Thread: Lovie Slowly Gaining Converts.................

For one of the nine Chicago sportswriters who picked the Bears to lose to Philly on Monday night Haugh is sure doing a big about face. I wonder if he wiped the egg of his face all by himself or whether Lovie helped him with that. Here's a pretty complimentary article about our HC.

Maybe he's right in saying we should cut Lovie a bit more slack and if he brings this team into the playoffs instead of falling back to the usual .500 season following a championship year I'd be willing to do that. But up to that point you really can't say the criticism hasn't been deserved. Like I alwasy say, we're Bears fans and it's what we do. It's also what Chicago sportswriters do when they're not betting against the Bears.

I'll say this much. Lovie has turned a team with far less talent than it needs to compete for a champioship around again this year and has them at least headed in the right direction for the playoffs. The defensive game plan against the Eagles was masterful. How long have we been yelling for Lovie to get those CB's up in the grill's of the WR's instead of playing 10 yards off? I guess we weren't the only ones who were surprised by that. Vick wasn't expecting it either. Now maybe he'll use that again this week and again against the Packers.

Marinelli's strategies for containing and harassing Vick worked prety well too. We didn't sack him often but we sure pestered him enough to take him out of his game. Most of the time it looked like he was wearing Peppers like a "tramp stamp". That guy just amazes me. On a bum knee he can still chase Vick down from halfway across the field. Briggs and Urlacher turned in one of their best games of the year as well and aside from Wright being torn out of his jockstrap by McCoy on one key 3rd down play the Safties did a comendable job.

Haugh is correct when he says that the Bears showed up better prepared for the Eagles than they were for the Bears. Lovie did actually outcoach one of the best in the game. How often can we say that? Maybe the most admirable thing about Lovie of late is that he's not just asking for accountability from his guys he's DEMANDING it with consequences to follow if he's not getting out of them what is expected.

There were several camera shots of Forte cooling his heels on the sideline while Barber took his carries and he looked none too happy. It must have worked though because he came back in and played like it had never happened and made certain he had the ball tucked away after that. Even Martz seems to being held accountable for calling a balanced game now. Even though he still falls back into some ridiculous calls at least they're less frequent now than they were a few weeks ago. I just wonder why we had to go through this with him again this year.

All things considered I guess there are some things to be optimistic about and maybe the most important is that his players respect Lovie Smith and they want to play for him. Hopefully that's enough to take a team that's short on championship talent just a bit farther down the line than most of us expected.

Who needs roller coasters when you can read David Haugh's articles?

They'll all change their tune this week and it will jinx us, watch. I like it better when the Bears are being disrespected. They play better ball.

I think I will rest my case when I say that the Bears are a better team now than they were this time last year. I don't think there was a single time last season where the Bears were ever respected by the mass media. Never one time during the Lovie Smith era has the team gotten the respect they either richly did or did not deserve. This was the case in 2005 when the offense was, in effect, worse than last season's unit, and in 2006, when we went to the Super Bowl. In both season's cases, our quarterback situation was deplorable; Kyle Orton was a rookie who was a "not ready for prime time player" in '05, while Grossman couldn't avoid turning the ball over in 2006 and 2007. To top that off, for the following three years after the two championship seasons, the team finished around .500 and missed the playoffs each time. Then, last year came, with an unlikely run toward the NFC Championship Game and the division crown. However, because of a porous offensive line, the offense was much maligned for the first half of the season. The media never did hop on the Bears' bandwagon from the start of the ascent toward competing for a Super Bowl. It just now appears to be doing so.

I think that time will be telling. Right now, they are hitting on all cylinders: the offensive line is playing well, which means that both Cutler and the running combination of Matt Forte and Marion Barber are gaining the necessary yardage it takes to put the Bears in position to score. The defense, after getting off to a slow start, is looking like the unit that finished in the top five last year after three stellar performances against the Vikings, Buccaneers, and Eagles. Special Teams continues to thrive like always. The only real weakness on this team is the wide receivers, and luckily, Earl Bennett is back and in top form. The team will ultimately look to pound away at the Lions defensive line, which has struggled at stopping the run. What will be interesting will be how the Bears respond to the pass rush led by Ndamukong Suh, Nick Fairley (provided that he's back), and Kyle Vanden Bosch. That unit is not as good as Atlanta's, Minnesota's, or Philadelphia's defensive lines. I think the Lions are in for another rude awakening, as I think that the Bears are a better team right now than the two teams who beat the Lions a few weeks ago (Falcons, whom we defeated; and 49ers, who don't play anybody other than the sisters of the poor in the NFC West). I predict that the Bears will beat the Lions at Soldier Field on Sunday.

Seeing as how this team is all-around a better unit than the one we were treated to last season, I think that down stretch, there isn't a team on the schedule they're not capable of beating. This includes the Packers, who have one of the worst defenses in the NFL this season. The trick to beating them will be to do like they did in the last meeting and slow down their offense enough to keep Rodgers off the field. The modus operandi here is to do as Martz has been doing the past few games by creating a balance of run and pass plays. The defense can keep the Packers to 21-28 points; I'm more concerned with the Bears scoring 30 or more. Detroit has a weak defense and is even worse in the running game without Jahvid Best and Mikel LeShoure. Seattle, Minnesota, and Denver are our two weakest remaining teams. The entire AFC West is weak this season and is ripe for being swept by the Bears.

I know that the likely hood of going undefeated the rest of the way is highly unlikely, but it is certainly not outside of the question in terms of what the team is capable of doing. The key is to remain focus and to stay healthy, plus to prepare for each game and out-coaching the competition. The Bears did that on Monday night. Now they need to do it seven more times.

I don't think there's any question about the fact that we have better personnel than we did last year but from the get go that wasn't making us any better of a team. In fact we seemed to be playing worse until Cutler had his "come to Jesus" talk with Martz about how "his" (Jay's, not Martz's) offense needed to be run. IMHO that has turned everything around except Lovies game day coaching, although he did finally win a challenge against the Bucs after being shot down in flames 6 times before that.

This past game was the first time in forever that I actuall feel like he outcoached the other guy and I do like the fact that he's stepping up and calling his players out over underperformance. That's not much like the Lovie of old. The team is back to being more "run oriented" and overall we look much "tougher" out there than we did to begin the season. We're actually beginning to do some of our own ass kicking instead of having ours kicked every week.

I'm very anxious to see what's in store for us this Sunday. Even moreso than the Eagles game we need this one in the win column too. Not only is time for a home game payback but it's like a two point game. We win and they lose so we pick up a game on them an it's all tied up with us heading for games against a very weak AFC West. If we beat the Lions, and we should, I can see us going 3-1 or maybe even 4-0 against the AFC West. If we can pull that off we'd be sitting pretty and Lovie would get my vote for coach of the year based on the turnaround we've had.

Originally Posted by soulman

I don't think there's any question about the fact that we have better personnel than we did last year but from the get go that wasn't making us any better of a team. In fact we seemed to be playing worse until Cutler had his "come to Jesus" talk with Martz about how "his" (Jay's, not Martz's) offense needed to be run. IMHO that has turned everything around except Lovies game day coaching, although he did finally win a challenge against the Bucs after being shot down in flames 6 times before that.

This past game was the first time in forever that I actuall feel like he outcoached the other guy and I do like the fact that he's stepping up and calling his players out over underperformance. That's not much like the Lovie of old. The team is back to being more "run oriented" and overall we look much "tougher" out there than we did to begin the season. We're actually beginning to do some of our own ass kicking instead of having ours kicked every week.

I'm very anxious to see what's in store for us this Sunday. Even moreso than the Eagles game we need this one in the win column too. Not only is time for a home game payback but it's like a two point game. We win and they lose so we pick up a game on them an it's all tied up with us heading for games against a very weak AFC West. If we beat the Lions, and we should, I can see us going 3-1 or maybe even 4-0 against the AFC West. If we can pull that off we'd be sitting pretty and Lovie would get my vote for coach of the year based on the turnaround we've had.

I like your thinking, soul. We have a real chance to do well down the stretch. As I said before, we have the ability to go undefeated the rest of the way if luck is on our side and we play our best football. The Packers are ripe for a loss, and I think they are going to lose to the Giants this year. I won't say that they will lose to the Vikings, but look at it this way: they nearly bought the farm against them up in the Minneapolis. I know that the next Packers game against Minny is in Green Bay, but I look to see the Packers get tested again. The Giants are just too balanced and I think that will be the Packers toughest challenge to date. I'm interested in seeing what it will be like when they play the Lions this year. Detroit has a good quick strike offense and should be able to keep up with the Packers' offensive onslaught. The problem for the Lions will be when it comes down to running out the clock - they really have no running game to speak of right now since both Best and LeShoure are out (at least I think Best is down - someone verify this for me). I think we can beat the Packers in a close game on Christmas. It will be very interesting to see what happens when Green Bay plays more AFC West teams. They struggled against San Diego. With not having looked at their website, I haven't seen who all else they have played out of that division.

I think we will finish no worse than 2nd in the NFC North. I wouldn't be at all shocked to see us in the NFC Divisional Playoff round.

Yes, Best is out with a concussion. If we can take CJohn away from Stafford we can make it a long day for their offense. If we could score 14 points against them with our offense misfiring the way it did last time we should be able to at least double that output this time.

Two big plays in that last game was what beat us and I don't see that happening the same way again. If we could have made them play our game the last time working it down the field for scores we could have beaten them. This game will be another challenge for Peanut and Chris Conte. Those are the two that will need to keep a lid on Megatron.

Originally Posted by soulman

Yes, Best is out with a concussion. If we can take CJohn away from Stafford we can make it a long day for their offense. If we could score 14 points against them with our offense misfiring the way it did last time we should be able to at least double that output this time.

Two big plays in that last game was what beat us and I don't see that happening the same way again. If we could have made them play our game the last time working it down the field for scores we could have beaten them. This game will be another challenge for Peanut and Chris Conte. Those are the two that will need to keep a lid on Megatron.

The truth is, Megatron hasn't been nearly as effective in recent weeks as he was the first four-five weeks of the season. He started out the first four games with two touchdowns per, but since then has only gotten about three more if you take into consideration what he was averaging. Chris Harris was still injured and just didn't get back on coverage quick enough. On top of that, our defensive line is making strides on stuffing the run. We held the Eagles to almost 60 or 70 yards below their season average in rushing yards. Detroit right now has no running game. The Lions are going to be rendered to the point of being a one-dimensional team offensively. You may well have seen the last major push thwarted by the 49ers and the Falcons. They've been exposed, and it's time for us to crack them open like a pinata.