Thread: Climb down from the ledge, my friend JABF

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

Just to clarify.

I'm not saying our season is over or anything remotely like that. I'm just presenting the facts, that a poor oline makes our season's outlook a bit dimmer. Common sense tells us that an oline is important to the success of a team's offense. The "Football IQ" of the posters here is HIGH. So, I'm not telling folks what they don't already know.

I'm trying to not be at either extreme. Some seem to poo-poo the importance of an oline. Some seem to believe we have a good enough oline. I'm not saying we're at the other extreme either - this alone won't tank our season.

What then, DOES this mean for our season?

We should still be a decent team. We won't reach our FULL potential on offense if we have a poor oline. That doesn't mean we won't have some good games. We will still knock off bottom-feeders. We may not beat the best NFL teams (like the Packers).

We won't be as good as we COULD be if we had a rock solid offensive line, that allowed our skill postions to reach their FULL POTENTIAL.

Hopefully this isn't radical thinking. But just being objective and looking at the facts. An oline that gives us less than 1 yard per carry like our guys did on Friday against the Giants starters has problems. You'd have to be in total denial to disregard what we've seen in oline performance this pre-season.

We have 15 days now to manufacture a solid oline. We can improve incrementally in 15 days. We won't see miracles happen though.

Everything you said is true. There is no doubt whatsoever that the OL is our weakest unit and weakest link. There is no doubt that the possibility of consistent OL failure in the RS is the biggest threat to our season. Maybe key injuries are a close second -- I am assuming that Urlacher will be back and play 90%+ for most of the season. If not I doubt we make the playoffs.

We are stuck again with making chicken salad out of chicken shit. JA blew it by not signing Bushrod last offseason. Maybe drafting DeCastro (or even Cordy Glenn) over Shea would have been wiser in retrospect, at least for the here and now. There's no doubt that Angelo left the cupboard bare on the OL outside of Carimi and that Tice was far too (over-)confident in Webb's development and mental maturation. I think we all agree that the overall talent level we have on the OL is far lower than than at any other position. Outside of signing a vet waiver casualty to man swing OT and free up CWill for LG, there is nothing that can be done about the personnel we have at this point.

All Tice & Co. can do is stop jerking around and stop the ongoing bleeding that comes with shuffling players/positions and putting fails like Rachal and CW @ LT out there to...fail again. With (compared to Martz) better scheme and playcalling and protection packages AND setting the best 5 in their best 5 positions AND leaving them there to develop some sense of coordination, I think the pass pro can be adequate. Nothing to write home about but halfway decent.

The run blocking will improve with the above as well. I think you've said this before: that good run blocking in particular requires the same 5 to play together for an extended period. We saw that last year too. The run AND PASS blocking was terrible the first few weeks. Remember the NO & GB games? I doubt we had 100 yards total on the ground between both combined, including QB scrambles. It got much better starting around week 4 or 5 and that was without our best in Carimi. I am kinda expecting the same this year--rough start with incremental improvement--unfortunately because Tice has squandered most of the PS playing CW out of position to "motivate" Webb and trying to pound a square peg into the round hole at LG. Time's a wastin' so lets stop wasting more.

We are a bit lucky (both OL-wise and Urlacher-wise) that we have 3 of our first 5 games against crap teams followed by an early bye week. Given the injury uncertainties and OL follies, hate to say it but I've given up much hope for surprising upset (to the pundits) in Lambeau on 9/13. 10-20% chance to win there now imho. I still think we can get thru to week #7 at 3-2 and maybe even 4-1 since Dallas has plenty of their own internal issues going on. I'd settle for 3-2 and coming out of the bye reasonably healthy with the OL making the same strides it did mid-season last year.

Yeah, I am frustrated and concerned. I am particularly pissed at Webb and his cavalier attitude. If he had put his ass in gear and "blossomed" this PS like a lot of us hoped a 3rd year player manning the position with a full year's experience + OTAs behind him, CWilliams would probably have been left at LG where he's best and also has real game experience. Instead, Webb eff'd up the whole thing and we were left to watch Tice try players at LG who have never played it before just so CW could be used to "push" dunderhead Webb up to the point he should have been starting at in late July.

I'm not ready to panic yet but I am sure there are some Tums in my future viewing next month. Have any Kool-Aid handy I can wash them down with?

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

I am climbing back in off the ledge now.

Seriously, I believe we had multiple failures on defense, offense & special teams. Most of these can be cleaned up. But I stand by the fact the offensive line was bad. It is bad.

Against the 1st team defense we averaged about 1/2 yard per carry. Any way you try to spin that, it's bad. You don't win many NFL games with that kind of run-blocking.

The pass blocking was good at times. Bad at times. Inconsistent. That's how I saw the game.

I completely agree about Cutler, and all the other failures. But those can be eliminated. I have no doubt about that. I do feel our offensive line is the worst I've seen in many years (yes, worse than last year. I don't understand how that happened. But I see that we have regressed).

If Jerry is up there with you give him a wedgie and kick of off the ledge before you come down.