Week 1 Official Game Thread - MIN @ CHI, MNF, 9/8, 7:15PM CDT, CHI -1.5 O/U 43.5, ABC

[adam]

9 minutes ago, DABEARSDABOMB said:

There was also the phantom hands to the face/facemask on the Bears which clearly wasn’t. 

Yeah, absolutely, luckily Owens made a great tackle on the next play so it didn't cost the Bears points.

It just sucks because now this hangs over everyone's heads. The game is over if the Bears score a TD with first and 10 at the 12 if Wright is not called for touching a defender as he falls to the ground.

To me it just felt like the league didn't want a blowout on MNF and all of a sudden, in the 4th quarter, they start making all of these phantom calls, but only on the Bears.

Mason had 2 long runs (both in 4Q, both on TD drives) where there was clearly holding right at the point of attack, which is an easy call because in order for the hole to be that big it's either a missed gap assignment or a hold. The Bears were held both times, no call. 

 

[adam]

Here is the fake holding call on Wright, it is one of the worst calls I have seen in a long time, with the ref looking right at it:
 

 

[adam]

I know people love PFF grades.

Top 3 and Bottom 3 players from both sides:

1. Wright - 77.9
2. Williams - 77.1 <insert eyeball emoji here>
3. Zaccheaus - 72.1
14. Loveland - 52.1
15. Monangai - 51.4
16. Jackson - 31.0 > very concerning. It felt like he either had a false start or missed a block.


1. Owens - 74.9
2. Wright - 74.4
3. Stevenson - 69.1 > played surprisingly well 
15. McCloud - 44.1
16. Williams - 42.2
17. Billings - 34.3 > concerning considering his RDEF grade was 37.7.

[adam]

One other thing to note. Williams took a hit to his right shoulder on his rushing TD. It seemed like every throw after that was a chore. Might be unrelated, but if he had any kind of tightness that could affect his throwing motion, that might account for him overcompensating. 

[Bears4Ever_34]

The Bears should take a page out of Sean McVay's book from the first couple years he had with Jared Goff. He ran a mostly no-huddle offense that wasn't necessarily up-tempo, but it allowed Goff to look to the sidelines for the playcall, like in college, and gave them plenty of time to get all their motions in. Part of the problem last night is that they weren't getting to the line quick enough to do all the motions, and I think it affected the thought process of the QB.

It's been clear to me that Caleb Williams has been at his best in the no-huddle offense. I'm not going to skewer Johnson after one game, but he's got to use this to his advantage at some point and not be so rigid about his preferred methods. I really think it could make a huge difference for this offense if they integrated the no-huddle more often moving forward.

[jason]

6 hours ago, adam said:

Almost every game comes down to 2-3 plays. Regardless how the rest of the game played out, there was no less than 7 pts lost to terrible officiating. It is one thing to miss a call, it is another to actually impact the outcome of the game with a phantom call, and the Bears had two back-breaking ones in a 5-minute span to start the 4th Quarter. 

Phantom Holding Call on Wright = -3 or -7 pts (Bears would've had the ball at the 12, led to a missed FG)

Phantom DPI on Stevenson = -4 pts  (next play was a TD)

 

I like this way of thinking. As an official, I understand impact to the game. The NFL guys do as well. I actually officiated an arena game several years ago with the white hat from last night. He’s a great official and person from my limited interaction. But he missed on the holding call because he didn’t see the entire play. He turned his head too slowly to his key and stayed on the middle too long.

And the DPI was a matter of a bad angle. That official guessed because he didn’t see the contact fully. He shouldn’t have thrown the flag and deferred it to a colleague. What’s more, one of the others should have come to him after and talked him into picking it up.

Those two plays directly impacted the game.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

My Bears collapsed like my A+ yahoo fantasy team. I hope they both rebound because I want to be happy on Sundays and not use swear words.  

[Stinger226]

3 hours ago, adam said:

Here is the fake holding call on Wright, it is one of the worst calls I have seen in a long time, with the ref looking right at it:
 

 

There was a couple bad calls. They gave Dayo a personal foul for hitting to the head and the replay clearly shows him under the helmet. 

[Stinger226]

After watching an all-22, Caleb deserves a lot of credit for missing reads and not getting the ball to open WRs. I paid attention to Braxton Jones and I only see 3 times where his guy gave pressure to Caleb. He played well in my opinion.

 

[AZ54]

There is plenty of blame to go around but nothing bothered me more than a very expensive IOL missing blocks.  

[Bears4Ever_34]

Thought this was interesting. Kurt hasn't usually been quick to praise Caleb in the past, so the fact that he's doing so now makes me feel a little better about last night.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

28 minutes ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

Thought this was interesting. Kurt hasn't usually been quick to praise Caleb in the past, so the fact that he's doing so now makes me feel a little better about last night.

Even if Kurt is wrong - for my own sanity I’ll take this as a positive. I also go back to - this is the first real game tape for Caleb with BJ. Preseason helps but it’s vanilla D - training camp helps - but d starts to know the plays. 
 

This is first real game action with Ben and against a Flores unit that is usually quite good. Let’s see how they build from here…I am expecting to be 1-3 heading into the bye but hopefully somehow we are pleasantly surprised….

[Mongo3451]

4 hours ago, Stinger226 said:

There was a couple bad calls. They gave Dayo a personal foul for hitting to the head and the replay clearly shows him under the helmet. 

I almost didn't survive that play...

[BearFan2000]

A loss like that always stings and like others have said there's plenty of blame to go around and sometimes it's hard to look past the frustration of seeing us lose a game we should have won.  

Bad call/phantom penalties were a factor but good teams play through that and just fight harder the next down.  They are no doubt frustrating and there were some doozies in this game at critical points in the game that helped the Vikings come back and win. Again not the reason we lost but definitly salt in the wound.

Offense struggled to take advantage of opporutnities.  Shooting ourselves with presnap penalties (4 false starts in the first half alone).  No consistent run game at all.  I felt like we were often behind the schedule putting us in long down and distance situations way too much.  The timing of plays didn't feel consistent either like we were making it more difficult than it needed to be. Ben Johnson will not be pleased.  

On Defense I feel like we started out strong and had their offense rattled but as the game wore on I don't know if it was conditioning or what but we started getting sloppy and undisciplined.  Tackling got poorer and poorer, defenders out of place.  McCarthy looked lost in the first half but looked like he had all the confidence in the world in the second half.  

"Special" teams.... more like special ED.   Can't think of anything good to say here.

[ASHKUM BEAR]

11 minutes ago, BearFan2000 said:

A loss like that always stings and like others have said there's plenty of blame to go around and sometimes it's hard to look past the frustration of seeing us lose a game we should have won.  

Bad call/phantom penalties were a factor but good teams play through that and just fight harder the next down.  They are no doubt frustrating and there were some doozies in this game at critical points in the game that helped the Vikings come back and win. Again not the reason we lost but definitly salt in the wound.

Offense struggled to take advantage of opporutnities.  Shooting ourselves with presnap penalties (4 false starts in the first half alone).  No consistent run game at all.  I felt like we were often behind the schedule putting us in long down and distance situations way too much.  The timing of plays didn't feel consistent either like we were making it more difficult than it needed to be. Ben Johnson will not be pleased.  

On Defense I feel like we started out strong and had their offense rattled but as the game wore on I don't know if it was conditioning or what but we started getting sloppy and undisciplined.  Tackling got poorer and poorer, defenders out of place.  McCarthy looked lost in the first half but looked like he had all the confidence in the world in the second half.  

"Special" teams.... more like special ED.   Can't think of anything good to say here.

Defense - many veterans missing which to me is unacceptable.  Montaez Sweat, Grady Jarrett, Billings, Edmunds and Edward's, Jaylon Johnson and Kyler Gordon.  Most have soft tissue issues, which is usual for guys not  having a professional work ethic.   That is a lot of cap space that didnt live up to the money they were given. I would love to get to the point the offense is set and build the D through the draft and not give these guys money because they tend to disappear.

[Mongo3451]

Week one stat that is not good.  The Bears were number one in the NFL for WR separation and Caleb missed them.

[Stinger226]

Like someone said, good teams overcome this but it affects us when everything has to go right to win.,