Bears4Ever_34

We need a fast guy to replace Cohen. Is Keryth White still around somewhere? I remember him being pretty good for Pittsburgh last year in limited time, and he looked good for the Bears in pre-season when they had him. I like the dynamic they had at RB with Montgomery, Cohen, and Patterson. Montgomery was more of the between the tackles chain mover, while Cohen was the elusive runner that can kill you in the screen game, and Patterson is sort of the wildcard speedster who can hit the occasional homerun play if he breaks free. Losing Cohen is going to hurt you on both offense and special teams. The RB depth was already pretty low, but it gets even more critical now without Cohen.

It's a damn crime that Pace has only drafted 1 quarterback since taking over the team. I don't care who is quarterbacking your team, if you only draft one quarterback in 5 years, or however long it's been, that's terrible. I said at the end of last year my plan was to double down on quarterbacks in the offseason: draft one and sign/trade for one. They got the guy I wanted (after Brady, of course), but then failed to draft a developmental guy in the draft, so we end up getting stuck with Tyler Bray again... How fun would it be right now if the Bears had Foles AND a young quarterback behind him that you could have as an option in a worse-case scenario? I look at a team like the Chargers who drafted Justin Herbert and seeing how well he's been playing for them lately. I watched Jacksonville do it last year with Minshew.. To me, it makes almost no sense to not draft a quarterback almost every year, just to have developing behind your starter. Hell, you can even use those guys as trade tools down the road, depending on how good your starter is. Think about Jimmy G. Even if they aren't going to play for you, they can become an asset.

Adam, you took the words right out of my mouth re: Mitch. I was thinking about that idea after the game today. Would Nagy ever consider using Mitch as a gadget play style of quarterback with Foles as a starter, or is that too much of a risky move, given both quarterback's injury history? You say Taysum Hill, which I get, but I was thinking more like how the Jets and Patriots used Tim Tebow. Hill is way more athletic and dynamic than Trubisky is. I don't think we'll ever see Mitch catching passes and putting his head down on defenders. He's built more like Tim Tebow, and has similar athletic ability. I could see using him as more of a read option quarterback that you throw in for 2 or 3 plays a game here and there. Probably nothing more than that.

That was bizarre. Having watched the entire game, you wouldn't have thought Ryan would have under 300 yards passing and a sub 50% completion percentage. Some of that had to do with the fact that they abused the Bears on the ground, so his arm wasn't needed as much, but in that 4th quarter, they were able to generate a little more pressure, and it made a big difference with his ability to throw downfield. I think they had 3 consecutive 3 and outs at one point, which gave the Bears some of that momentum back. That was huge. But, let's be honest: Had Julio Jones been in that game today, I don't think the Bears would have even had a chance, based on the way things started for them.

Nick Foles could have very easily had 5 touchdowns in a quarter. The touchdown to Robinson that got overturned (that shouldn't have been) and the Anthony Miller drop on 4th down happened before his other 3 TD's. Very impressive to have that kind of poise despite the adversity, which is why I loved the idea of getting Nick Foles to begin with. At the end of the day, the Bears are 3-0 against teams with a combined record of 0-9. I've never seen anything like this, and it makes it impossible to get an accurate reading on how good this team is. They shoot themselves in the foot, but still find ways to win the game at the end. That being said, they are a better 3-0 team with Nick Foles at quarterback. They just are. Anybody who watched that game could see an obvious difference in the way one quarterback can throw it downfield versus the other guy. Trubisky can't beat you if you force everything outside the hashmarks. He is incapable of making accurate passes when going vertical, and that's the one thing Nick Foles appears to be really good at. A great example of that is the play to Miller to end the game. Trubisky would not be able to make a pass like that with pressure in his face. Despite the obvious concerns, I am pretty pumped to see how the offense looks next week with Nick Foles getting a full week of practice. Defensively, there appears to be some major problems. Once again, the pass rush is almost non existent, and the middle of the defense is getting torn apart. This is the 2nd game out of 3 the Bears have allowed well over 100 yards in a game on the ground. Eddie Goldman not playing is a big deal, and they need to get it figured out in a hurry. It also looks like the Danny Trevathon signing was a mistake. I called it when it happened, but there's no way they should have let Nick Kwiatkowski walk after the kind of season he had last year. It looks like Trevathon's injuries have caught up with him. He can't cover anybody anymore, and is a complete liability out there. I also don't think Roquan Smith is showing up as much as he should for being a top 10 draft pick. That worries me quite a bit... Very winnable game next week against what I think is a pretty mediocre-to-below average team. They aren't as dangerous offensively as Atlanta, even without Julio Jones, but their defense is much better.

Just playing devil's advocate here, but all 6 of their games to start the year look very winnable based on what we've seen from teams in the first 2 weeks. Obviously it's too early to judge, and a lot can change from week to week, but Atlanta just blew a massive lead to Dallas today, and looked terrible in week 1; The Colts have Phillip Rivers at quarterback, who doesn't scare anybody anymore; The Bucs don't look like the juggernaut many thought they'd be, and Brady looks even worse than he did last year. Also, the Panthers are 0-2. I haven't seen anything this season to suggest the Bears can do something crazy, like start off 6-0 or something, but it's hard to say any of their next 4 upcoming opponents look head and shoulders better than they do right now. The game next week is going to tell a lot, in my opinion. Atlanta will be their most dangerous opponent yet, and despite being 0-2, are very capable of putting up a ton of points. I don't think this offense can win next week scoring 17 points, so it's going to be a huge test. If they end up getting blown out, that changes the conversation back to them being bad again. Like I said before, it's too early in the season to get a solid feel either way. Right now, they are 2-0 but haven't looked that good doing it. I think after the first month, we'll have a better answer.

The only improvement I've seen on offense seems to be the run game. They weren't that effective today until that last series, but I like the way the RB's are being used, and I also like that they stuck with it for the entire game. Outside of that, it's pretty obvious that what's holding them back is the quarterback. Mitch is a backup. He still doesn't have much pocket awareness, and he still doesn't see the field as well as he should. What helped him in year 2 was his legs, but he's practically abandoned that part of his game since then. I know they won't do it, because they won, but I'd really like to see Nick Foles in this offense. It's hard to imagine him being much worse than this. Defensively, the CB's have been the best part of the year so far. Fuller and Jaylon Johnson are balling right now. I really love the way the rookie has played. I think he's good enough to be a future pro bowler with his instincts. He came close to picking off Stafford at the goal line last week, and batted a couple more passes away today. He needs to keep it up. That being said, the pass rush has not been good, and the ILB'ers have been pretty terrible in pass coverage—Trevathon in particular. Quinn playing more regularly should help, but they have got to figure out how to generate a more consistent pass rush or some of these weaknesses will continue to get exposed by better teams.

Kamara was offensive rookie of the year, though.. Montgomery is nowhere near as dynamic. I wonder how many great RB's there are in this league that run 4.6 40's. It's too much of a limiting factor in his game, which is why I think his ceiling is so low.

Bears got dominated on both sides of the LOS tonight. The Packers had more hurries, sacks, and tackles for loss than the Bears did.. and it was by a lot. Trubisky had two pretty fluky interceptions that make his numbers look a lot worse than the game would indicate. At the end of the day, he's likely never going to be the 'win because of' quarterback like they thought they had with the #2 pick. Unless they find out how to run the ball next year, the same thing is going to happen in 2020. It is absolutely imperative that they fire Harry Heistand and invest heavily in the offensive line in the offseason. I think we've also figured out that David Montgomery is not a high ceiling RB. He is so god damn slow, and I think would be best served as a change of pace guy to somebody with some actual speed. He should be the Packer's version of Jamal Williams to somebody's Aaron Jones.. When you have a quarterback who is not an explosive play maker, you can't pair that up with a running back that doesn't have game breaking ability playing behind him.

Had it not been for that terrible interception, Mitch might have played his best game as a pro tonight. I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing through 3 quarters, offensively. For the first in years I was actually more nervous about the defense giving the game away than I was the offense. It just goes back to what I've been saying for months now: Mitchel Trubisky is a different quarterback when he's allowed to run the ball and get outside the pocket to throw. And it's frankly ridiculous that it took this long for Matt Nagy to do what most of us can see with our own eyes when we're watching games. He's an athlete. Use the legs to your advantage. I think you saw tonight how much different this offense can be when Mitch can scramble for first downs and extend drives. Not only does it help you with that, but it also keeps defenses on their heels. Some of those RPO runs Mitch had tonight even confused me. Unfortunately, it's probably going to be too little too late, but at least now they know what kind of play calling Mitch needs to be successful. Stop trying to make the guy into Drew Brees. This defense seems to be losing guys left and right this year. They are just not a good pass rushing team these days. They're not getting the takeaways they got last year, and they're not sacking the quarterback as often either. They did enough to win tonight, but they're going to have to play much better these next 3 weeks if they want to even have a chance to sniff the playoffs.

One thing I will say though: If the Bears somehow miraculously finish the season 10-6 and get into the playoffs, they're going to be a team nobody wants to play. They'd have won their last 6 games, including finishing the season beating 4 current playoff teams in a row. Their confidence would have to be through the roof.

I just have an awful feeling about this game. Even though they've won their last 2, they have really struggled to dominate two teams that had no business even being in the game in the first place. Detroit was playing a game with their 3rd string quarterback, and the Bears needed a game winning drive on their final possession to come from behind and win. The Cowboys defense is good enough to make it difficult for the Bears to score 17-20 points, and I really have a bad feeling about Amari Cooper running free against the Bears loose coverage defense with Fuller and Amukamara. I'm also a bit nervous about the Bears run defense against this Dallas offensive line. I guess one of the things going for the Bears is that it's going to be cold, and that might be a factor for Dallas, especially while they are struggling. The Bears would have to jump on them early and try to take their will in the first half. Easier said than done. I'd say this is a 50/50 game. I can see it going either way, but at this point, with the way this year has gone, I'm just expecting major disappointment. They give us just enough to get curious, and then rip it all away. Although, I suppose it could be even worse.. You could beat the Cowboys and then allow Aaron Rodgers to stick another dagger into our hearts a week later..

It's weird to see how Howard has gotten worse every year he's been in the league. After his rookie season, it looked like he was already a top 3 RB in all of football, and perhaps well on his way to becoming a perennial pro bowler. I'm not sure how much weight he gained since his first year, but he definitely looked a lot slower as time went on. For a guy who was never a speedster in the first place, losing even a little bit of speed probably killed any chances of him ever getting back to the level he was at as a rookie. Alshon has always been a moody guy, and he's made it pretty clear that he'd rather be playing with Nick Foles. Not sure how much of an effect that has had on his play, but he hasn't been an elite receiver since he left Chicago, minus that historic playoff run with Nick Foles where he looked incredible.

Thank god they won, but they didn't make it look easy. The defense just isn't that good this year. I know their stats are similar to last season, but losing Hicks has really killed their run defense, as well as their pass rush, and their DB's are getting beat much more than they were last year too. Mitch made some great passes, but overall, I thought he was just okay. I'm not going to wave the pompoms while he's playing against one of the worst defenses in football. They scored enough to win, but he still made a lot of boneheaded plays, whether it was the interception, the decision to run out of bounds, instead of running forwards to pick up a 1st on a crucial 3rd down, and also some of his other plays in the pocket where he held the ball too long and didn't take off with it. I still think that, for whatever reason, he's got it in his head too much that he has to be pass first all the time. I don't know if he's scared of getting injured against or what, but he needs to be much more decisive when choosing to scramble for yardage, and make those decisions much quicker than he has been. Those plays are basically free 5-10 yards everytime, and could be the difference in points vs no points on certain offensive drives. It's nice to be back to .500, but I don't see them winning another game the rest of the year. I'd give them a puncher's chance to win maaaaaaaybe one more against either DAL or MIN, but it would take some kind of miracle to run the table. The sad thing is that even if they did, they still likely wouldn't even be a wildcard team. SEA or SF has one of those locked up for sure, and GB/MIN still only have 3 losses. The Bears are going to finish the year looking back at those 3 games against SD, LA, and NO (without Brees, Kamara, and Cook) being the difference between playoffs and no playoffs this year. Hell, throw in that game against GB they only scored 3 points in. Even converting in half of those games could have been a huge difference. Their margin for error is so small because of their horrific offense. League average offensive play, and they'd be shoe-in's for the post-season.

What I would do: -Fire Heistand and Chris Tabor -Draft and sign a quarterback (Rookie and vet) to compete with Trubisky -Invest heavily in the offensive line in free agency and the draft -Find a pass catching TE -Trade Tarik Cohen for a draft pick

It's hard to evaluate the skill position players on this offense when you've got a terrible quarterback and a terrible offensive line that makes everybody around them worse. That said, Gabriel and Miller are two players that could get cut or traded, and I wouldn't care. Miller is never in the right spot, Gabriel shows up once every 8 games, and is generally just a gadget type player with his speed and lack of size. I also hope they get rid of Cohen. He's the #1 guy I want gone next year at all costs. His elusiveness is a complete waste when the minute he touches the ball, he'll just run right out of bounds. I've never seen a player more obsessed with the sideline in my life. He misses so many open holes to turn up field, and then winds up getting negative yardage running sideways. He also does next to nothing on special teams, because he does the same thing. Get him out of here.

The Bears offense scored 20 points against the 31st ranked defense in the league. They barely escaped with a win at home against a bunch of 2nd string guys and a backup quarterback. You will take the win, but this offense is still complete garbage, and the defense continues to under perform. Bears DB's were getting beat all game long, they caught a bunch of breaks late in that game with some drops and bad throws to guys that were open down the field. I thought the score was not indicative of the type of dominant defensive performance we were used to seeing earlier in the year. Luckily, if there was ever a time to get right, they are get a few games here against some mediocre-to-bad football teams if they want to continue to act like they have a shot at a wildcard spot. I think they will lose to the Rams, but in the rare event that they don't, their next two games after that are against the Giants and Lions again. Biggest revelation to me in this game is that I'm now starting to see why folks were so critical of Nagy the last few weeks. I have always given him the benefit of the doubt, because his offensive line is horrible and the quarterback sucks, but I'm starting to think he's a bigger problem than I may have originally thought. I'm seeing a guy hell bent on stubbornness when it comes to running out of the shotgun. The only success the Bears have had on the ground all season has been with a FB in the game as a lead blocker, yet Nagy insists on going right back to running out of the gun immediately after they gain yards under center. It drives me crazy. Second thing is that there was only ONE play action roll out called the entire game, and it ended up being one of Trubisky's best passing plays. For the life of me, I cannot understand how only one of those gets called. It might be the one thing, outside of using his legs, that Trubisky has shown any kind of decency at as a passer. Why not split the field in half and give him an easier time with his reads? This is the kind of stuff that nobody will remember at the end of the year, because they'll just see how bad Trubisky's numbers are and think everything is his fault. I think he deserves a ton of the blame, but I think a better coach could get more out of him than Nagy if they actually catered the offense towards his strengths and got him to run the ball more.

Defense was just as bad as the offense today. Absolutely pathetic effort on both sides of the ball. This team is completely lost in what has become an absolute joke of a season.

I think Pace is the team's biggest problem, but I don't want to do the whole head coaching search all over again after one bad season, and you also don't want to hire a general manager and make him keep the coach for at least a year, like they did with Phil Emery. The defense is still really talented, and they're missing their most important defender in Hicks. I would double up on quarterbacks in the off-season. Trade for Nick Foles and use one of your first draft picks on a QB. Give this thing another year or two, then blow it up if you suck again next season.

This team is a freakin disaster. Awful quarterback, awful offensive line, and they still don't have a kicker. This season can't get over soon enough. I'm so over this.

He will forever be known as the Sam Bowie of his draft.

I'm not going to lie, I would be interested in seeing Kaepernick in this offense. He's not a very good quarterback, but he's got a stronger arm and actually doesn't mind using his legs when he has the opportunity, unlike Trubisky. That said, there's 0 chance the Bears would sign Kaepernick as long as Trubisky is healthy. I brought it up a few weeks ago when he got hurt, because I thought he was going to miss half the season. The Bears are stuck with Trubisky the rest of the year. I don't need to see anymore of Chase Daniel. We know what he is. At the very least, at least we'll finally be able to learn whether Trubisky should be the team's starter going into next season. The Bears are going to have to draft a quarterback next season regardless, but depending on how he plays down the stretch should determine how high in the draft they should take one. I still contend that they should do everything they can to trade for Nick Foles as a stop gap while grooming a young guy to replace him in 1-2 years. Because of the Mack trade, the Bears can't afford to rebuild for another few years while he's in his prime. This team has too much young talent to hit the restart button. If they had a bunch of older players, you might think about trading Mack for picks to re-stock, but I think that'd be a bad thing to do right now.

It's one of the most bizarre things I've seen. Roquan Smith went from almost a sure-fire future pro bowl caliber player after last season to a guy that looks to be more of a replacement level player this season. It makes me wonder even more what the heck happened to him a few weeks ago, because whatever it was, it looks like it's made him into a worse player. He doesn't play with the same fire and tenacity that he did earlier in the year. I'm done with Burton, too. He and Shaheen are next to worthless as TE's. If he's STILL hurt from that same groin injury he had at the end of last season, then something is seriously wrong with him, and I don't think you can count on him anymore to be a factor in the passing game. I hadn't really thought about Eddie Jackson much until recently, because he hasn't really had a ton of opportunities to make many plays this year. Clinton-Dix has really been the guy who's been more around the ball than Eddie. I haven't paid close enough attention to understand whether that's because teams are avoiding Eddie now, or he's not as active as he was last year. Whatever the case is, I've noticed him more and more the last few games taking bad angles to ball carriers, which is something he's always been pretty terrible at. When you aren't recovering fumbles or picking off passes, those things are going to become more noticeable as you go through the year. If he wants his money, he's going to need to step it up down the stretch. One other thing that is becoming clearer is that Leonard Floyd is going to be what he's always been: Inconsistent. After the 1st game you would never have guessed he'd only have 3 pressures and 0 sacks since that game. It's like he only ever plays well against the Packers. It makes no sense to me. The thing about that game is that he was actually doing things he's never done before, like bull rushing and hand fighting. It looked like he was starting to turn the corner, and there was legitimate reason to have hope that this might be his breakout season. Hopefully he'll come on strong like he did last season towards the end, but I'm not sure he deserves an extension anymore the way he's played.

My fault. I meant they need to use their 1st pick, not 1st rounder.

The Bears season is over, folks. Defense completely gave up. This could be the beginning of the end for Matt Nagy and Ryan Pace. Regardless, the Bears need to use their 1st pick on a quarterback next year, and then trade for Nick Foles.