it's not encouraging. Maybe coaching will identify their problems and make significant improvements, or not. We'll see. As ridiculous as it sounds saying today, we've still got Minny twice, so we likely still hold our own destiny. How many remember how it looked like we had no shot last year and yet it still came down to the wire? The NFL can surprise you.

"But if you view him as the Antichrist because he had the nerve to come out of retirement twice after saying he wouldn't, I'd suggest your life is lacking in some fundamental way. There are hobbies that can help fill the hours. Extreme stamp collecting, for example. Both have played well. They've played well because they're good, not because there's some sleight of hand involved. Nobody could honestly look at the Broncos' victory over the Patriots last week and see smoke and mirrors at work. On Monday night in San Diego, Orton was 20 of 29 for 229 yards and two touchdowns. And he didn't throw an interception, if you're into that sort of thing." Hehe. It's like I wrote that article. Of course I was always understanding of the Favre hate from Bears fans, but search my posts over the last two years closely enough and you'll see I thought that the general public and media's obsession with Favre being an irresponsible, jerk, drama queen was manufactured...and that so many sounded especially foolish talking about him tarnishing his legacy, one season after nearly making the super bowl and a half season after playing great before getting injured, nearly taking the previously 4-12 Jets to the playoffs anyway. In general, I'm certainly not going out of my way to defend division rivals so I let it go. (Who was that coach that ripped Favre a new one for coming back two weeks after saying he wouldn't and how it would irresponsibly kill the Vikes? ...Oops on that one.) I was always like, if you hate Favre, rip on him for real reasons, there's plenty of them. You don't have to make them up. But what do I know? I'm a cynic by nature. Orton's another story, and a lesson for current players. Don't play injured, even if your backup Rex Grossman wouldn't be much better healthy. You will not be given credit for toughness or playing under duress an offseason later when the GM inexplicably gives a vote of no confidence to the media and the fans collectively begin to talk about you as mediocre at best. Morrisey's certainly being dramatic by saying "hate". I think he means the street definition of hate, e.g. "don't hate on me". Nevertheless, just look at my last posts on this topic to see what he's getting at. There's a lot of doth protest too much going on from Bear fans, even some of the ones that were only off the mark on their player evaluation rather than ridiculously biased. There's something going on to make people act so defensively.

Not a bad number based on what I've seen of him so far. We were already paying him well over 10million/yr for his final year of his rookie contract. We just added 50%, even though the new owners/players agreement is still in limbo. If his 30 year old contract really does turn out to be enormous, that can only be a good thing. It'll mean he played like a franchise QB for these next 4&1/2 years.

Probably the actual letter grade isn't as imortant as the explanations though...still, it is a forum so nothing wrong with posting what you thought the grades should be. I was happy with Cutler's play overall so I'd have gone a little higher than C. I was content with holding the Falcs to 21 points...not sure that suggests any higher than Noots' C+ average though, just saying. The idea of not being able to run the ball, even when the other team knows we are mostly passing and are having trouble stopping our passing game is SCARY.

If we were that off our game, what does that say about the Falcons that we almost beat them? Sounds like both teams have a long way to go.

I liked it. He did it in front of his home stadium fans (and family) after respectfully thanking the other team for their sportmanship. By conventional wisdom, he's too young to be coaching in the NFL yet he's still never lost a game and just beat the NFL's only modern dynasty. You ask way too much of him. Especially since he hasn't been there before.

But am I getting carried away? Not really. I'm addressing those who lumped Orton in with all the other failures, the most ridiculous of the lot. While the ones who simply said Orton will never be a franchise QB are safe for now, (and probably correct). Also, keep in mind Orton is solid under pressure, so while more pressure might result in no longer being a 100+ QB rating passer, I'm not convinced that really is necessary to my position.

Again. Ridiculous. It wasn't a great day, but this is the Patriot's D-line you're talking about here, not the Lions. And our O talent was worse last year. I remember everything about Kyle Orton playing behind our line. I also remember Rex's talent but lack of self-control and how clearly superior Kyle looked on the field compared to him (like his ability to make slight pocket movements to avoid the rush and his play during crucial stretches, unlike Rex. Your "not good under pressure" is about as convincing as all that talk about him being "weak armed"). And I remember Chad Hutchinson and Henry Burris and their absolutely cluesless play. I've seen it all, that's why it was so easy to recognize the difference just by watching it on the field...stats aside. Why couldn't you? Or maybe why wouldn't you is the better question. Last year I refused to jump on the "Kyle is the future" bandwagon until he proved himself to be talented and in control for more than just a few games, but after the seventh game I relented and accepted it, posting something like "Hallelujah, finally we've got ourselves a QB!". The only reason I was dissapointed at first when we got Cutler is because we gave up so much, I'd never seen him play (it's all Bears with me) and statistically the evidence wasn't there to support giving up so much. But both he and Orton are playing better for their new teams than they did previously, just as you should expect since they were both young, developing players, though I didn't figure we'd see it so soon. Let me say now we're seeing media/posters bashing Lovie/Angelo for not developing Orton or Cedric, which is stupid to me because Cedric needed a wake up call that only canning him would provide and Orton was developed. Kyle's numbers were great before the injury, in his first season as the anointed starer, and after some healing he finished the season with nearly a 100 QB rating game at Houston. If anything, Lovie should be given credit for developing Kyle but yet still realizing that Cutler was ahead in development (waaay more starts in recent years) and that our window on the defensive talent we've put in place is running out of time. No, Talkbears posters are absolutely not the media following sheep you see elsewhere; I asked my question just in general because it's been all over. As soon as we traded for Jay it was like a lot of people wanted to rewrite history and I'm going "Where is this coming from? They weren't talking like this last year." It's still way too early to start calling Orton a "franchise" QB or to say he's as good as Cutler, yet I also think it should be clear now that having lumped him in with our past failures at QB or saying he's just a placeholder was something that should make the naysayers stop an question themsleves. Are you watching the games or just listening to the radio call in shows?

...330yds and 2 TDs with no real picks (the pick, Kyle's first this season, was a hail mary pick with 3 seconds left in the first half.). An excellent game against one of the best teams in the NFL. Kyle is now 18-2 QBing a home game in his career. BTW, at what point do I get to say "I told you so" to all the people who ridiculously called Kyle "mediocre" and "not the future", letting their emotions and bias rule rather than their memory of Kyle's record no pick streak and arguably pro-bowl play before he got hurt in his first true season as a Bears' starter? Ultimately, I hope to see what I said a little over a month ago come true, which is that I think BOTH teams will end up feeling good about this trade a couple of years from now.

ah, ok, makes sense, but it still looks like Rashied was fined for his "crackback" and Tom Thayer specifically mentioned that it looked legal to him.

"Bears DE Adewale Ogunleye, $7,500 for unnecessary roughness (a horse-collar tackle against the Lions) " ...from NFL.com Was this the same play that most others reported was a bogus facemask penalty, meaning the NFL not only didn't think it was bogus, but they fined him for it? (the game wasn't televised so I just listened to it on the net radio).

I agree. He's already getting more receptions and yards than many starters in the league. I'm not sure such a change is even necessary. This allows Bennet to learn too, so we don't put all our eggs in one basket.

It's not like we got beat by the Raiders in the SB. This isn't exactly water tight logic...but Peyton was going to win a Super Bowl at some point, he was very much in his prime when we played him and he played it smart in wet conditions, so it was his time. I don't blame Lovie for the loss. Furthermore, in the entire time Lovie's been coach, only 4 teams have won the SB (Pats, Steelers, Colts, Giants), while 28 teams have failed. If Super Bowls is your only measuring stick, for all we know, Lovie is the 5th best coach in the NFL over that span. As an aside, the Bears have won 6 of their last 7 games lately if you haven't noticed, which you might not have since I'm counting preseason in that.

If Cutler keeps on taking Olin's snaps witout dropping them I'll be happy enough. Fumbles/muffs are a lot worse than getting stepped on, as long as his ankle doesn't give.

It was just two weeks ago that my best friend who coaches semi-pro football told me after watching a televised Bears game (and Cutler for the first time) that one thing he doesn't like is how slowly Cutler gets away from center and that he'd get stepped on if he doesn't watch out. So, yeah, I'm fairly impressed that he basically called it. Just an interesting observation, not to take away from how well he's been playing. I'm still too haunted by the Rex years to be able to deal with a gunslinger so I'm totally for Cutler continuing to play within himself (and post 100 QB ratings ).

I'm thinking he shouldn't have revealed it was a mistake. Letting the other team think you'll do it (when you won't...at least intentionally) is a good thing. I was thinking reading this article, how do you think Wolfe feels about all this issue's attention? Assuming he's always been the running back, you know he's probably made hundreds of third and short conversions in his football career and he probably feels like it's BS that you put in our AP and all of a sudden it's not stuffed. Probably makes him mad and wants another opportunity to "I'll show them", hehe. Who knows, but you know NFL players are usually a confident lot.

Where did that come from? You must have misinterpreted me. Granted, he probably got the wind knocked out of him (which I recognized when it happened, thank you), but he's a pro athlete...and an enormous one at that. He's not going to spend the rest of the game playing like a scared little girl because of it. No, he was definitely compensating for the rain and having not held on to that earlier pass. Smart playing.

Nah, it matters who you're playing. Ever see Something About Mary? I absolutely would be dissapointed to win a Super Bowl (if I was an NFL player) where every team we played that season had their 7 best players out (for just that one game)...though I would still happily take the recognition from those who dont' know the difference...and the money. If you ever win another, the first one would diminish the instrinsic value of the second win, because it will mean it only actually takes mediocre talent to win a Super Bowl. That's a wild hypothetical, but if you can agree that there is a point where it becomes a joke, then you can agree there is a dividing line where meaningful wins/losses fade into meaningless ones. From there, the only thing to debate is where that line is. Beat whoever is out there is an on-the-field football player mentality designed to keep players focused. Its not a support for the argument that the U of Texas Longhorns vs. the Delta State Fighting Okra is a meaningful game. Actually, meaningless is an exaggeration. A win over a team even more crippled than Seattle was would prove we weren't absolute deadbeat losers, but nothing more significant than that. So that's certainly a reduced significance, though not enitrely meaningless.

I understand the thinking, but I still think its a stretch to say that Cutler's worst day as a pro is still better than the typical Orton outing. Remember, Orton wasn't an easily rattled QB by any stretch. In fact it was probably one of his greatest strengths, and he could sense pressure and step up though he wasn't a scrambler. But then I also don't agree the line was as bad as nfo suggested, which makes a difference. I've seen what it looks like when a QB is literally running for his life every play and that wasn't it. It was very bad, but an ordinary very bad, not some sort of jaw droppingly bad. The other element is that we still came so close, it wouldn't have taken a great game by a different QB to win it, just not a rotten one. The defense, especially, played well enough to win, but Cutler and others gave it away. Like I said earlier, I'm not worried about game 1, but I'm not going to whitewash it either.

I almost quit being interested in NFL football because of injuries. You get invested in a team and that team never materializes because your starting Qb or monster DT or franchise LB ends up on IR...or a player you're excited about seeing out there misses 4 straight seasons. I remember making a post at the beginning of one season where I was so excited about the defense (we embarrassed whoever we played in Week1, and I think they were a quality football team) only to lose Mike Brown and others...and saying "we will never get to know what this defense was capable of". Not hard to guess what my opinion on the matter is. Injuries, not banned substances, illegal conduct, or whatever else are the the NFL's biggest problem. I don't mind 4 preseason games because they're mostly just for the newbies anyway. It would be hard for me to pull the trigger on switching to a 14 game season, but that's far preferrable over an 18 game season. If you're playing an 18 game season you might as well play your best QB second string, because you know whoever plays 1st string won't make it to the end of the season.

At least Hunter didn't need Briggs to make the calls for him. And it doesn't matter how fast you get there if you don't make the tackle.

In Green Bay we almost won with 4 picks and only 1 TD . I think its safe to say that we'd have won that one if Kyle was starting, not necessarily if he was in his first game as a Bear though, like Cutler. But I would say we'd be 1-2 if Kyle was still on the team. I'm real happy to see success so early from Cutler, though I'm more cautious about such things after having seen Rex start out so hot two or three years ago only to have defenses adjust. I don't want to start expecting 100 qb rating games most weeks is what I'm saying, though there is that optimist in me. Our division is going to be tough, for every team. I can see whichever team wins it being good enough to beat any team, with respect to the Super Bowl. Favre will wear down, even he knows it. So I'm glad we don't play Minny until much later.

'After seven seasons with the Steelers, Hoge signed with the Chicago Bears as a free agent in 1994, but played in just five games with only six carries and 13 receptions. He retired after suffering a series of concussions. ' I definitely didn't remember his contribution was that small. I did remember the early retirement.

The point is that a win under such conditions is meaningless. It's an exaggeration, but it is worth complaining about.

wow