DABEARSDABOMB

They did a lot of things to shoot themselves in the foot. Was a really odd game...since you would think you'd be pretty pleased, having crushed a lousy team...but I saw more of the bad that cost the Bears earlier in the season rear its ugly head. Defensively Floyd had his best game of the season (despite no sacks...). Offensively, Mitch had that one bad pick, but hard to say much. Just an odd flow to the game, which can make it hard to play offensively. Mitch did an excellent job converting some 3rd downs early in the game which helped set the momentum. Penalties really hurt them...so many false starts, etc. That said, I thought outside of those penalties (and some if it was just ugly officiating) the defense played a very crisp game. And I'll take a blowout road win all day baby. I'm really hoping that Arob / Mack are close to 100% as we are going to need those guys for these next 3 (and the rest of the team). Bears are going to have to play a lot better against Detroit / Minny. The fact that Detroit gave up so many sacks is a bad thing, imo, as it means all of their guys will be hyper-focused to clean it up (plus if you look at the Lions season, they've typically responded well after a bad game).

It is going to be interesting to see how he can get back. Hopefully the Bears do their thing and remain competitive and/or ensure post-season play so Long can do his thing and get back and crush it!

I tried to look and couldn't find one myself. I've never had an authentic but have had pretty good wear and tear on the screen print versions (albeit I pretty much never wash my Bear jerseys...I throw it over what I'm wearing and pretty much roll) and than don't ever stick them in the dryer (only time I need to wash is when I spill wing sauce or something on my jersey). Dangerous...I went to the site and wanted to buy a Mack jersey....must resist temptation

I agree with this statement, however, after the Miami and New England game, I feel like they are better prepared to come out and keep coming. I also think if Mack is out, the defense kind of knows it has to "step up" and will bring its A game.

They absolutely have a legit defense. Probably Top 5 in the league if it was paired with a decent offense. They can make plays and the Bears could find themselves on the wrong side if they give up the big plays offensively and/or make too many mistakes offensively (i.e, turnover prone). I'm hoping they can get up early on Buffalo and put them away from start to finish...you don't want to start off the game by digging a big hole...gives the other team too much hope and puts you in a tough spot (i.e., Miami / Arizona games).

It is going to be a cluster at the end of the season in the North. My prediction is that Dolphins / Packers game from early in the year will be our undoing, but man, either way, its fun to have this vision to play in meaningful games. I also have a vision of super bowl contention in the future. Arrow is pointed up...lets hope it stays that way (and maybe the speed at which it points up just gets quicker :)). More importantly, I want this to be a sustained rebuild where we have a long window of contention. Because....we deserve it as Bear fans

Really cool and glad they backed it up with the win

By the way...it needs to be said, but Leno is a good left tackle. Not bad, not okay, but good, if not very good. He has been a great find by the front office and was a great early extension by Pace. Really the whole line has been good...hopefully Kush can come back in and fill the void lost from Kyle Long. The only thing I want them to keep improving is the run blocking, which hasn't been as good as it should be, but it has been trending upwards the past couple of weeks.

I have a feeling we'll see Robinson and Mack out again this week. Really sucks regarding Long. Was so glad he finally seemed to be "healthy" this year. I hope somehow this is one of those miraculous plays where everything sounds and looks horrid and than magically the diagnosis is much better.

It looks like the Bears brought out some of "last years" rushing plays in the 2nd half. Howard was far more protective. It just appears that a lot of the Bears runs with Howard, they literally ask him to stop and than accelerate again and that is not his Forte. It ends up with him getting popped by linemen at the LOS too many times. If you let him go and pick his lane he is a much better back. His vision has always been a plus but there has been something really odd about his runs this year (it is as if they are designed for a shifty back like Cohen...which is not what Howard is). I think they got enough on film to start getting a bit more creative and effective with Howard (couldn't come soon enough timing wise, since we are heading into colder weather and divisional opponents). Hard for me to evaluate Mitch's accuracy on the deep balls or the kicking game given how much the winds were swirling (sometimes it looked calm...other times it looked like a disaster). Either way, they did what they needed to. Much cleaner performance by the D. Despite the lack of a pass rush, they were tighter in their coverage and much crisper with their tackling. I'll take it...albeit it was against one of, if not the worst offensive units in the league.

So far I've seen one "bad game" special teams wise. I'm not really going to get that pissed for Parkey missing a 50+ yarder. Its going to happen and I don't think that is on the special teams coach (near as much). That is a kicker item. In terms of the Pats game, that was a pure debacle but outside of that, I felt coverage units have been solid. I'd like to see some tweaks on the kick-off return game, but punt returns have been solid.

One thing to remember, you could cut up Brady's reads and I guarantee the same thing will emerge. It will flat out happen. You have progressions that you naturally go through and with that, if on that 2nd progression, the guy is open, you make the throw....that means if the guy on the 4th progression is more wide open (because a DB fell down or whatever), you won't make the throw cause you never know. Now a critical element is how the pre-snap read determines what your progressions are going to be. But over the course of a game, there will always be guys that are left open, no matter how great a wideout is, because things can happen down your progressions.

Agreed - Total must win and if Bears can protect the football and not allow the big play, they should win. Hopefully we see a complete performance by the Bears this week!

I'm calling it right now...he's having a multi-sack game with a turnover this week. Time for him to hit "reset" on the start of the season and kill it from this point forward (now that he's almost 100%).

He's a rookie who didn't have a pre-season. I think he's played "okay" thus far and that isn't necessarily a bad thing given his inexperience. Hopefully we start to see more "flash" plays but he also was only in a little less than 60% of the time against the Pats. My gut tells me, its next year where we should have a vision / goal of a true explosion (Full off-season having leveraged a better understanding of the NFL game and speed, etc). That said, I expect he'll do nothing but continue to get better from here on out. I also expect Floyd to step up. I'm calling it now...Floyd is going to have a multi-sack game this week with a turnover.

I think they said we blitzed like 3 times last week (and on 2 of those 3 plays...we had a pick and a sack...not sure what happened on the other play). I said it before and I'll say it again, Fangio has done a lousy job with this D. It literally looks like he thought he could sit back in a rocking chair and let the players just play, without doing anything on the coaching side to tilt the advantage in our favor. I have been extremely dissapointed in how vanilla we have played. I don't even see us trying to do creative disguises. I recognize Brady is a seasoned pro, but we didn't do much more when we played Miami either.

I want to make a correction, the pass that Trubisky threw to Bellamy was not a bad decision. Where the Bears were given the situation, that is a throw he should have made every time. And you know what, more often than not, that is either a Bears completion or an incomplete vs. a pick. That was a 3rd down where the turnover didn't give the Pats any great field position...but the 1st down would have been huge. The two picks he did throw, were great plays by the D...that said, he should have had 2 other picks from what were bad decisions. The picks to Miller was a great play by the DB, but it was still an awful throw by Trubisky (not a bad decision). I differentiate the two...a good throw and its a TD, not a pick. Heck a decent throw and it is probably a TD. One thing I don't know is how much the wind played into things. I know the Bears didn't kick the long field goal (at end of 1st half) because of the wind conditions. Not sure if the wind was impacting the deep throws.

I agree...I expect them to be 5-3 2 Monday's from now.

Hopefully you can recognize this was an absurd hot take. He absolutely can read NFL defenses and has shown progress every week this season. He missed a lot more throws than I'd like, but he's throwing to the right guy more often than not. Every wideout is going to not see a guy (cause it is their 3rd or 4th read). Shoot, if you watched the early Chargers game you would have seen Keenan Allen throw a hissy fit on the sideline where Rivers missed him. The reality was, Rivers missed him because at the time, given the pre-snap read, Allen wasn't the guy you were going to target. It happens. Now Trubisky's footwork is going to have to improve but I've loved the progress I've seen from him this year and the moxy he has. This whole year is about his development and while I'm bummed we lost, this team now has the talent to go toe-to-toe with the best, however, it doesn't quite have that experience yet and consistency necessary to take it to the next level. I'm extremely optmistic about the long-term and if Mitch can keep making strides, he'll have an off-season where he isn't learning a brand new offense, but instead can be working on mastering the offense and building more and more rapport with his weapons, while also putting heavy work into cleaning up some of his mechanics. He was never a turn-key QB, it was going to take time, but the dude works hard, studies the film, and seems pretty intelligent out there. The arrow is absolutely pointing up. He could still go bust and just not be accurate, but I don't buy jumping to all of those conclusions just yet, not with the progress that has been made.

The blocked punt and the 90+ yard drive the Bears allowed, after New England tied it, were just pathetic. The special teams was bad, but the D had a chance to get the ball back (with field position to play) and they gave up another huge play with bad angles / tackling, etc. Plus they showed zero pass rush near the end zone. The fact that this D has rarely made plays to seal games out concerns me.

Trubisky didn't play well and the Bears scored a ton of points. That is progress in and of itself. He still has a few "WTF" decision making points, but he's going through his reads and clearly making plays. This was not as good of a performance as the past two weeks, but still better than first few games Mitch. The accuracy was really bad and points and plays were left off the field. That said, the defense and special teams truly were the "turds" of the day. Defense is what it is at this point and Fangio needs to put some of this on him and get more creative with scheme, etc.

Even though we lost, Trubisky and the offenses performance (minus the turnovers) was such a positive that I leave Sunday's game with a good taste in my mouth. Why, because Mitch's growth as a QB (and positive growth at that) is the key to the LT trajectory of this franchise. This week's performance was another step in the right direction. Was he perfect, absolutely not, but I saw way more good and bad and as a whole, certainly see more and more signs that this guy could be our franchise QB. None of that means he is at that point yet or that he is a slam dunk, but he's certainly making a lot more plays these past few weeks and I agree with the above posts that Nagy's approach to development hopefully fast-tracked some of his development. I hope we keep talking about his positive trajectory all year

The bright side is, I know the defense is better than this and I'm glad if we were going to lose, it was this way vs. losing because of our offense. Nice to see Trubisky have another good game. He made some mistakes and left some plays on the field, but as a whole, putting up as many TD's as he did (and overall yards) over the past two weeks is a really nice sign. He's starting to look a lot more comfortable. Defense was pure trash and got especially tired in the 4th quarter. Fundamentals were poor but you know they are better than that. Offensively, they put up a lot of points despite leaving 2 TD's on the field (the pick after the offensive pass interference and that odd Howard fumble where he was headed into the end zone). On top of that Cohen's fumble when they were driving. And the Phins put up like 280 yards after the catch (crazy). I'm calling a win this weekend against the Pats!

Unless the Bears get absolutely blown away, I'm not trading Howard within the conference. I'm also not ready to write-off Howard. He's shown he's a very good back and he put in the work on the receiving front. I expect we'll see him get his mojo going, starting this week against Miami.

That said, I'm glad we have Mitch and that Pace made the aggressive move he did. We could debate which guy was better, but as a franchise, we needed to be bold and take our guy. I said the same thing this year when the Browns finally went bold and went all in on their QB. They didn't try to get cute and go for the value play, they took the guy they liked the best (and so far they don't look stupid for doing so). I'll also say Trubisky is the most raw out of the bunch..even having more NFL starts, the fact that he is the only one in a brand new system (with largely entirely new weapons) gives him the biggest disadvantage in terms of system consistency, etc. I'm sure we will see some more up and downs from Mitch but hopefully we start seeing more and more of the ups and his down's are manageable and become more and more scarce. Time will tell and by the end of this year we should have a better idea on what Mitch can be from a floor perspective. I think next year will be much more about what sort of ceiling might exist.