Even Usually Stoic Lovie Admits This Game Is Pivotal..........

Bears-Lions preview: Even Lovie realizes this game is pivotal
MARK POTASH ON THE BEARS October 9, 2011 10:48PM

Updated: October 10, 2011 1:29AM


DETROIT — Very little is definitive in Lovie Smith’s world. Ask him if Julius Peppers has to step up, and he’ll say all his star players have to step up. Is it Mike Martz’s fault the Bears have wasted so many timeouts this season? ‘‘It’s all of us,’’ he said.

Ask him if he’s concerned about one thing, and he’ll say he’s concerned about everything. Give him a multiple-choice question, and his answer invariably is ‘‘all of the above.’’ The answer to any either-or query is ‘‘both.’’ (He's got Lovie pegged pretty well doesn't he?)

There is no biggest game. Never a defining moment. Is Ndamukong Suh the best defensive tackle he has faced? Not even worth asking this week.

But even Smith can’t ignore the import of the Bears’ game against the Lions on Monday night at Ford Field as a litmus test.

‘‘This will be a good gauge to see exactly where we are, if we corrected [mistakes],’’ Smith said. ‘‘After the first quarter of the season, this should be about who you are. I’m anxious to see who we are Monday night.’’

Aren’t we all. The Bears think they’re every bit the NFC contender they turned out to be last season. The skeptics say they’re much closer to the middle of the pack. After four games, nobody’s right. The Bears are 2-2, but their losses are to the last two Super Bowl champions — the Packers (4-0) at Soldier Field and the Saints (3-1) at the Superdome.

Their defense has been a disappointment. The Bears entered the week 31st in total yards and 20th in points allowed. But they’ve faced four teams in the top 12 in total offense, including three in the top five — the Saints (No. 2), the Panthers (No. 3) and the Packers (No. 5). And all three still would be in the top eight without their yardage against the Bears.

Maybe the Bears still will make the playoffs if they get annihilated Monday night. And maybe they’ll finish 7-9 if they win. But this has all the earmarks of a telltale game that will show us which direction Smith’s ship is sailing. It’s on the road, in a domed stadium, with a capacity crowd that’s going to be at a fever pitch from the opening kickoff and against a division rival that thinks it can be somebody. (If it's an annihilation you can bet the rest of this season will slide downhill from here)

The Bears have beaten the Lions six consecutive times and in 10 of their last 12 games, including five of the last six at Ford Field. And this game, even more than most, will hinge on the Bears’ most basic strength, the ability of their defensive line to impose its will against a Lions offensive line that thrives more on continuity than by having Pro Bowl players.

There’s nothing like a big game on the road in a dome to find out what you’ve got. Since 1994, the Bears have made the playoffs in every season they’ve had a winning record in domed stadiums (a combined 10-1 in 2001, 2006-07 and 2010.

So it seems fair to call this game pivotal, right?

‘‘It’s definitely fair for that. This is a huge game,’’ Smith said. ‘‘One game doesn’t make your season, especially a game this early, but for us, this next quarter is as important a quarter as we’ve had. (You got that right and this game has a lot to do with the rest of the season. Win it and the 2nd quarter you may go undefeated the next four games. Lose it and 2-2 may look good and 1-3 isn't impossible all on the way to another 8-8 or 7-9 season)

‘‘We’ll find out a lot more. All teams missed a lot of work in the offseason. So I don’t know if the first quarter is a true indicator of where everyone is. I think in the second quarter, you’re going to start to see exactly the pretenders separating themselves a little bit more from the teams that will actually contend.’’ (And all summer we heard how much better off the Bears would be because we were an established team. So how's that working out so far Lovie)

I agree that a season doesn't need to turn on just one game but in this case it very well may. Getting soundly beaten by a division team that most figured we would not have any problems beating twice is huge in the scheme of things. A big loss here runs the risk of the air coming out of what ever ballon carries our hopes of another division championship. We'd be 2-3 and behind two undefeated teams and any hope of even making the playoffs dims like a 15 watt light bulb. For all intents and purposes this has become a must win game.

That's a very good read.

Finally someone makes some valid points. Our D hasn't looked great, but this guy points out that our two losses are to the pack (who are now 5-0) and the saints (who are now 4-1). He also points out that the offenses we have faced are all top tier offenses.

We could look totally different this last 3/4 of the season.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by blinddeafmute

That's a very good read.

Finally someone makes some valid points. Our D hasn't looked great, but this guy points out that our two losses are to the pack (who are now 5-0) and the saints (who are now 4-1). He also points out that the offenses we have faced are all top tier offenses.

We could look totally different this last 3/4 of the season.

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Mark Potash has been turning out some very good articles on the team so I've posted many of them here. Tonight we find out just how good we are or if the Lions are for real. We have faced 4 pretty tough teams. Even Carolina is no pushover this year behind Chico's coaching and Newton's play. They came damn close to beating the Saints yesterday.

My thoughts are that if we're gonna turn the corner this is where we have to do it. The defense has to show up big time and Martz has to finally be convinced that this offense needs to driven off it's ground game setting up the pass and not vice versa.

Tonight we get to see how much of it is talk about change and how much of it is the actions to change.

After the 1st game this season, this team has been playing sort of average ( at times ) to below average football. Call it going through the motions, call it sleepwalking , call it whatever you want. But the one thing I haven't seen is inspired football i.e. a team that LOOKS like it really wants it. This D used to play like a pack of hungry wolves. Now they play like it's " let's get this game over with ". They play like guys who are tired, and looking forward to retirement. Flat. Uninspired. The O is a panic filled Chinese fire drill . When they make a play, it's a sigh of relief not a confident ' yeah we expected that'.
Yet, alot of them are great athletes who have had great success at this level ..... when they've played with passion. Re-discovering the passion is the only thing that will make playing the game fun again for these guys, cuz it's the passion that makes guys make great plays. And it's the only thing that will help them salvage this season.
And part of the fun is WANTING the challenge of a game like tonight's. We'll see how they come out, and if they sustain the effort .
This game will be the true barometer of what this team intends to be. 2 games out: and still within striking distance; or 3 games out: and knowing they're probably done.
How bad do they want it. Really want it.

What this points to is coaching then. It's up to the coaching staff on the team leaders to get the intensity level up so if that's not happening what's the reason. If I had to take a guess I'd say it may well be the very thing that I posted another article about. Managements inability to stock the team with the right talent.

If all of us can recognize this problem you have to believe the players feel it too. Going into battle every week without the right weapons has got to be wearing some of these guys down. I don't think it's age. I think it's desire or the lack thereof. Tonight we get to see if the can shrug that off and play the kind of football we saw them play against Atlanta.

That was the only time this season that I actually felt Martz'z offense was starting to work. We ran a balanced attack, 27 runs vs 32 passes, and controlled the ball well enough to win the TOP battle for the only time this season. With Ryan at QB and Roddy White, Julius Jones, and Tony Gonzales as receiver Atlanta has no worse a passing attack than the Lions but by reducing their opportunities and preventing big plays we managed a pretty convincing win.

If the offense can't succeed under Martz then the defense spends way too much time on the field and opponents get too many shots at us. Look at the Packer game. They controlled the ball for an entire quarter, 15:00 min., more than we did. No team can win consistently with their defense spending that much time on the field.

When he gets no protection Cutler's confidence wanes and the offense grinds to a halt. With just the small amount of extra time he had to throw last week and a strong running game his play is better and the offense is better. Both Cutler and the offense in general need to be even better this week. Last weeks effort won't get it done.

The final factor is all about Lovie. We all know that he's about as excitable as a corpse but it's time to lay it on the line with these guys. Either they start buckling up and playing to the level that they're capable off or it's gonna be a lost season once again. If Lovie can't motivate a group he's been coaching as long as he has many of these guys then we fall baqck to a .500 club again and that tells me Lovie needs to go. He wins, but not anywhere near consistently enough.

Some guys did play with passion tonight . But when certain players on your team flat out suck , THEY ruin ANY chance to win the game. And no amount of passion can make up for that.

Tonight we witnessed how important drafting is. Stafford, megaton, suh, fairley, best, young all contributed....

True Nick; of course that took about 5 years of being horrid and getting high top 10 picks. But then again, GB is a better example b/c they have not sucked over the past decade, and they have drafted FAR better then the Bears.

This thread is about Lovie Smith and his responsibility as the HC going into this game. I believe that responsibility, and he admits it, was to impress upon his team the importance of a win here on the road as the lynchpin to a more successful 2nd quarter of the season inorder to stay in the playoff hunt. I would have thought that he'd have impressed upon them that a loss would put them three games behind the divsion leaders and seriously impact any hope they'd have of making the playoffs. I would also have thought that above all he would have had his team better prepared against playing the flawed and uninspired game we saw tonight.

I've come to the conclusion that Lovie Smith is a null as far as a being HC is concerned. By that I mean he exerts little or no influence on the outcome of any game. He doen't add anything and he doesn't subtract anything. He doesn't deride loss and he sure as hell doesn't inspire victory. To me that's a null, a void, something that is nothing and exerts no influence on the matter at hand. Given that a HC needs to influence and inspire his team Lovie is for all intents and purposes uneeded. He himself exterts no influence on the outcome of a game because if he was capable of doing that we would have won this "must win" game.

A great example of what I mean is that Lovie is like that popular HS teacher you had who graded on the high side, let you chew gum or interupt in class, didn't report you for smoking in the boy's room, and always let you skip out of study hall to get high. You loved him. He was your favorite teacher and everyone else's too. We all took his class and we all learned absolutely nothing from him about the subject he taught. It's kind of like how the guy elected "Most Popular" is never the same guy who's elected "Most Likely To Succeed". Well that's Lovie Smith, voted by his players "Most Popular", or that favorite teacher you had in HS. It's a good thing he's been discovered as a pitchman because his coaching career is on it's downside.

Guys I've been defending Lovie of late but now I think it's time for a change. It's pretty obvious to me that this coaching staff is not going to win with this team and vice versa. It needs someone other than a Lovie Smith and something other than this cockamamie coaching staff with their weekly pronouncements of impovement followed by yet another colossal failure to do so. It reminds me of that line of Kevin Costner's in The Postman when he's asked about the new government and President Richard Starkey, Costner's character replies, "things are getting better" when we as the audience know he's lying through his teeth.

That's about the way I see things right now as we once again stand on the edge of a fall from a near NFC Championship to a second class .500 football team again. Fire Jerry Angelo for his incompetence and let Lovie and his staff go becuase dog gone it, they're just too nice of guys to be winners. Time to clean house.