DABEARSDABOMB

Tribune is reporting it is a knee sprain. Bears will know more in another day or two. My personal feeling is he doesn't miss anymore than a week. I wouldn't even be shocked if he could play as early as next week. Sounds like there isn't any ligament damage but until they do the full medical exam after swelling goes down you just never know.

The WR's stink but so does Hanie. Hanie blew a wideopen TD pass to Bennett early in the game and I'm super bummed about the other blown TD (Barber play).

I like to blame Knox a lot as I hate him but that pick was not on Knox. Hanie completely underthrew the ball. Hanie has no arm and he isn't an NFL QB. He doesn't have the tools. Oh and Roy Williams does really suck. Please sign another wide-out to put opposite of Bennett (making Bennett the #2).

Yes there is. It comes down to the Bears being very very predictable in the play-calling and the Chiefs not being worried about Hanie beating them. Both points were true. Add in forte being out (who can hurt you with screen's out of the backfield) and it made things even worse. I'm not going to throw the Bears oline, which had done pretty good the past 7 weeks, under the bus due to one game.

Luckily Atlanta lost (or at least when I left it looked like they were going to lose). And I still say the Bears can win in the playoffs if they can somehow make it there with Cutler as the QB. Barber and Bell are both quality backups and I'm not overly concerned about the loss of Forte (it hurts but I have a lot of faith in our backups). But I also don't think Forte is done for the year.

Don't be a Hinie...be a Hanie!

Briggs is a freaking stud. Pay the man. Regarding Knox. I have a hard time calling it a great game. He had some good plays but he has some awful plays too. He is way too inconsistent and really needs to put in the work on the practice field and over the off-season to step his game up. His inconsistencies in route-running and catching are unacceptable and lead to too many negative plays.

Jason, despite having the same name, we rarely agree. In this instance, I fully agree with you. In fact, I'll go as far as saying as of now, I'm on board with giving Martz an extension. The key is ensuring that Martz stays within the offense. While the play wasn't effective, the idea was fine and it is the QB's responsibility to throw that ball away or go to a secondary option when the play isn't there (which in this case it wasn't). If you want to gripe, gripe about our play-calling early in the game when we tried to surprise the Raiders by passing. However, I think the idea was good and showed faith in Hanie. It ended up back-firing as Hanie threw some terrible interceptions but the concept was fine. Heck, as a whole, I felt better about our chances after barely losing to Oakland (who is a good team) despite three interceptions, two of which came in areas of the field where we had a good to great chance of scoring (1 was thrown inside the Redzone, the other in Raider territory and of course the 3rd was practically in our own red-zone). Ultimately all three picks led to point swings. The Bears will limit Hanie a bit more this week and that is fine but I expect our QB to grow as a result of his first start. He'll get to have a 2nd full week of practice but more importantly watch the game film to see what he did well and what he didn't and I expect we'll see less terrible passes/picks in time (hopefully soon too cause the Bears obviously have a slim margin and must win this game). Oh and I will say, Martz has called some absolutely beautiful plays at times this year too. The creativity is fantastic but the execution isn't always their and sometimes the creativity isn't needed but as a whole, the offense that has been called the past few weeks has been really good. I also really don't want to keep giving Cutler a new system. Half of the reason he's finally starting to make strides is that he's getting a 2nd year in a system (and he's getting more time). Cutler with a good system and solid line and weapons a top 5 QB in this league. Hell, I know a lot of experts saying he was playing at a top 3 level when he went down. He was that good (despite some severe offensive limitations our squad has).

He was officially brought back. Toub said he liked what he saw from him in preseason and in Toub I trust. Still, Mannelly is the best ever.

Where do you get this info? I haven't read this anywhere. In fact, I saw a whole article in the tribune talking about how the 6 week timetable is too short because when you have displacement and they alluded to the fact that Cutler did, you are talking more of an 8 week recovery (since it takes about 2 to 3 weeks to get your range of motion back).

ESPN has revised the timetable and is reporting that the Bears are expecting Cutler back sooner and that he could play as early as the game against the Vikings. I'm still going to hold my breath and hope that Hanie can do what he needs to first. If we can't win a couple games with Hanie, it will all be a moot point anyway.

I'd be all for it. You can never have too many talented pass rushers. Especially in a cover 2 defense.

Except Tampa did the smart thing and got to practice early. They also beat a Saints team that kicked our butts. People are forgetting Tampa is pretty darn solid and they are improving. Are they superbowl contenders, no, playoff contenders, absolutely. Plus Josh Freeman is a good young QB, whose only getting better, and who has a history of leading some solid comebacks. Our schedule is freaking rough. All of the teams in our next 4 games are pretty good (Tampa leads the division, Chargers lead the division, Eagles will end up winning that division, and the Lions are a playoff team).

Veteran C Olin Kreutz is walking away from the Saints because "he no longer feels passion and doesn't want to just collect paycheck," according to his agent.

He hasn't practiced yet. I think they are shooting for his return to be after the bye-week.

I'm gonna say...Bears win, close game, Cutler delivers a game winning drive with some key receptions made by one Earl Bennett. Following the game, Flea runs onto the field in celebration!!!

Bears. I agree with most of your post, but when you said Minnesota is a dead-dog team that gets into huge 1st half deficits as a result of there crappy pass offense, well, that really isn't true. Up until this game, Minnesota had done nothing but destroy teams in the 1st half of games (they blew a 17 point 1st half lead and 20 or 21 point 1st half lead).

I wouldn't be surprised to see Tice running the whole show in the next couple weeks. Its very evident that he's becoming more instrumental in our play calling and I'm perfectly fine with that. I like Tice a lot.

My bad. I guess I was still high off my Bears coolaid that my reading comprehension skills suffered.

Didn't see this anywhere, but Royal had off-season hip surgery and than tore his groin earlier this year. He's just returning back to practice. My question would be whether he had the same speed/burst.

I don't mind Royal. He's nothing to get excited about, but he's solid. The problem is, isn't he like almost every wide-out we have on the squad (or at least kind of like Hester/Knox)?

Spencer. I think I mentioned as such. I'm definitely not pulling Williams.

What game were people watching when they say Webb sucked? The only sack he gave up was one where Cutler waited too long (it was a coverage sack). Otherwise Allen had no impact on the game. When your LT minimizes a player like Allen, that should show you something. The biggest problem with the oline is the penalties and Frank Omilaye. I assume the Bears could always slide Louis back in where Spencer is with Carimi at RT.

I disagree. Roy played his best game as a Bear. Even on a couple other completed passes, when I watched the replay, Williams was open (Cutler just had another guy more open). He made all of his catches (although there was one that he probably could have had) and was a nice target over the middle of the field, especially early in the game. I still want to see the Bears utilizing him in the redzone.

Webb lined upagainst the NFL leader in sacks and outplayed him. Outside of his false start disasters, Webb has actually done a pretty darn good job and I've seen numerous writers mention the fact. The biggets problem for the Bears oline is the ridiculous number of penalties (Webb has had his problems in that regard) and the fact that the right side was horrible. But some of the problems also had a lot to do with Martz play calling, which was incredibly predictable during the past 3 games (not last night). There was so much more diversity in the game plan against the Vikings.