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I guess Greg Olson made up for that run play where he basically ran around chasing the back of a d-lineman and didn't block anyone for Forte.

I was one of the ones arguing (against the crowd) weeks ago that Forte needed to put up better results but was at least showing talent when he had opportunity...and was told by someone I was expecting too much. Whatever. But now you think Forte's not as good because he's got no holes? It's not about stats. If you're watching with you're own eyes, you can see it for yourself.

Yippee! Now that's poetic. 18 seconds was all it took.

I was thinking, there's plenty of time for 3 points before the half...the way the Falcons did it to us last week...18 seconds is like all day long compared to 11 seconds.

...even in the face of real life evidence that a squib is a riskier kick than a routine deep kick (in terms of allowing at least a return to the 40yd line, not in terms of taking it all the way), you're still sticking to your guns. Now you sound like an official Bears coach. Send Lovie your resume.

So Corey is our only healthy CB besides Hamilton? Not good. I was pissed for a moment at coaches putting Tillman in there when he wasn't ready (obviously, since he readily reinjured it) since I usually never want the coaches to put a guy back in too quickly for exactly that reason, and I typically just trust what the coaches tell us, albeit cynically, but then I realized that with all these injuries, what can you do? In a perfect world...

Great write-up Noots! You covered all the angles of how the coaches blew it pretty well, especially if they didn't clue-in Mike Brown that an inbounds pass at that distance would have run the clock out (no time for a timeout). I checked it. The play took just less than 6 seconds...but just barely. At the end of the day, though, if we can get over the tough loss, we should all be pretty ecstatic. Our D has had rough games before, and you have to give them credit for not allowing TD's. You can't call it all luck. Also, we have serious offensive talent and a serious QB. I've said in past weeks I wanted to see several productive, consistant games in a row before I relaxed about Kyle and now he's done it. WE have a QB!! Even if Kyle has a bad game next week, I'm confident it won't be a total breakdown of another QB destined to fall by the wayside but just part of the ups and down of a starting caliber NFL quarterback. It feels so good to finally relax about the QB positon (aside from possible injury). There's maybe not a team in the NFL we wouldn't have a decent chance of beating right now. Furthermore, we've not lost anyone major to season ending injuries! I pleaded with the football gods for at least 4 games to start the season (and training camp) so I could truly get a look at what our team was made of rather than just "well, guess I'll never know how it'd be different with Dusty...or Mike... or Rex...or whoever". Anyway, I don't want to jinx anything (I'm not superstitious) and I'm sure this won't last, but we've made it to the middle of October now. That's gotta be some kind of Chiacago Bears record.

With Idonijie, Anerson, Alex, Wale, and Tommie on our Dline, there's no excuse for having to pick up yet another sack threat. These guys just have to bring it.

Fair enough. But maybe the correct perspective is that coaches shouldn't have put Gould in that position. It's much harder to kick exactly the squib kick you want to kick than it is to kick a standard kick to at least the 5 yard line like you've done 10 billion times before. Do you really want to put this game on Gould? One 26yd pass should not get the other team a score after your kickoff. It's as much the coaches fault as it is Gould, IMO.

Well, you two can't get mad at Lovie/Toub for not realising that the Falcons had a timeout and time to throw one medium-long pass to put Elam in FG range...which was basically one of the dumbest coaching calls we've seen this season (a 26 yard pass is WAAAY more likely than a kickoff return for 50+ yards)...because apparently you and Jason didn't realize it either. I'm pretty bitter however. Great game though. At least they weren't a division foe.

We got one D stop. Let's hope it starts a trend.

Bears' drive killed by a phantom penalty, nice. 3 is better than nothing.

If we can seriously get Graham, Marcus Harrison, and Forte to all step up it'll be quite a shot in the arm for us...not to mention free agent Lloyd and the possibility of Chris Williams.

It's dishonest to take millions of dollars in an agreement (contract) by pretending you want to be a great football player, and then coasting your way out of the league, laughing all the way to the bank. It's sort of like stealing. But Rex isn't that guy by a long shot. Rex is a good guy and I respect his efforts to live up to being a Bear. Maybe he's ready to be a NFL starting QB right now, but even if he's not, and even if he's not last to leave after practice, that doesn't make him a bad guy. There are more important things in life than football anyway. I'm really happy that Orton works so hard and downplays his success though. He seems really grounded (and please don't trot out old pics of him wasted, chugging beers, lol).

Man you're something else. "Miracles" huh? 3.6ypc is not the goal, nor is what he did on the ground last Sunday, even with the box stacked. I'm happy with where he's at now for a rookie, and I've made that clear, so if you still think I'm asking too much by withholding effusive praise, then what can I say? ...other than wondering if you're glass half full when it has to do with any other Bear player (I'm bad at remembering who are the whiners and who are the homers on this board). Also, on a side note, even if we don't quite have the bomb completions to back off the DB's, we're at least already getting plenty of medium completions, which will keep the LB's honest and help out Forte. EDIT: I guess I should add that I'm totally happy with his receiving coming out of the backfield so far, which maybe I didn't make clear earlier. And that's been a pleasant surpise, though Orton and Turner get some credit too.

I'm legitimately worried about how Orton will handle sucess. One game means nothing in the grand scheme of a season or a career. Because I've seen it already. After Rex had that sucess for a few games, it messed with his head, and continued to do so after things turned for the worse, when he should have just mentally regrouped. I want Orton to ask himself, "Did I have the right expectations for myself going into this season?". If the answer is yes, then he needs to keep exactly those expectations, for at least most of the season if not all of it. If he had the right mindset to begin with, then nothing about it being a bit conservative (or reasonable) should stop him from having great games when he gets good blocking and the D dares him to pass. What I don't want to see is him thinking after that 5 games (in what should in his mind be a 150 game career) that he's now Brett Favre or Peyton Manning or something. I would say I'm a little surprised that Turner opened up the passing game as much as he has recently, and I probably would have been a little more conservative, but ultimately you can't ever be afraid to make a team pay for daring you to pass. But I'm thinking long term here, and Orton still doesn't exactly have an advanced degree in game managing yet, so as much as some of you think it would help us right now to keep letting him loose, it's meaningless if he doesn't have the ability to reign it in at the flip of switch (when he needs to)...he won't end up our long term QB. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of searching for yet another guy to plug in at QB. I can be a little patient in the short term.

I agree with Nfo, who's really not being as critical as some of you may be thinking. Based on results and stats, Forte's not putting out what we ultimately want from him, but then again, in terms of sitting there watcing his play with our own eyes, you can see the talent and understand he's not as far from that goal as his stats would suggest. That's exactly how I felt about Orton during the first quarter of the season, yet almost nobody was tripping all over themselves "to be fair" (so to speak) about him the way they are Forte. So I find it very strange. Sort of like "Am I on the right messageboard?" But it's a refreshing change. After the Benson debacle, JA needed a great pick at RB. It's easy to see the upside with Forte so I think he's going to work out.

Pep Hamilton says... "Decision-making is his strength," quarterbacks coach Pep Hamilton said. "Without a doubt."" For a nearly 6'5" guy with a strong arm, that's an exciting strength to have IMO. I think Orton's decisiveness and poise was the first thing that I noticed about him earlier this season that really caught my eye, and all that ties into decision making. Even while he was mostly just game managing, I could see in his on-field demeanor something that was different from what I'm used to in a Bears uniform at QB. I'd say his lack of accuracy on deep passes was his most troubling tendency, but I knew there was very little chance that he'd be the same QB the first few games as he would throughout the rest of the season, so I took the specifics of his play for what it was worth and just concentrated on whether he seemed in command of himself, so to speak. On the negative, teams will do better at figuring out how to get him off his game now that they have some game film of him. But on the other hand, he should progress as he gets gametime experience and all 1st team reps.

Nearly double the time of possession of Detroit! Orton had no fumbles or picks. No game changing dropped passes by WR's. ...and the D did just as well as the O! It's good to get one of these dominant wins under out belt. Having Tillman was huge. Seems like it was so long ago now that Tillman was a bit of a goat to many fans. I loved Kyle Orton's response at the end of the game to how it felt to do so well...he said something like "it felt like we just executed and good results come from that. We'll just keep plugging along" (paraphrased). More evidence that he's even-keeled enough to handle lows and highs.

I think now it's time, but it sends a bad message about not letting your guard down too early if you start pulling your starters with 11 minutes left in the game.

Remember Rex had some great games too. They come, they go. I want to see consistant, poised, efficient, turnover-limiting play and in my mind, I still need to see it one more week before I'm sold...still, no way you can know about franchise QB yet after only 1 great game and 4 games playing "good enough to win", and nobody's been selling Orton more than me recently. After all these years, almost all I care about is consistant, smart play over more than a few games. I'm carefully watching for flakiness. After 5 games, we have a semi-meltdown in the 3rd quarter in one game and a pass straight to the Tampa lineman for a pick six. Also, not every team is detroit.

A newpaper article I just read said Corey Graham will start for either Vash or Tillman. Vasher had a dislocated thumb.

I imagine they can give Peanut super shoulder pads and padding. But somehow I doubt Vasher is going to be a better tackler with a broken hand. Who would take Vasher's place? Apparently Corey Graham backs up Peanut. Trumain McBride?

As the other post and a Sun-times article pointed out, it likely only means that Lloyd will miss some time, so the Bears need another WR. Maybe because without Lloyd the Bears only have 4 WR's + Rideau, and you at least need enough WR's to fill out a first and second team for practicing purposes. If so, then that's not exactly confusion. Also, after Rashied's drops and Hester's big drop, maybe the coaches are starting to appreciate "hands" a little more. Just speculation on that, though.

Which one was that?, I'm forgetting. I remeber one where he lofted it deep out of bounds but that WR (maybe it was Booker) was standing still (and was covered to boot) when Orton threw it. It just looked like an overthrow because the WR ran hard to it as it sailed slowly out of bounds, but Orton was just throwing it away. I supose in a backyard football sort of way if Orton had thrown the ball 5 yards shorter, the WR could've gotten to it, but considering that apparently wasn't the scripted route I'd hardly call that play silly.