DABEARSDABOMB

Agreed; he should be viewed purely as a depth guy (i.e., a 5th wideout and nothing more). To be honest, we kind of have to think of Meredith similarly (given that he is bouncing back from injury). We have to add 2 wideouts (probably one relatively early in the draft and another via FA).

And yes...I fully agree with your assessment of the wideout position.

I completely agree with you that his footwork has been mediocre to bad (that has been consistent all year) and it has definitely impacted his accuracy. I haven't seen this Bears staff make a lot of excuses for Trubisky though (they've told him publicly he needs to be better and he's never shied away from that fact either) so I think there was some merit to the comment. This was by far his least accurate game of his career. I've long said we won't be able to evaluate him until he has gotten comfortable running the offense and is able to decently read defenses. Right now everything is still moving too quickly and with that his timing is going to be off and naturally that will impact his footwork, etc. How well he can read defenses, etc, is a whole nother story. The nice thing is I've seen him throw guys open more the past couple weeks then the first few weeks and he has also gone through multiple reads quicker, etc. Very positive signs. I actually look forward to the next couple weeks where we should be in competitive games to see if we see more growth.

I didn't realize Amos hamstring injury was that bad. Bummer cause he was playing much better.

Saw this quote in an article from Loggains. Makes you wonder how inaccurate Trubisky was (vs. just how bad / sloppy the wideouts were). Should be no shock that McBride is gone. I still think Mitch was inaccurate, but those are the things that are always hard to tell as a fan.

With Demps designated to return, the Bears can no longer bring back Kevin White this year, which officially ends his season. Demps joins Hall as the two (and only) players that the Bears can designate to return from IR.

Thought this could be an interesting thread; We've had a lot of discussion in the other threads specifically on Fox, but who is everyone picking/want as the next head coach. I'm going to throw my name out...David Shaw, Stanford HC. Very charismatic, high character, proven head football coach (at college) but he also has extensive experience at the pro level (as an assistant). His overall style fits the Bears legacy well and likely resonates with the McCaskeys (to go along with his character). Hard nosed football, runs a pro offense at stanford, strong defense...overall an offensive mind whose overall style should resonate with the general Bears fan base. Not only does it resonate, I think it fits with the weather we play in and the direction of the type of team we've built. Pound and ground football leveraging a lot of playaction, roll-outs, etc, so not totally boring. Leveraged McCaffrey as a RB who could do a ton in the screen game (so some dynamics to the offense) but someone who is going to flat out lead and drive a physical football team (which plays with discipline). I also think his level-headedness fits in well as the head coach.

Fantastic post; Spot on.

Adam Hoge‏Verified account @AdamHoge 36m36 minutes ago Tre McBride and Josh Bellamy were the two primary players involved in Monday’s argument, per multiple sources. Obviously one player is still on the roster and the other is not. McBride was waived Tuesday. As for Bellamy, he was not in the locker room today for comment.

Fox doesn't stink though. He's been to superbowls with two different teams. He has proven that he can win and be above average and even get to the big game. I'm not saying you can't fire a coach, but geeze, how many coaches have the Bears went through since Lovie left. Far too many. I'm not saying we need to keep Fox, but this Fox is a total bum line is just pure crap. And the challenges, come on man, yes that challenge sucked, but Fox isn't the guy watching the replays in the booth. Look around the league, tons of teams have regular trouble with challenges...the review team has a split second and sometimes limited camera info to make a call. It isn't like they have minutes to dissect a play.

Interesting question Grizzly. There are actually a lot of reports coming out recently (from Denver) about how Elway is just an awful GM to work for and that Fox wanted to preserve Manning's arm and run more, etc. Elway wanted to do the opposite and then finally Kubiak was able to get Elway (due to their friendship) somewhere there and that was the year they won the superbowl. Media has been giving Fox a lot of recent kudos in the Denver area as more stuff has been coming out on Elway. I still say Fox is a very proven head coach in this league. IF he has talent, he'll produce wins. Is he the best coach in the league, no, but he's proven enough over his tenure that you can't just imply that a new coach will immediately turn things around. On the offensive side, it probably would. I still go back to continuity and how good it is for teams / systems. I also look at our recent draft picks and in many cases I can point out guys who have been "developed" and improved. I really can't see how anyone can say, geeze, Fox has not gotten enough out of this roster. You can debate penalties and some bad games, but man, he's proven to be a pretty solid head coach. Now I do understand that we have a young QB who we have invested in and we want to make sure we surround him with the right offensive minds, but I also look and say that the coaches said he wasn't ready and they have tried to bring him along slowly and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. We haven't jerked him and benched him and done some of the things other organizations have done. I'd actually say the biggest failure on Trubisky was Pace not providing adequate receivers for him to throw the football. Inman is our best receiver (by far) and he was not even playing on the Chargers and while I like him, the reality is he's a solid 3/4 receiver (and for the Bears is the best guy we have). That is just unacceptable by Pace (and I said this before the injuries in terms of the pathetic WR corps we had). I'm not knocking or advocating firing Pace but I am saying that no coach could have excelled with the roster that has been handed. This was a massive clean-up job and you don't want to hit the full reset button by bringing in a bunch of new people cause you'll never have the necessary continuity to get better and you quickly turn into the Browns (and to be frank...we have been headed that direction with how quickly we've been ousting people and hitting "reset" over the past few years). Pace has to stay and If we kept Fox, I'd be fine (albeit, I kind of expect Fangio / Loggains to be out). Reality is all are going to be gone.

Honestly, if Pace doesn't think fangio is a head coach (and he should have as good of an idea as anyone), then this makes a lot of sense. Would be curious to know who is on the list. By the way, just to put this out there, but if the Jets move on from Bowles, I'd love him as our DC.

http://www.profootballweekly.com/lists/201...ndex.xml?page=4

Leno flat mauled in that game. He was really good and it was evident on a number of runs. Everyone likes ripping on him, but he's actually a pretty solid LT. Great, no, but he's solid and getting solid protection out of a late round pick at LT is a good value play. By the way, if you go to any fan board, almost every teams fans rips on their tackles and the play calling.

The penalties were brutal. Our offense is bad. We have one of, if not the worst QB in the league. Please note that I'm not saying Trubisky sucks...but from a current production perspective, he sucks, and that is how you evaluate current wins/losses and how good you should be. Our offense is extremely one-dimensional and before we even debate scheme and if Loggains is good (or bad), we have a banged up oline, one of the worse QB's in the league, and the worst receiving corps in the league. When you add those things up, no scheme in the world is going to unmask/make good that potential. We do have an excellent starting RB (even being so one-dimensional) but against the Eagles that was a hard thing to do (top run unit in the league against a solid rushing attack (thanks to Howard who is a beast) but one-dimensional...way too easy for a good run D to shut that down and force the hand. So that sums up our offense...really no way I can see it being good given current limitations. Key is all about how you get better and even that is pretty limited given how "raw" the QB is (and really he wasn't ready to play...our coaches said it from day one as did the GM and their hand was forced). Defense is okay but not great. Not enough playmakers and that is magnified when your better defenders (outside of Hicks) go down (Floyd / Danny T, especially). 3/4th of our LB corps out, including three of our 6 best guys on the defensive side of the ball. Its hard to be very good. The secondary is not near good enough to overcome a lack of pass rush (which happens when you don't have a ton of depth and lose your better pass rushers). Our best player, Hicks was also playing on one-leg. The penalties were bad but man, Fox was dealt a really bad hand. When he's been given good hands, he's delivered. Both with Carolina / Denver. In fact, I'd argue he maximized everything he could under a Denver team led by Tim Tebow and got a lot out of Jake Delhomme in Carolina. My point is, Fox has proven to be at the least, a competent head coach, so to put all of the blame on him is just delusional. This isn't like a Trestman or someone else where you could literally say he sucked and something else would just immediate fixed it. Fox has a proven track record and is a good head coach. Great is debatable, but good is not, imo. All this said, I can see reasons why we want to go another direction long-term and if so, I still would give Fox credit for cleaning up the rot that ran very deep in the organization post-Trestman.

This match-up was bad for the Bears. Our D is very banged up (no Floyd / no Trevathan / no Freeman...essentially 3/4th's of our starting LB corps and some of our better playmakers) and we are going against a very dynamic and well balanced offense. Our offense was also going up against the top run D in the league and given our style of offense we couldn't be in a worse position. I expected us to get throttled and we did. The penalties and how we shot ourselves in the foot were just brutal though. Eagles are an outstanding football team.

He's not ready. He isn't reading defenses quickly/comfortably enough and with that his timing isn't right and therefor his footwork won't be right. He needs to put in a lot of work, but none of this should be a surprise. Look at film of Goff last year vs. this year. Reality was Goff wasn't ready to play last year, got out early, really struggled because he wasn't ready to read NFL defenses / be in an NFL offense. This actually ups the learning curve because they haven't read and reacted much in their college career their entire timing is impacted so it isn't just the fact that they can't read defenses yet its also that they haven't had to do that stuff so timing and inherently footwork are messed up (compounding the problem and making them look even worse).

Agree; The reality is if we hired an OC who hasn't been at all close to running an offense, we would be widely considered a laughing stock. Could it work...sure, but the fact is, he just hasn't been involved running an offense before. A really bright guy might figure it out...but man that is a leap of faith and a LOT of learning on the job. I could maybe see it if the HC was an OC and it was more of a "grooming" process where the HC was still really acting in the role of an OC (and if that were the case, I don't think it would be done for Toub). Your analogy around the lead doctor was spot on. Toub could definitely be a good HC candidate...but I would be disgusted if we entrusted him to be the OC for Trubisky.

Now I've listed coaches I don't like, but Frank Reich is a guy I really really like. He did well with Phillip Rivers and now doing great work in Philly with Wentz. He'd be very high on my list if we were to make a change (and go with an assistant). I still am a fan of stability though. I actually think Loggains is pretty creative, but the Bears have been extremely careful in how creative they've been because they recognize Trubisky has his limitations. I'd also say that Trubisky has developed (AZ made that point earlier in this thread and I think it was lost). You can't ignore the fact that Trubisky is making strides and not give some credit to the coaches, imo. We knew he was raw when we drafted him and were forced to start him sooner then the staff liked and thus they kept things much more vanilla before slowly opening the playbook up. Not necessarily that bad of a concept...yes, as fans it isn't sexy, but it is better then letting your rookie throw 5 picks in his first game or going the route of the Browns (where Kizer has just been wrecked). I actually feel like the Bears coaching staff truly has had a plan and while they had to speed up that plan, they are being very methodical in terms of how much they open up the playbook.

Everyone is high on Cooter, but I couldn't get past the stat in the Lions game...60+ games without a 100 yard rusher. That is insane and while the league is a passing league, the better teams can run the ball.

Nice.

Santos has visited quite a few teams. I presume he isn't quite 100% but I also am going to guess he's going to have his pick of clubs...hopefully Bears can get him. I had read that Santos wanted to be careful that he didn't come back too soon. He's a pending free agent so the last thing he wants to do is come back too early, miss a handful of kicks, and lose out on a payday. If I'm the Bears, I know he's good and just give him the payday now.

I'm with you. This was actually a pretty enjoyable game (outside of the Floyd injury). We got the loss, but played extremely competitive and lost because our kicker (who will not be around next year) stinks to a solid team. I'm okay with that because Trubisky looked like he is legitimately making progress. I saw a QB read the field more, I saw a QB get rid of the ball sooner (and not take the sack). In fact, I saw a QB who started to look downfield when scrambling (something he didn't do much of until this week). I still saw a QB who got flustered with a bit of pass rush (where he didn't set his feet and because of it, left some plays on the field), but I also saw a QB who used his mobility to his advantage and at times was very aggressive and assertive throwing strikes. Oh and he showed moxy on that final drive. Defensively I see a lot of people knocking Bears and yes the Lions scored, but take away that defensive TD (on a bad fumble) and they didn't give up that many points (take note that since week 6 Stafford was averaging more yards per game then any QB in the league...Lions have a good offense). We also saw Shaheen make some more plays (which was great to see). Really sucks Floyd got hurt...hoping somehow it isn't as bad as it looked.

Here is a name for you...Mike McCarthy. I'm not saying Packers are going to get rid of him, but I think their fans had grown a bit impatient with their inability to get back to the big game. They could struggle with Hundley and decide that this is the right time to make a change. If that happened, I'd be all over Mike. He's a very good QB coach / bright offensive mind. I think the reality is, Hundley will show enough growth that the Packers won't let McCarthy go, but I wouldn't' be shocked (and he really did do a lot of great things to help develop Rodgers).

Agree with you completely.