Thread: what we learned

Originally Posted by JJ-30

I have to disagree with both of you. Our Offense and Tice played a good game. Tice had to throw out his game plan, because Cutler was hurt and because of that Cutler couldn't throw the ball like he wanted to.The whole idea in the second half was game management and let the D on what they do best. Had we fallen behind we would have been in real trouble with Cutler not being able to play even 75% of how likes to play. Cutler stated he was hurting alot especially when he tried to throw the ball.

JJ had passed early when he should have been running both Bush and Forte straight at those guys. Both Suh and Fairley are gap shooters and when we ran straight at them we gained yardage. Forte couldn't get to the edge because they had it sealed but Bush was making gains against them and Tice abandoned the run just like he admitted doing against GB.

Cutler could still throw he but when their were opportunities to take advantage of them when they were 8 in the box and quick slants or seam routes would have worked he played too conservatively and we let them back in the game.

What do you call his play calling when we had 1st and goal on the 4. Quick slants two of which were nearly picked and not one run or fade? Damn, I could have called a lot better series than that from my desk.

Nope, Tice does not get let off the hook for this one. It was a lousy effort on his part. Not the players. His part.

Originally Posted by XxMidwayMonstersxX

What I learned:

Coaching Staff:

The Bears staff had the team ready to play and game-planned effectively on defense and special teams. We played all the way through the game and never let up the pressure. I think the staff did a great job with the exception of Tice.

Tice I give a C on the standard A through F scale. I say this because we left at least 7 points on the board when we threw 3 and out on the 4 yard line. 3 passes to Marshal in a row? Come on! Tice has to be better, no excuses, my bullshit-filter is full. USE BUSH!

Overall its a typically well coached Lovie Smith game.

Defense:

21 takeaways, leading the NFL. Nothing more to say really except that there will come a day when we don't get 3 red-zone turnovers and our opponents will have 21 points and not 3 turnovers. Need to be better offensively :/

Awesome job here. Very dominant. Pass rush is amazing and Tillman, wow.

Offense:

I liked the offense in this game more than any other game this season. We started strong, which is something we haven't been able to do this year. We scored when the game was 0-0 and the pressure was on to make the first move. I like that. Lovie Smith coached teams don't lose when they have the lead. Jay getting injured hurt us bad, we should all be thankful its just some bruising.

The line did a decent job against a dominant pass rush. 5 sacks isn't great but most plays Cutler had ample time to get the ball out.

The running game was solid as usual, Bush and Forte are the best duo in the league right now hands down. How did Oakland let Bush go? What a blunder. Kind of like us letting Greg Olsen go. Man Kellen Davis sucks, if we still had Olsen we would be all set.

(I hate talking junk about KD because he just put on a huge fund raiser to raise money for that fan who got killed in Jacksonville, class act I say. But that doesn't mean he gets to drop wide open passes!)

Brandon Marshal continues to impress, I love the way he goes for YAC... so hard to take down. Earl Bennett made some critical first down plays and is another receiver who fights hard for YAC. We are going to be dangerous with Marshal, Jeffery, and Bennett once they are all healthy and in the lineup again. Not surprisingly Hester was a non-factor on special teams and at WR, when are people going to stop expecting him to be good? I know I stopped years ago.

Special Teams:

Great recovery on the muffed punt. Just goes to show you that anything can happen on any play and in any phase. On the other side of the token, blocked field goals make me want to throw up. Overall solid job here, nothing spectacular though.


Essentially I agree with many points the OP made. Great game, always fun to thrash the Lions.

Good breakdown but I don't agree with you about the offensive effort. I won't hang that on the players though. That's on Tice and I don't believe it had anything to do with Cutler's injury. The bad play calling began long before that. Cutler made that whole drive work with improvisation and his legs. Once again he saves his OC's ass with his mobility.

Hester's head was somewhere else tonight. It wasn't in the game that's for sure. He looked confused on return and his lack of effort on a couple of throws was obvious. He had some kind of an injury and I think he should have sat. They need to use Bennett and Sanz more to replace Jeffery and a whole lot less of Hester at Flanker.

Carimi had another couple of bad plays again tonight. My biggest concern is the way the power rushers are manhandling him on bull rushes. He needs to take care of that issue and on another play he let Suh come off the edge untouched. Major boo boo there that could have gotten Cutler killed. He's not very sharp at all right now.

And then there's Tice, Tice, Tice and Tice, and Tice and Tice and Tice. Sounds like a law firm and he should hire one before he's sued for fraud for calling himself an OC. He really needs to hand over the play calling to Bates. He's just as bad or worse than Martz was.

Originally Posted by XxMidwayMonstersxX

To be fair, we had 36 called passes and 28 called runs.

Thats 59.4% pass and 43.75% run.

So its not that we got away from the run, people have a problem with the actual game planning.

What did we run on those extra 3.15% of the plays? I must have missed those. Will they show up on the game replay?

Looks like 56.25% pass and 43.75% to me but my calculator might be running slow. Maybe I should rewind it.

And that was too much passing especially those three on the goaline. I'm giving him some benefit of the doubt because stupid penalties put us in some long yardage situations but once again he abandoned what worked and that was to run straight at them. The best runs both Forte and Bush had were run inside the tackles.

Look, it's only my opinion but I thought it was a very poorly called game.

I believe that one of Carimi's holding penalties came when VandenBosch jumped offsides, Carimi held him to keep him from getting to Cutler. It was ruled offsetting penalties, repeat the down, IIRC.