Thread: What we learned Carolina/Chicago

I thought Klutts had some nice blocks. Louis coming in for Omiyale and did way better than Frank (which isn't saying much). It's going to be huge to get Harris back next week. Merriweather can lay some serious lumber, Wright missed some tackles on angles.

Can't count on ST like this next week. With luck and sticking to the run we may catch the Kitties at the right time.

And yes we should run it more with iso plays vs better teams and counters and sweeps vs lesser teams.

Nice review Ric. Yeah I'll bet Martz was surprised when they switched out his game calling card for one that only had running plays, LOL. That's one way to fix it. Actually we needed to pass more and control the clock a lot better but with OMG lined up outside on him Johnson would have eventually killed Cutler. Who in the hell ever thought that guy could pass block? It's inconceivable to me how they ever thought they could make a LT out of him. He can't even play RT.

I would agree with you about Davis' blocking. He just doens't set up right and he losed his man constantly. We ran the same play that Forte had his game ender on a little earlier and he got himself ass backwards to the line and let his guy take Forte down in the backfield. As a pass catcher though I don't see much difference between he and Olsen with the exception of the fact that you can flank Olsen out wide. Davis did nothing in the passing game today but then again who did? But that TD he had against GB last week showed me something about his athleticism and his power after the catch. If Martz will onlu use him we've got a very effective weapon since his tendency isn't to throw to the TE. Davis has scored TD's on 2 of his last three catches dating back to the championship game and as best I can recall three catches are all he's had in that time.

Congrats to Hester on the record breaker. He could have had a TD on that KOR had Conte gotten his ass downfield faster and took out Mare. Toub needs to have him look at that on film. It's like he was trying to match up his speed with Hester's and Hester just blew right by him. He has to learn that he just needs to go full bore and block and not worry about throwing the block too soon. At least he was smart enough not to block Mare in the back and cost us yardage. I'll give him that but I'd replay that non-block of his about a dozen times come Tuesday. You don't have to slow down and let Hester catch up.

For the most part the defense sucked but came up with the big stop when they had to. That's two weeks in a row that we've gotten gashed up the middle by a RB. DWill was 10/82yds and last week Grant was 17/92. That's 174 yds (6.4 ypc) right up the gut in two weeks. Sorry Brian but that's on you. Bad gap control in both games. You can't let them do that and pass you cross eyed and hold down the scoring. 27 points last week and 30 this one. Not gonna cut it. We need to be holding teams to 20 points max until we can get an offense that actually works and scores points.

What I learned is that we have even farther to go to beat the top teams than we did last year and that's not good. JA can take a bow for that so that all Bears fans can kick his ass for "not" doing all he could to better the offense. To whatever degree we fall back from last years results I will lay at his feet until he's either gotten himself fired of he does something about this pathetic offense.

Originally Posted by short faced bear

I thought Klutts had some nice blocks. Louis coming in for Omiyale and did way better than Frank (which isn't saying much). It's going to be huge to get Harris back next week. Merriweather can lay some serious lumber, Wright missed some tackles on angles.

Can't count on ST like this next week. With luck and sticking to the run we may catch the Kitties at the right time.

And yes we should run it more with iso plays vs better teams and counters and sweeps vs lesser teams.

Yes, I like having a true FB like Clutts back there. Great blocks on those TD runs. Sit OMG and play Louis at RT. He may not be all that better but at least he doesn't get shoved around and manhandled the way OMG does. He's pathetic. What did this guy ever do before he got here to make anyone think he was an NFL caliber player? I'm astonished.

Wright's play has gone south this year without Harris back there to hold his hand. Bad positioning and bad angles. Maybe we let Manning go one year too soon. Meriweather hits but Meriweather don't cover. Same issues he had at NE.

If Detroit lines CJ up against Jennings next week Jennings is gonna have to play on a step ladder to cover him. Between his ability to catch anything within the states borders and how poorly we're playing the run we may need to score 50 points next week to win. Sure as hell won't if we play like we did today.

What we learned...

Omiyale is the worst offensive linemen in the league
Tyler Clutts is a good FB
Marion Barber is a good back up RB
Forte is a beast

and Martz finally found the missing section of his playbook that had all his running plays.

Chris Harris was missed on the field and I'm pretty sure he could of helped a lot with covering Smith.

I'll start with Martz. I think he was trying to prove something on those first two drives, and it backfired on him. I think he was trying to prove that we didn't have a run game. Bottom line is that we did. Although I seriously doubt that he's going to stick with it. We were ahead this entire game (after the first drive). When they got close, you notice that he started only running the ball on first down, and rarely on second or third.

Next, Mr. Martz. Get your GD play called before our O has to call a timeout. Not sure if all of these were on him or on Lovie to decide if we are going for it on 4th or punting/kicking a field goal, etc. Either way this needs to be hammered out. We can't be at the two minute warning with three blown timeouts due to bad coaching.

Offense:
Forte is a beast, what else needs to be said about him? I was also glad to see barber back, but he kind of disappeard for a while. I expected to see him on that third and 1 and also the 4th and inches.

Clutts (or however you spell it) is a beast of a blocker. That dude didn't miss a block all game that I saw. Love this pick up and the use of him at FB. Always like to see this dude lined up.

Oline. Had some nice runblocking today. I'm all for sitting Omigod and trying EWill at RT against the lions.

Cutler: Ric, I didn't see the relaxed Jay that you saw. If he got the ball off quickly, he looked good, but you could see him get nervous the longer he had to hold on to the ball.... all the way until he was in full panic mode. You could see his indecisiveness and anxiety. I didn't think he looked relaxed at all.

Defense: Well, we can't stop the run, we can't cover routes. Mediochre pressure from the dline, but a lot of that was Cam being a stud. That guy is hard to tackle, moves well in the pocket, and made some great effen passes. It's a good thing DJMoore is five yards behind the receiver every play so he can catch those tipped passes. That guy has been horrible all year and this was pure luck.

They only seem to step up in the redzone and when it's down to the wire. I don't credit them with all of those redzone stops though. Caroline broke down a few times and their mistakes cost them.

Special teams:
Won the game, hands down. Hester's kick return past midfield, hester's punt return for a td, and a blocked field goal. Yeah, that won't happen every game. Going into halftime, I was expecting the tides to turn. Our O wasn't producing, defense looked like a bunch of turnstyles and our O had put up a whopping 10 pts.

Summary:

We need Harris back badly. Martz had better keep running the ball so we can win games.

The lions game is going to be tough. If they play like they did today, they lose that game. Better step it up.