20 minutes ago, adam said:

The only thing I can think of for the slants over the middle is they are concerned about tipped passes because 5-15 yards inside the numbers seemed to have a ton of space and no routes were going there. That also feels like where Raymond had routes and he has rarely been targeted over the last few games.

I would say, the fact that the Bears are 5-2 with one loss in a monsoon and one loss with Bagent starting is a great sign.

It also feels like the Offensive Line is not as sharp as they were last season, for whatever reason. Bradbury vs Dalman maybe? CHI QBs have the most pressures against thru 7 games. Caleb's sack numbers are double what they were last year. You can attribute some of that to his injury, but not all of it.

we are missing a lot of plays by not utilizing the plays across the middle especially in slowing down blitz's. tipped balls? then they need to seriously fix that problem if it exists. it works like a charm against us yet we never use it in our arsenal.

we need to seriously work on who is picking up blitz's and also caleb needs to sit down with keenum to figure out HOW to get quick releases out from these blitz's to make them pay and stop taking the sacks or throwing it away. blitzing is killing us.

and on the subject of ryan poles... this guy is terrible. the ONLY defensive free agent player i can think of that was a good pickup was byard and of course he is gone. on offense the two guards and possibly swift for players still on the roster. that is it. the decent ones he dumps and keeps the mediocre players forever. add to this that BJ is probably the key in picking up these players. also we have wasted a multitude of 1st-3rd round picks with few exceptions like burden and possibly thieneman.

10 hours ago, Pixote said:

I assume you love vanilla ice cream? LOL

I love that he is unpredictable (within reason ;-))

No, I love some trickery. But, not on 2nd and 3 inside the ten. (Especially, when you don't know the rules of the penalized play). There's a reason why our TD rate inside the ten is the lowest in the NFL. Ben being cute. He's cost us four TD's so far.

3 hours ago, Lucky Luciano said:

EDIT: what kind of play was that goal line handoff to our LG? i have never seen somthing like that in my life. what was the flag about? didn't get any of that.

From what I learned listening to the officials, they can hand off to a lineman but it can’t be a forward handoff. Has to be back. I think to Mongos point, if you’re gonna call trick plays at his level, Johnson should be sure he knows the rules. He looked dumbfounded when they called the penalty. I did too but I’m sitting at home on my couch.

19 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

From what I learned listening to the officials, they can hand off to a lineman but it can’t be a forward handoff. Has to be back. I think to Mongos point, if you’re gonna call trick plays at his level, Johnson should be sure he knows the rules. He looked dumbfounded when they called the penalty. I did too but I’m sitting at home on my couch.

If Thuney declares as eligible, then it can be done forward.

What this sort of implies is handoffs forward should be considered passes, because that is sort of the rule they are enforcing. An eligible receiver can receive a forward pass, but a lineman can only receive it laterally or behind.

Good:

• Williams- looked like a young Aaron Rodgers these last two games

• Gordon- elite football instincts, continues to look exceptional rushing the passer

• Burden- starting to look like a #1 receiver, no idea why he got 0 targets in the second half, though

• 4th quarter redemption for Santos & Odunze- as frustrating as Odunze can be, he does seem to make critical catches in big moments

Bad:

• Jaylon Johnson- totally unplayable, have to find a replacement before deadline

• Defensive execution- atrocious end of half tackling, followed by a near repeat of the Packers game in the 2nd half, allowing 1st downs on nearly every pass completion.

Quick notes:

• Absolutely huge win going in to the SEA game. 2 of their next 3 are against TB and NE, meaning there's no excuse not to be—at least—7-3 or better heading into the Thanksgiving game. SEA has to play KC this week, and their offense doesn't look very good right now. It'll be tough, but the Bears could absolutely beat them next week with the way the quarterback is playing.

• Ryan Poles MUST make trades as soon as he possibly can to fix this defense before it loses them a game. The Bears were up 27-14, but it should have been 27-7 before the Patriots touched the ball again in the 2nd half had it not been for that horrendously executed end of half sequence by the defense, which completely ruined the momentum the offense had been building with that touchdown by Burden. Those are plays that will get them beat at some point if Poles waits too long to make something happen. This offense is too good, and this QB is too good to not be in all-in mode right now.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1CBt2Za7rv/

2 hours ago, adam said:

If Thuney declares as eligible, then it can be done forward.

What this sort of implies is handoffs forward should be considered passes, because that is sort of the rule they are enforcing. An eligible receiver can receive a forward pass, but a lineman can only receive it laterally or behind.

Yeah I was looking at that. I couldn't quite make it out in the couple quick replays I watched but it appeared he did line up as the third lineman out there, as if he was intending to be an eligible receiver, but maybe he forgot to declare? Or does he have to declare regardless of it being a forward handoff or a forward pass? Maybe Johnson didn't know the intricacies of the rule and assumed that if he wasn't getting a pass he didn't need to declare? 🤷‍♂️

4 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Yeah I was looking at that. I couldn't quite make it out in the couple quick replays I watched but it appeared he did line up as the third lineman out there, as if he was intending to be an eligible receiver, but maybe he forgot to declare? Or does he have to declare regardless of it being a forward handoff or a forward pass? Maybe Johnson didn't know the intricacies of the rule and assumed that if he wasn't getting a pass he didn't need to declare? 🤷‍♂️

No need to declare as a receiver if he's not catching a pass. That's why it was illegal to handoff forward instead of backward. I think "the Fumbleruski" put an end to that.

15 hours ago, Lucky Luciano said:

we are missing a lot of plays by not utilizing the plays across the middle especially in slowing down blitz's. tipped balls? then they need to seriously fix that problem if it exists. it works like a charm against us yet we never use it in our arsenal.

we need to seriously work on who is picking up blitz's and also caleb needs to sit down with keenum to figure out HOW to get quick releases out from these blitz's to make them pay and stop taking the sacks or throwing it away. blitzing is killing us.

and on the subject of ryan poles... this guy is terrible. the ONLY defensive free agent player i can think of that was a good pickup was byard and of course he is gone. on offense the two guards and possibly swift for players still on the roster. that is it. the decent ones he dumps and keeps the mediocre players forever. add to this that BJ is probably the key in picking up these players. also we have wasted a multitude of 1st-3rd round picks with few exceptions like burden and possibly thieneman.

First off: The Patriots did go to the Superbowl last year so they are not a bad team.

The Patriots blitzed Caleb on 60% of the pass plays and he put up 300+ yds and 30pts against it. We don’t hit the quick short slants because our Oline is good and was picking up the blitz giving guys like Burden time to get 15 yards downfield and exploit the wide open gaps in coverage. If Caleb can pull it off, I’ll take the chunk plays against a blitz over the 5 yd slants all day. We were doing that all game long.

We don’t have Monangai and Swift is fighting through some injuries so the passing game had to carry the day unlike how we handled the Eagles with running game sprinkled in with some passes by Keenum. Roschon is just pedestrian. Enter Caleb.

IMO the difference between our offense and the Patriots, and between the QBs as well, couldn’t be more clear and I really like what I saw from the Bears and Caleb. Early on Maye couldn’t figure out our coverage and pressure packages. Then they shifted to a lateral offense with simple WR screens and other simple short-game stuff. Later they started running all WRs deep to take the coverage shell with them and dumping off to an outlet (TE or RB) who was initially held in blocking. It worked well because we have no elite pass rush threats on the Dline. It was also incredibly easy to read stuff for Maye. But we did adapt to that on defense and late in the game you saw one of our defenders peel off with the TE or RB. That also confused or bothered Maye a bit because he started becoming more erratic with his passes.

Meanwhile through out the entire game Caleb was just slinging it all over the field against their pressure and coverages. He also had WRs with several big drops in the game : Raymond, Loveland 2x, Rome that would have moved his comp% from 66% to 78%. Casual stats reviewers will look at the overall numbers and say Maye and Caleb played about the same. But they didn’t. Maye picked up about 100 yards passing in garbage time against prevent defense. At least 50 was on the play before the half the rest came late when we were making sure they got no TDs over the top which worked because we forced them into burning clock and taking a FG, giving us the onside kick. Whereas Caleb never had the opportunity to throw against that. Years ago I used to look at Trubisky’s or Fields’ stats after games like that where we were trying to come from behind late and the other team was giving us easy underneath stuff. They’d end up with 250-300yds but it was just lipstick on a pig.

Think about what type of offense you will need to succeed in the playoffs. Our defense is good, not bad, but it’s not great. Smart coaches will find a way to get some plays in. I can’t see where the strategy for what Maye did against us being successful against a really good playoff defense. I can definitely see where the stuff Caleb was doing translates very well. It’s also why heads around the league and media are turning in our direction.

We’re 5-2 and we got there with 3 different QBs. Our defense is playing well enough to keep most teams around 20-25pts. That won’t be enough against Caleb and Ben.

p.s. The D needs a couple players to be more consistent. I don’t think we’ll be able to find a DT and CB, or rather fit both in. I don’t see a CB out there who can make a difference. Then again we should have Bryant back later in the year which will no doubt help a lot versus what Cam Lewis offers. I really like the idea of adding Deforest Buckner. We’d immediately have a good front. Jarrett is playing well this year. Sweat is still a strong DE. Booker and Turner appear to be capable of giving good snaps in rotation and FWIW Dayo will return later in the year.

From the AI:

"If the Chicago Bears were to trade for DeForest Buckner immediately, they would take on approximately $8.67 million in salary cap hit for the remainder of the 2026 season.  "

20 hours ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

Yeah I was looking at that. I couldn't quite make it out in the couple quick replays I watched but it appeared he did line up as the third lineman out there, as if he was intending to be an eligible receiver, but maybe he forgot to declare? Or does he have to declare regardless of it being a forward handoff or a forward pass? Maybe Johnson didn't know the intricacies of the rule and assumed that if he wasn't getting a pass he didn't need to declare? 🤷‍♂️

20 hours ago, Mongo3451 said:

No need to declare as a receiver if he's not catching a pass. That's why it was illegal to handoff forward instead of backward. I think "the Fumbleruski" put an end to that.

So he couldn't declare because he is a Guard, and only the ends can declare, at least thats how I interpreted the rule.

If he declared, and was at RT, he could've received the handoff that way. Not declaring, and at OG, he could only receive the ball lateral or behind.

Which brings up an interesting wrinkle, they could pull a OG behind the QB and the QB could hand it to him legally.

1 hour ago, adam said:

Which brings up an interesting wrinkle, they could pull a OG behind the QB and the QB could hand it to him legally

I’m almost certain we'll see this again down the road. And probably just like described. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised it was Thuney. Imagine if he’d score and how cool for him that would be? Four SB wins but never a TD score until then? Pretty awesome salute to him if they could pull it off.

I noticed a few times in the game they were doing that thing where they swap sides on the oline. One time I caught it live was Benedet and Wright and think it was on a significant gain on offense.

53 minutes ago, adam said:

So he couldn't declare because he is a Guard, and only the ends can declare, at least thats how I interpreted the rule.

If he declared, and was at RT, he could've received the handoff that way. Not declaring, and at OG, he could only receive the ball lateral or behind.

Which brings up an interesting wrinkle, they could pull a OG behind the QB and the QB could hand it to him legally.

Yes, and if Caleb would get his head in front of Thuney and hand off behind, that would be legal. It's hard to disguise that way, thus the rule. It would take a little more time and would require some slight of hand.

I found this article on Heavy. A good read.

Ben Johnson Trick Play: The Fridge Would Have Understood

I'm not a big fan of the site; too much speculation on trades, but they do, on occasion, have an interesting article on a hot topic about the Bears.

36 minutes ago, Alaskan Grizzly said:

I’m almost certain we'll see this again down the road. And probably just like described. Wouldn’t be the least bit surprised it was Thuney. Imagine if he’d score and how cool for him that would be? Four SB wins but never a TD score until then? Pretty awesome salute to him if they could pull it off.

I noticed a few times in the game they were doing that thing where they swap sides on the oline. One time I caught it live was Benedet and Wright and think it was on a significant gain on offense.

At a minimum it is on film so now it changes what DTs and LBs (since I believe OG is their first read) think about if they see Thuney or Jackson start to pull right there near the goal line. Ultimately it was a LB who saw it and tackled Thuney. So if you’re at the goal line and you can get them to hesitate just bit that might be enough to squeeze someone in for a TD.

20 minutes ago, AZ54 said:

At a minimum it is on film so now it changes what DTs and LBs (since I believe OG is their first read) think about if they see Thuney or Jackson start to pull right there near the goal line. Ultimately it was a LB who saw it and tackled Thuney. So if you’re at the goal line and you can get them to hesitate just bit that might be enough to squeeze someone in for a TD.

I never want to see that play, inside the ten, again.