Week 6 Official Game Thread - CHI @ WAS, MNF, Oct 13, 8:15PM CDT, ABC, CHI +4.5

[BearFan PHX]

2 minutes ago, Pixote said:

Chicago Bears 25 - Referees 24

ha! yes

[BearFan2000]

4 minutes ago, BearFan PHX said:

Great game by Swift, and mostly on outside zone plays. If he keeps playing like that, Im gonna ease up on him a lot.

Great bye week adjustments by BJ and the staff!

Agree, we finally utilized his speed and put him in position to succeed. Better blocking in the run game.  We couldn’t have won this game playing one dimensional.  

[AZ54]

I can't even explain how freakin' awesome that win was.   To come from behind two games in a row, in a game where again we didn't play perfectly, and then beat the Commanders and Jayden Daniels (on his mistake) and Wash, the scene of last year's debacle, with a game winning FG is just the best icing on the cake.  Ben now owns this team and the buy-in will be a big help to get us over the hump to being a legit competitive team.   

Going into this game I thought we were getting blown out.  The Dline looked better,  the Oline looked better, the run game looked much better.  Every weakness seemed to be improved and that's what you want out of your coaches and players coming out of a bye.  I never thought this team would put together a 3 game win streak and potential for a 4 game win streak going against NO next week.  

[AZ54]

1 hour ago, Bears4Ever_34 said:

Daniels outplaying Caleb once again. Penix just beat Josh Allen. Nearing panic time with this QB. He's the only one who always looks nervous against these good teams. Everyone else is stoic af.

At no point in this game did I feel Daniels outplayed Caleb.  Neither was perfect but IMO Caleb is still the better QB.  

[adam]

22 minutes ago, Pixote said:

Chicago Bears 25 - Referees 24

So crazy that the Bears win back to back games 25-24 with so many bad calls. 

It would've been a devastating loss.

Swift looked like a different player. Moody came up huge. Glad the offense closed it out after Daniels choked. 

[AZ54]

44 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

And Dennis Allen is a liability as DC.  

You really think this about him?  I think he's done well with a depleted Dline, and DBs, and backup LBs over the start of the season.  It has been ugly at times but you see the defense rebound each week.  

[Pixote]

7 minutes ago, adam said:

So crazy that the Bears win back to back games 25-24 with so many bad calls. 

It would've been a devastating loss.

Swift looked like a different player. Moody came up huge. Glad the offense closed it out after Daniels choked. 

It never even came to mind until you mentioned two consecutive games won 25 to 24

What are the odds?

[Bears4Ever_34]

44 minutes ago, AZ54 said:

At no point in this game did I feel Daniels outplayed Caleb.  Neither was perfect but IMO Caleb is still the better QB.  

Up until that final Daniels turnover, I thought he was. Caleb's accuracy and decision making was all over the place. He's lucky he wasn't picked a couple times in the redzone. I think almost all of the close ones were plays that involved Rome: the 4th down, the deep ball into double coverage, and the late slant in the endzone. There were at least a few others that were just straight up misses to open guys. It wasn't pretty for him, regardless of whether or not he got screwed on that other TD.

That said, once Daniels fumbled that ball on the most critical play of the game, I think he brought himself down closer even with Caleb, perhaps even slightly worse.

Regardless, they were somehow able to get a win by beating two teams today. This never happens. I'm feeling a whole hell of a lot better now. The Bears had to prove to me they could win a game like this. I give them and Caleb a lot of credit for their resilience. 

[jason]

1. Does it shock anyone that Swift looked better when plays were called that **gasp** put him in space outside?

2. I’m an official, and I almost never bash officials, but that was bad. The offside was terrible as was the illegal formation. In fact, I’ve been to multiple camps where NFL officials talk about a “single blade of grass”-philosophy, usually applied to defensive offsides, which means if you can put a single blade of grass between the OL and DL, make it legal. The same philosophy applies to attempting to make offensive formations legal. The tackle should be significantly back to draw that foul.

2b. The OPI was weak as well. Push offs are actually one of the OPI categories when justifying the call, but if the defender is swiveling hips to actually run, it’s generally not called.

2c. Last but not least, the illegal contact call was terrible. That has to be something that causes material restriction of some sort, not just a dude touching a WR. Otherwise literally every pass would be DPI as the DB reaches for the receiver.

2d. For any crybaby Skins fan, delay of game is not automatically synchronized with the clock. The philosophy has built in gray area for the time between zero, looking at the snap, and blowing the whistle. The last thing anyone wants is an overzealous back judge throwing 4-5 DOGs every game because he’s being overly technical.

3. Williams still hasn’t put it all together. It worries me. Multiple misses, and one horribly under thrown ball that should have been a TD.

4. Good thing the Bears used their first round selection and drafted Loveland.🙄

5. What was with that one play in the red zone where Caleb looked right, then blindly fired a fastball left straight into the defender’s hands? If he didn’t have a propensity for overpowering short throws, that would have been an INT.

6. Was anyone else going crazy when they stopped trying to get yards at the end? Dude got cut for being inconsistent, gets called up literally today, it’s raining, it’s a pressure-filled game winner, and the Bears are just content with “close enough”? 

 

[Bears4Ever_34]

5 minutes ago, jason said:

1. Does it shock anyone that Swift looked better when plays were called that **gasp** put him in space outside?

2. I’m an official, and I almost never bash officials, but that was bad. The offside was terrible as was the illegal formation. In fact, I’ve been to multiple camps where NFL officials talk about a “single blade of grass”-philosophy, usually applied to defensive offsides, which means if you can put a single blade of grass between the OL and DL, make it legal. The same philosophy applies to attempting to make offensive formations legal. The tackle should be significantly back to draw that foul.

2b. The OPI was weak as well. Push offs are actually one of the OPI categories when justifying the call, but if the defender is swiveling hips to actually run, it’s generally not called.

2c. Last but not least, the illegal contact call was terrible. That has to be something that causes material restriction of some sort, not just a dude touching a WR. Otherwise literally every pass would be DPI as the DB reaches for the receiver.

2d. For any crybaby Skins fan, delay of game is not automatically synchronized with the clock. The philosophy has built in gray area for the time between zero, looking at the snap, and blowing the whistle. The last thing anyone wants is an overzealous back judge throwing 4-5 DOGs every game because he’s being overly technical.

3. Williams still hasn’t put it all together. It worries me. Multiple misses, and one horribly under thrown ball that should have been a TD.

4. Good thing the Bears used their first round selection and drafted Loveland.🙄

5. What was with that one play in the red zone where Caleb looked right, then blindly fired a fastball left straight into the defender’s hands? If he didn’t have a propensity for overpowering short throws, that would have been an INT.

6. Was anyone else going crazy when they stopped trying to get yards at the end? Dude got cut for being inconsistent, gets called up literally today, it’s raining, it’s a pressure-filled game winner, and the Bears are just content with “close enough”? 

 

I agree about Loveland. His OPI was bogus, but he needs to be making more of an impact for a 1st round pick. Tyler Warren has completely outplayed him all season. Right now, Loveland looks like just a guy. He hasn't done anything that's stood out. At least Burden has shown flashes. They have to get more out of both of them, to be honest.

[DABEARSDABOMB]

3 hours ago, BearFan PHX said:

It looks like we shifted from a power scheme to more of an outside gap scheme, which lets Benedet and Wright get out on the edge, and Swift has been much more successful doing that. Cool.

I think that is why they made the swift at LT 

[DABEARSDABOMB]

Huge win - defense and Swift get a lot of credit. Moody hits 4 of 5. Lot to still work on too. 

[BearFan PHX]

20 minutes ago, DABEARSDABOMB said:

I think that is why they made the switch at LT 

i agree. Braxton was bad at pass pro, but he was worse int he run game.

But also, Johnson changed the blocking scheme during the bye week. The first 4 games, we were a power gap team mostly. Now we had big bodies on the edge, and as you say, both Benedet and Wright are made for that.

And since Johnson already knew Swift before, I wonder if the change wasnt based more ont he OL skill set than Swifts.

That said, Ive never felt this good about Swift before.

[Alaskan Grizzly]

55 minutes ago, jason said:

 

1. Does it shock anyone that Swift looked better when plays were called that **gasp** put him in space outside?

 

Word!! (#1)

56 minutes ago, jason said:

Good thing the Bears used their first round selection and drafted Loveland.🙄

Word! (#2) 

56 minutes ago, jason said:

Was anyone else going crazy when they stopped trying to get yards at the end? Dude got cut for being inconsistent, gets called up literally today, it’s raining, it’s a pressure-filled game winner, and the Bears are just content with “close enough”? 

Word!!! (#3) 

I couldn’t understand with as much time as they had and how well Swift was running they didn’t get even closer…or try to score.  They still had a TO to burn and something close to a minute left?  Yeah…it was edgy for sure . 

[Alaskan Grizzly]

3 hours ago, AZ54 said:

You really think this about him?  I think he's done well with a depleted Dline, and DBs, and backup LBs over the start of the season.  It has been ugly at times but you see the defense rebound each week.  

Currently ranked 27th overall defense.

29th in points allowed, 26th in rushing defense and 32nd at yards allowed per carry. 

Sure a lot of that came by way of the shellacking from Detroit on week 2.  Still I’m just not a fan.   

[Stinger226]

4 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Currently ranked 27th overall defense.

29th in points allowed, 26th in rushing defense and 32nd at yards allowed per carry. 

Sure a lot of that came by way of the shellacking from Detroit on week 2.  Still I’m just not a fan.   

D has been bad up until this game when we seen improvement at stopping the run. As you average the bad games into the rankings it may not look good overall but they still showed improvement. We also added a running game. The best rushing team in the league got out rushed by Swift. 

[Stinger226]

Caleb still needs to grow but he does performs well at the end of games. A few times he could have run and choose to try to get it downfield. I hope he makes better decisions going forward. He seems to focus to much on Odunze and he throws into double coverage a lot. 

[Stinger226]

We seem to be getting some breaks that usually buried us before. Still penalties are killing us but the officiating crew gives the most flags in football and many of those flags were bogus. 

The OL played well against a good DL and the running game looked a lot better. Swift is a capable RB and Monangai showed some support. 

We played better on the D in stopping the run. Washington was the best running team in the league. We outrushed them. 

It seemed like us coming out of the bye , we had more energy and physicality. Our next 6 games are all winnable. So we still have time to get better going forward. I think Edwards and Gordon will play better the more snaps they get. This was the first time on the field for several weeks. 

Nashoun Wright made the play of the game but he has a lot of penalties and gets beat a lot. I wish they would give Jalyon Jones a shot. He had good snaps over the last few years. 

Having won 3 games in a row we are starting to get some confidence that we can win a game even being down. Its still has a lot of growing to do under BJ but the arrow is pointed up right now. The last two games were on the road which is huge wins.  

[adam]

The shear number of bogus calls is hard to even comprehend, and it happened on every drive.

In total, there was a 13 pt swing in WAS favor, -4 for them and +9 for the Bears. The score should've been 34-21, or 31-21 with a kneel down at the end vs a FG. 

Benedet was not offsides, flag was thrown after the TD.
Caleb hit helmet to helmet by Lulu, no call, then:
Brisker gets pushed into Daniels, hits him low but above the knee, result of the play is incompletion, so they throw the flag. 
Phantom call on Wright for facemask, WR was just running with his head down, then:
Defender has choke hold on Odunze, which is a clear hands to the face, not called.
Moore was not lined offsides, he was on the line, they still called it and negated a positive play.
Loveland within 5 yards, legal contact, the defender should've been called for embellishing as he falls back 10 yards like Loveland is super human.

Did I miss any?

 

 

[Stinger226]

D J. Moore spent the night in the hospital in Washington last night. After the game he left the stadium in a ambulance. Haven't heard about the injury but he went back in the game after being injured. He's a baller and not someone you want to get rid of by trade. He's a valuable member of the offense. He runs the ball, catches the ball and blocks. He's still our best offensive weapon.

[adam]

11 minutes ago, Stinger226 said:

D J. Moore spent the night in the hospital in Washington last night. After the game he left the stadium in a ambulance. Haven't heard about the injury but he went back in the game after being injured. He's a baller and not someone you want to get rid of by trade. He's a valuable member of the offense. He runs the ball, catches the ball and blocks. He's still our best offensive weapon.

Yeah, that sucks, he has been grinding, getting rushing attempts, blocking, and getting some dirty yards. 

I would assume it was the kidney shot he took. 

[DABEARSDABOMB]

Hope Moore is ok 

[BearFan PHX]

I hope Moore is OK too. He is a baller, and perhaps still the best WR on our team.

But that doesnt mean at $20M a year that he isnt trade bait with Burden on the roster ready to take his place.

Good teams trade good players when the cheaper and younger replacement is on the roster.

[adam]

PFF Grades

Thuney - 88.0
Swift - 85.6
Burden - 81.1
Wright - 75.7
Kmet - 72.1

Williams - 46.1 (lowest graded offensive player)

Edwards - 89.0
Byard - 81.2
Edmunds - 80.9
Sweat - 79.5
Jackson - 75.0

Ford - 37.1 (lowest graded player)

 

The most hilarious thing is PFF has Justin Fields graded as a better passer than Caleb, Purdy, Nix, Rodgers, Penix, Jackson, and Geno. Pure comedy. 

[adam]

Didn't even pay attention to this, but the blocked FG should've been a WAS penalty.

One-second rule: This protection lasts for the first one second after the ball is snapped. Payne immediately uses Daly's back for leverage. He was not protected for one second.