Thread: Any time the offense wants to play a first half, fine by me

Originally Posted by Riczaj01

too many fans were willing to put his flaws on the OL and WR's, and not look at the fact that he's always been turn over prone and erratic, even in Denver. JC needs to improve his game if he and the Bears are going to reach the SB and beyond.

He's playing behind a very powerful offense right now. Even a "game manager" QB could be successful behind this group. That's good news for the bears, and a GREAT situation for Cutler. He just needs to settle down and limit the early mistakes in games. And that's so do-able.

This is going to be a really great year. Solid defense, solid special teams - and for the first time in ages we have a solid offense.

Originally Posted by 4DaBERS

I happen to be pretty optimistic about our Offense. My reasoning is this. Starting out games slow and then getting into a groove is a consistent symtom between many teams of a new offense. Timing, reads, coordination are all things that suffer in a new offense, and the fact that they are "getting it" to the point of at least playing a good half of football is promising. Jay's bad throws are a problem, but it could be the result of him not knowing how his O-Line will hold up against the Defense that day, and until he gets comfortable, he's a little gunshy. He may also be concerned about his receivers making the proper adjustments to audibles or hot reads and not having faith in them until they have shown a few series of making the proper adjustments to the defense. Jay has had more than one or two int's because his receivers and he did not read the defense the same way. Yesterday's INT was unquestionably on him; yea he had a bad snap, but a good QB throws that away if he can't re-read the secondary soon enough. Fortunately, it didn't hurt us. That said, those things DO need to get cleaned up and that is on him (Jay). I hope I'm being realistic when I say that we might see some more improvement after the bye.

We're in good shape, and Cutler should improve with every game. You hit the nail on the head, in that this is a new offense with a lot of changes since last year.

I'm not worried at all about Cutler. I think this is normal to have some rough spots this early in the season, considering all of the changes.

If this is our worst problem this year (Cutler settling down with a new offense) then we're going to be a great team. Cutler will improve every week now, as he settles in with the new offense.

p.s. Kudo's to Mike Tice for making blocking adjustments. I really didn't think the blocking could be improved this much this year.

Originally Posted by JustAnotherBearsFan99

He's playing behind a very powerful offense right now. Even a "game manager" QB could be successful behind this group. That's good news for the bears, and a GREAT situation for Cutler. He just needs to settle down and limit the early mistakes in games. And that's so do-able.

This is going to be a really great year. Solid defense, solid special teams - and for the first time in ages we have a solid offense.

Agree completely but this team is still one step below the "elite" of the NFL right now (Houston, Atlanta, San Fran) IMHO. That last step largely comes down to a bad habit of offensive miscues and general inability to score in the first quarter/half.

You can get away with that when your D is getting 3+ takeaways and 14 points per game. We all know that isn't going to happen every week and relying on it is dangerous.

You can get away with it when you're playing a marginal to terrible offense (St. Louis, Jacksonville) that can't take advantage of opportunities very well. A good team would have us down 14-3 at half yesterday. Changes a lot of things going into the 3rd, doesn't it?

I know that no unit and no QB can be "on" every game or every half of every game. I really would just like to see Jay raise his floor a bit when things aren't clicking well on all cylinders. Muddle through and limit mistakes. Don't press everything to Marshall. Use the run since you two great backs. Be accurate even when the "big play" isn't there.

As good as Cutler was in the 2nd half, he was pretty bad in the 1st. Had a terrible pick (could easily have had 1-2 more) and looked like he couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat. He threw passes that had ZERO chance of being catchable. And btw that was against a bad defense with minimal DL/blitz pressure on him. I understand it can't always be a thing of beauty but I'd like the "non-beautiful" times be a little less ugly.

I agree MP. In fact, Cutler doesn't have to win games on his own now. He just needs to settle down so he doesn't lose games for us.

I'm not saying he has to turn into Kyle Orton, a game manager, but just don't turn into "Bad Jay" the int machine.