Controlled Chaos

You're right this has been the case for years. I just don't get it...I complain about it every year. You know the DB is there, you know he has position...why do you think you can just hold your arms out and the ball is going to float over him to you. You need to get jump and get the ball at it's highest point and whatever you do don't let him pick it off. I don't care if you need to take his legs out..your job is to not let him intercept that dam ball.

My take on Lovie...I used a lot of this from earlier in the year He had some success because he is surrounded by great assistants. Martz, Tice, Marinelli. These guys have changed the identity of the "Lovie Smith" team. A good head coach creates a tree of assistants that go on to other jobs and take the identity or mental approach they learned, with them. The head coach passes on his wisdom to the subordinates, who then copy them and go on to success themselves. In the Bears case, the new coaches came in and implemented their strategy, wisdom and identity to the piss poor one that Lovie had out there. Rivera tried pushing some of his own strategy and identity and even though it worked, he was run out of town. Lovie wanted this team, especially on the defensive side of the ball, to be about him. Well he certainly got it…he put his puppet in charge(Babich) of the defense and watched him fail as he pulled the strings. He then came out from behind the curtain and pulled the strings himself. What we saw wasn't pretty. A stubborn coach who showed no passion or aggressiveness in his calls. A coach who lacked the creativity or the ability to adjust a scheme, not only on the fly, but also from week to week. A coach who had the balls to say 'trust me' yet didn't have the balls to hold lazy, senseless penalty taking and unproductive players acccountable. I think Lovie learned something and now realizes his lack of tenacity, lack of accountability and lack of overall leadership with the players is not the way to go. What Lovie can do and to his credit, what he is doing, is allowing his assistants to grab the reigns and lead a little. The players are taking on the assistants identity instead of Lovie's. Those 4th down calls….that's all Martz. Lovie has the power to overrule, but the call to go for 6 instead of 3 is coming from the OC who brings the mentality of "you can't stop us" That mentality is not Lovie's…never has been and never will be. The cutting of Anderson...not in Lovie's character. The problem is, there's supposed to be a happy median between letting your Assistants run rampant(Martz) and meddling so much as to undermine their authority(Rivera). Lovie needs to know when to put the brakes on his OC and make the smart play. It seems pretty clear he won't do that unless forced. I took the whole city screaming before Martz changed his ways. We can assume Lovie was the one who finally talked to him about this, but when push comes to shove Martz does what he wants. He's shown that. I honestly think Lovie has zero input right now with regard to the Offense and very little with regard to the Defense. He's just the face of the team… the guy in front of the mic on interview day, the guy in charge of the red flag on game day and the guy to give the speech after the game. That's it. Not sure that's worth the 5.5 he's getting paid, or the big $ it will take to retain him. I don't think any of these guys are HC material, but they might be able succeed like this, cause I think they all see each other as equal, regardless of title. In that case, the money should be spread out to all of them equally. They all should have the same amount of time on their contracts and when it fails...they're all gone!

This is true in so many cases. Even some of the radio guys. They get on the radio and talk about a game and don't take the time to watch the dam thing over. Fans are replaying the games looking at different plays and players and the mouth pieces on tv and radio don't have the decency to do their homework. I actually heard Boers say a couple weeks ago, "I didn't watch the game, but going by past instances..." WHAT? You didn't watch the Bears game and your job is to come on the radio and discuss it? Anyway....If you pause the video at the 2:55 mark you really see the weight Pickett has on Cutlers leg. Pickett is listed at 340! Another interesting look is at the 4:06 mark of the video. Watch how he stops himself after the dropback at about the 50 yd line. He hops to keep from planting that foot.

If anything you can compare his nose to the 3 stitches Cutler needed to close a gash on his chin in the Minny game, but to compare it to a MCL tear...WTF?

Pretty sure a sprain is a tear.

He should be arrested for grand larceny.

Come on, quit playing the martyr role. You've been insinuating Cutler is a pussy since the game. His injury wasn't "apparent" enough for you. A couple of general pissed off comments here to the Cutler is soft crowd, none specifically directed at you might I add, and you keep talking about personal attacks. Define irony - Thin skinned message board poster complaining about some bad language while bashing the tougness of an NFL QB who gets bounced on weekly by 300+ pound linemen. Oh and I'll pass on the lame Tribune poll filled with casual fans. This Board is filled with die hard Bear fans. Fans who watch every game. Fans who watch the game a 2nd time to look at certain plays. Fans who disect those plays like a coach. Fans who's Sunday's are literally ruined when the Bears lose. A poll on this board I would take as a better barometer than any trib poll. Cutler played like shit, but the toughness garbage is simply that...garbage.

I can give a shit about body language, it's the same way he is every game. What I care about is how bad he played. Over threw Hester twice. Under threw Knox(be nice if Knox fought for the ball too). Bad pass to Olsen. Fumble on the sack. He played terrible. That's what I care about. If he wasn't a good cheerleader after getting knocked out of the most important game of his life, I can live with it. Agree with the other complaints about Collins. He was horseshit and demoted to the #3 and then for reasons only known to this coaching staff, upgraded back to #2. It didn't mean anything at the time, but I was still pissed about it. All I heard from people was, well hopefully we don't have to worry about the #2. Well what do ya know...we did today in the biggest game of the season. It would have been nice if Hanie had a few reps with the 1's. Kid played great against a top defense, in a pressure situation with receivers he has no timing with. Ran the hurry up like nobody's business. When is the last time you think that kid has practiced a hurry up. He showed some real good qualities today.

Except you aren't waiting for the verdict. "But there was Cutler, sitting/standing on the sideline, usual sour look on his face, watching the game. And getting paid." Also, note this coming from you, who doesn't even get to watch the games and see what Cutler has dealt win game in and game out. The one thing the dude has going for him is he is a tough SOB.

Shocked at the Cutler crap. I expect this from all the bandwagon fans, but if you have watched Bears football at all this year...the last thing you are doing is questioning Cutler's toughness. Question him over/under throwing. Question his decision making. Question his attitude. But toughness. Gimmie a break.

Bob LeGere had a great response to that Reily article. Who's the jerk? Posted by Bob LeGere on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 03:46 According to ESPN.com’s Rick Reilly, quarterback Jay Cutler is some kind of creep because he didn’t idolize any NFL quarterbacks as a kid. Maybe he had other, more worthy role models like his parents or a teacher. Reilly rips Cutler because he doesn’t have any endorsements and doesn’t want any. Brilliant. Better he should be a money-grubbing shill, willing to endorse anything for a buck. What kind of a jerk focuses on doing his job at the expense of making easy money? How dare he? And, according to Reilly, Cutler is misguided because he refuses to publicize his hospital visits to children, especially those who battle Type I diabetes just as he does. Apparently, in Reilly’s world, it’s nobler to draw attention to yourself for doing good deeds, rather than just doing them and not expecting anything in return. Better Cutler should be like former Bear Ted Washington, a fat, mean-spirited, miserable excuse for a human being, who did the occasional United Way commercial but was a flaming heap of garbage the other 99 percent of the time. Maybe Reilly was just salty because, after he had invested three hours of his time at Halas Hall, Cutler declined to bare his soul, get in touch with his inner child or explain in detail what it is that makes him tick. Imagine the gall of Cutler not to genuflect and share with Reilly his innermost thoughts the moment he saw him. What was Cutler thinking? How could he be so arrogant? I mean, this was THE Rick Reilly. How could he dare not answer HIS questions. Guy walks in off the street and wants to know how many people in the pressroom really know Cutler. Really? How well does anyone in the media or any fan know any of the Bears? Does Cutler come off as arrogant and disinterested during press conferences? Absolutely. Does he have any use for the media? Doubtful. Does he fail to look people in the eyes when he’s talking? Sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, but he’s getting better. Does he limit his accessibility to once a week and after the game? Yup. But he’s not uncooperative. For the record, I’ve gotten a decent answer to every decent question I’ve ever asked Cutler. But then again, I wasn’t trying to psychoanalyze him, and I didn’t have an agenda. There is an arrogant horse’s rear end in this story, but it isn’t the Bears’ quarterback.

"Hey Jen. It's Brett. Had a meetin today. That ended."

Watch the play at 2:55. Ya might have to pause it and hit play to really see it. Peppers basically just bull rushes sideways into the tackle, guard and center. getting 3 guys to engage in a matter of a second The tackle slips off and gets a hand on Melton, but because the Center had to engage Peppers so fast, Harris gets a nice inside lane right to the QB. Harris has been playing with a much quicker first step...let's hope he keeps it up. Also, note Izzy getting closelined on that play.

If it's good enough for this guy, it's good enough for me. I love the tradition. "To be able to stand on the ice and hear the national anthem ... and hear the reaction of the crowd and feel the rumble and see the America flag just waving in all of its glory at the top of the stadium was truly incredible," said Giunta, one of 87 Medal of Honor recipients still living. This is one tradition that Chicago fans can feel good about maintaining -- believe it when a hero tells you so. Link Also, it has been reported that General Norman Schwarzkopf showed tapes of the anthem to the troops at the start of the gulf war. It is definitely a "to each his own" kind of thing, but to me it is a celebration of this great country and if you never experienced it, it's indescribable.

I threw up in my mouth a little bit when I saw the title of this thread!

Hell yeah. I called my old man ASAP...I was like..are you watching th is?? Not one mention from any of these announcers about the ball coming out? It was a clear fumble. A few plays later Tirico said something about the play was ruled grasp and control. My ass. That tackle from the time Wooton got his arms on Farve and Farve fumbled took a split second. If that's grasp and control there will never be another qb fumble in history. What happened to not blowing plays dead right away either? That ref ran in waving his arms faster than I've ever seen a play blown dead.

#54 was just going to let him slide...and then Brady went ahead and made a move and kept running. It's kind of bullshit...they put stuff in place to protect the QB, and then they take advantage of it. Url could've drilled him...he let up because 9.99 times out of 10 the qb is going to slide there...I hope he learned his lesson.

Not to take anything away from Samurai, but Singletary did it in 179 games in a system that was geared for him to make the tackles. Urlacher will do it in his 148th game and he's been in a system the last 6 years that is geared towards the WLB making the plays.

I think a big part of the problem is we had no use for a fullback on this team. Try as much as they want...Olsen, Davis, Clark, Manuwastedyourcashola are not run blockers. Most of the time when they are lined up in the backfield...they're not even good decoys. The defense knows the RB isn't following up their backside. They weren't trained to power through a hole and drill a LB. They are just a body in the backfield to help pass protect and everyone on the god dam defense knows it. Any yards gained from our RB's are on them and the OL. Both Forte and Taylor would be drastically better with a real fullback. Oh and I'm guessing their 10 plays from the opponent's one-yard line this season would have resulted in more than 0 TD's and 2 turnovers.

Meh...I don't mind Jay's comments at all. I mind his piss poor throws making Hall look like an all star. I mind Martz and his freakin offensive calls. I mind the major suckage on the O line. I mind the sub par receivers. But I could really give a shit if Cutler didn't feel the need to jerk off the guy who he just threw the ball to 4 times.

Yes they challenged the play before on Earl Bennett being down at the 1. Then the Cutler sneak happened on 1st and goal. They could have challenged that as well. They get 2 challenges per half.

I'm kind of in the middle on this one. I think the majority of football fans can tell when something is outright dirty and didn't have to happen and when something is just unavoidable. I hope the NFL can as well. The way I'm hoping the rule is applied, is basically it isn't. It's there as a deterrent, but also so they have a leg to stand on when someone does something blatant like Meriweather. I don't think the plan is to suspend people left and right. But they have it in their arsenal if they need it. One thing I heard someone talk about on the radio is to expand the field surface. The players are all bigger, faster and more athletic, so if you want to cut back on some of the deadly hits....give them a little more field to cover.

Have to agree with Jason 100% here. I'm a big fan of Garcia, he just gets the job done. He's one of those guys that has had to fight for everything he has and knows it can be taken away in an instant. I've given up on letting the NFL dictate to me who's talented and who's not a LONG time ago. Most teams are absolute horse shit when it comes to evaluating talent and the Bears are at the bottom of that pile.