What we learnedOakland/Chicago

Sorry for the delay here; had to trim the tree and make dinner. We are not beating any playoff ready teams when we come in w/that gameplan and play like that. D, and the wr's for that matter, dropped to many balls. Our D dropped at least 3 if not 4 int's; that changes this game completely. The WR's dropped at least that many, and that put more pressure on a qb that didn't need any help in that area. The playcalling was not good, but I'm not going to say that was the reason we lost; that is on Haine and the WR's. If we play like this; we'll lose to Denver; this is their style of game, low scoring and Ugly. The Raiders just wore us down on both ends, they stopped the run early which was enough to make Martz not lean on it, then it was just trying to bait our young qb. Their O was able to just outlast our D, who finally wore out from the bruising run play to the WR's making our DB's tire also. The Refs were horrible; they really didn't help us, Haine was inbounnds(does he throw that int if it's 3 and 9? And Louis wasn't a horsecollar.

Bears O: Haine was bad; but had flashes of being a capable backup. Martz needs to get the ball to Forte in passing routes out of the backfield; use him instead of the bubble screen. W/a Def that was going to be bunched w/in 10 yards of the line, you had to try and loosen them up; and we didn't until it was too late. The OL got beat time and time again in the run game, Many times Barber/Forte had to fight just to get to the LoS. When there was a whole they were able to exploit it though. The WR's apparently hate Haine b/c it seemed like they dropped 75% of key balls.

Bears D: Played well enough, but this is what happens when you give up yards; the field position can easily be flipped and the other team can get FG's; and it cost us today. As stated before, they also dropped way to many int's; and got no strips(all the Raiders were taking damn good care of that ball once contact was made). They were getting sacks and pressures which was a nice sign, Jenning got beat on that one play that sealed it; but until then he was D player of the game. Bush wore them down though.

Bears ST: Had a bad day, they also did Haine no favors early on w/some dumb calls. Hester has a bad shin and you have him returning? Sit his ass down and let others take care of it. Hester looked slow and lacked explosiveness. Gould was a badass again, it's a shame we never had field position to take adavantage of him. I wish we had a punter that could flip field position like that Raider Punder could...wow now that's a leg.

Bears Coaches: WTF? Hey we have a really inexperienced QB, on the road in a HOSTILE invornment, against a NASTY D, and you win the kickoff and give him the ball? Really? This D is who has to win these games, and the Raiders O isn't going to be likened to the Packers anytime soon. We should have kicked, taken the ball at the half, and let the D stop the Raiders O on that first drive, and let Haine come. 2nd, we tried to run early, we really did, but everyone knew(including these coaches) that the Raiders were going to stuff that line and not let anyone run....and w/that we were still able to break a few long ones off. It should have been play action constantly. And why the F do you do a cross field screen w/Haine? He doesn't have that kind of arm, and he doesn't have the experience to see when and he can and cannot throw that ball.


Really disappointed in this game, the tempo, the energy never seemed on our side; and after that first knox td, when we had a chance to switch it, they did nothing to build off it. Haine needs a better game next week, or we'll lose to KC...and He needs a MUCH better game against Den, or we lose to them also.

Rapid Reaction: Raiders 25, Bears 20 - Chicago Bears Blog - ESPN Chicago

Rapid Reaction: Raiders 25, Bears 20


OAKLAND, Calif. -- What looked like a debacle in the making turned out to be a hard-fought contest Sunday with the Bears' five-game winning streak coming to an end by virtue of a 25-20 loss to the Oakland Raiders.

No need to over-analyze this one. Undoubtedly, the three interceptions thrown by Caleb Hanie made the difference.

http://assets.espn.go.com/i/teamlogo.../trans/chi.gifhttp://assets.espn.go.com/i/teamlogo.../trans/oak.gifDespite the turnovers, Hanie displayed enough moxie to give the Bears at least a small level of comfort regarding his ability to lead them to wins in the absence of starting quarterback Jay Cutler.

Still, there will be questions about Hanie, the play calling, the running game and everything else.

We’ll cover a couple of those, in addition to pointing out some positives:

What it means: Chicago appears to have opened the door to the other contenders fighting for the two NFC wild-card playoff spots with the loss against the Raiders. The Bears own tiebreakers against the Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons -- both 7-4 -- but they missed out on an opportunity to solidify their standing. The New York Giants (6-4) face the New Orleans Saints on Monday night, and also have a shot at getting into the picture.

In addition, a victory in Hanie’s first start would have gone a long way toward the team building confidence he can get it done over the next few weeks with Cutler out with a broken thumb. Despite Hanie’s gutsy attempt to rally the Bears in the fourth quarter, it’s likely there are questions within the staff and locker room about the quarterback’s ability to carry them into the postseason.

Obviously the schedule sets up well with a home game Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, followed by matchups with the Denver Broncos, Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings to close out the regular season. The expectation within the staff is that Cutler will be back for one of the last two regular-season contests.

So the team needs to know Hanie can carry them until then.

Three in a row: Starting his second consecutive outing at nickel corner in place of D.J. Moore, who missed the game with an ankle injury, Corey Graham picked off his third pass in as many games in the first half.

Safety Brandon Meriweather tipped a Carson Palmer pass intended for Chaz Schilens with Graham coming up with the loose ball. The play only demonstrates that Graham -- one of the team’s best special-teams players -- is also capable of stepping into a major role on defense.

Graham is playing on a one-year deal so it will be interesting to see what kinds of overtures the team will make to bring back Graham for 2012.

Penalties costly: Officials flagged the Bears four times for 40 yards in the first eight minutes of the game.

A holding penalty by Craig Steltz forced Chicago to start its first possession of the game on the 18. The Bears started their third drive of the contest on their own 16 as a result of a Zack Bowman holding penalty.

Once that drive started, a personal foul by Tyler Clutts killed a 17-yard scramble by Hanie. On the very next play, a J’Marcus Webb false-start penalty pushed the team back to its own 14.

The lost field position proved valuable because after the Webb penalty, Stanford Routt picked off a Hanie pass intended for Matt Forte. The Raiders gained a net of 2 yards on the ensuing drive with Sebastian Janikowski kicking a 47-yard field goal to help his team to a 6-0 lead.

Interestingly, the Raiders came into Sunday’s game as the league’s most penalized team. With 10 minutes left to play, the Bears had been flagged six times for 51 yards, while the Raiders committed just four penalties for 29 yards.

Catch it Jennings: It’s often said that defensive backs are failed receivers, and Bears cornerback Tim Jennings demonstrated why against the Raiders.

Jennings dropped at least two interceptions that could have led to Bears points.

What’s next: The Bears host the Chiefs on Sunday at Soldier Field.

damn double posts!

Too many bad choices by Hanies early in the game. He dug himself a hole that he couldn't climb out of. Even though we still haqd chances later that pick right before the half was the straw that broke our backs. It was at least a 6 point swing and very possibly a 10 point swing and eiher would have been enough to win a tight ball game. That's a thrown he should never have made but it's also a call Martz shouldn't have made either. The Raider were playing the edges and the screens and they anticipated that one very well. Throwing backside againt that defense jusy wasn't smart and it probably cost us the game.

You can add to that the fact the even though the defense played a great game they couldn't come up with a big 3rd down stop on the last Raider scoring drive and after playing an almost perfect game for whatever reason Jennings let his man go for that big completion right before the Raiders TD. I don't know if he was expecting help from the Safety or he just blew it but someone sure did. The guy was in the clear by 10 yards. Pass rush was better until that last drive and when we needed a sack to stop them they failed.

Too many picks, too many drops by WRs, a non-call PI on a pass to RWill that would have kept a drive alive and forced us to settle for another FG, and at least 3 drops of potential picks by our secondary. We didn't help Hanie enough and he sure as hell didn't help him self with those first half picks. This was a game we could have and should have one but we handed it to them with out mistakes.

Hanie has to work real hard in practice this week learning to find and connect with Bennett like Cutler does. Knox and Forte had key drops that may have been game changers and Hanie seemed to have trouble locating Bennett. Another week of heavy duty work on timing and he should do better passing. He improved as the game progressed. The Oline didn't give him much time early on and they always had a guy spying his rollouts to the right.

Barber looked good and we gained yardage on the ground when we ran straight at them. Can't run the edges when their DE are sealing and the cutbacks are taken away by the extra man. You have to run a power game right at them. Back to the drawing board for next week. The Oline has to pick it up again in protection and Hanie has to make much better decisions and throw a better ball than he did today. With Cutler playing we win this game by two TDs.

No doubt Soul, this is a blow out if Cutler is in. This is a win w/better playcalling and better decision making by Haine. The D held them to fg's, 6 field goals is still too many to give up. I think Jennings just got suckered on that route honestly. I think the WR just made a really good fake and Jennings bit to hard and couldn't recover.

I'd like to know what happened to RWill after the first qtr, seemed like Haine was looking for him a lot, and all of a sudden he disappeared. Knox looked like the focal point in the gameplan this week. Bennett didn't get looks until it was too late. Poor choices.

That backscreen, if my childeren weren't around, would have had me jumping and screaming. Just run the ball; or throw it in the endzone. If no one is open throw it out of the endzone. Haine showed he has a good deep arm, and yet we didn't use it.

Hanie will be fine once he settles in and learns to find Bennett a little more. To many throws went to Forte on routes Bennett should be running ans that's where those first two picks came from. I'm guessing, and probably right, that those were just put in this week. Forte doesn't usually run those routes so you have two guys practicing something new under game time conditions. I'll put part of that on Martz just like I put part of that last pick on him.

He has got to stop getting cute and outsmarting his team. They're the only ones being fooled by it. As the game wore on Hanie's execution got better as the playcalling centered around stuff that worked but early on it was horrible. Hanie is a better passer than that but his receivers weren't helping him much and the line wasn't giving him any room to step into his throws. That second pick was an example to throwing one up for grabs because he no room to step into the throw and he threw high to clear the inside rush. They need to give him better pass lanes than they do Cutler and they didn't do it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soulman

Hanie will be fine once he settles in and learns to find Bennett a little more. To many throws went to Forte on routes Bennett should be running ans that's where those first two picks came from. I'm guessing, and probably right, that those were just put in this week. Forte doesn't usually run those routes so you have two guys practicing something new under game time conditions. I'll put part of that on Martz just like I put part of that last pick on him.

He has got to stop getting cute and outsmarting his team. They're the only ones being fooled by it. As the game wore on Hanie's execution got better as the playcalling centered around stuff that worked but early on it was horrible. Hanie is a better passer than that but his receivers weren't helping him much and the line wasn't giving him any room to step into his throws. That second pick was an example to throwing one up for grabs because he no room to step into the throw and he threw high to clear the inside rush. They need to give him better pass lanes than they do Cutler and they didn't do it.

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Something that is giving me some hope is that I think Martz has learned what Hanie can and cannot do and hopefully he changes his plan of attack. He has shown in the past that he can adapt to situations that are not successful and hopefully this one does not take 6 weeks.

The Hanie/Martz combo will improve next week.

What is nice is Haine really is a lesser Cutler, he's got the speed and agility, and has good arm strength, but he doesn't have the cannon or the experience. He's got to allow him to roll out a little more. I think it would be wise to try and use those Big TE's more also, those are nice outlets for young qb's.

Lovie Smith won a challenge.

He's been doing that a lot this year. I think they took it out of his hands and someone is telling him when it's a good idea.