Thread: No Excuses Like "We Won Didn't We"; The Offense is Just Plain Bad.......

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Originally Posted by soulman

Tice's play-calling in question:

I realize the Bears were playing from behind, but not by that much, so why weren't they running the ball more? Matt Forte was averaging 6.4 yards per attempt, yet he rushed only 10 times through three quarters. (Forte kills these guys with his running yet gets just 15 carries all day and Bush gets just 4. Where's the common sense in play calling that dictates that?)


Well, you can't prove you have architected an "explosive" passing game by running it, can you?


Need to improve talent at the tight end position:

It's becoming increasingly clear that the Bears need to upgrade at the tight end position. Matt Speath cannot catch the football—he is known for his blocking—yet the Bears run him out there as a receiver at times. (Yeah let's throw down field to Spaeth on a crucial 3rd down play rather than Davis even when we all know Spaeth is a terrible pass receiver even on short passes. Last week in his press conference Tice was crowing about how great he'd been playing so let's get cute and expand his role.....right. How that go Mike? I guess you did it because Carolina wasn't expecting you to throw to him. Now do you know why? Outsmarted yourself again huh?)

Olsen was a much better tight end than anyone we have today - at least based on current performance.


Where was Earl Bennett in first three quarters?:

Bennett's first catch came late in the third quarter, then the Bears completed another one to him right after that. It's as if they forgot about him and when he caught a pass, they went, "Hey, maybe we can throw the football to that guy!"

So much was said about how big it would be for Cutler to have Bennett back, and how much chemistry the two have since they played college ball together, so why wasn't he part of the game plan? (An excellent question. Why is it that we have one of the best clutch receivers in the league and a guy who virtually never drops a catchable ball sitting on the bench again while we keep starting Hester even though Hester can't get open much and frequently can't catch the ball when he does. It's like the NYG signing Roy Williams and deciding to play him over Victor Cruz. I guess that's why they're SB champs and we're not.

If Tice keeps starting Hester over Bennett and doesn't activate Sanz then he should either be ordered to by Lovie or stripped of his OC title and Bates promoted to it. This is just as ridiculous as having 6 TEs on the team and not putting even one of them into the passing game either)


The Hester over Bennett thing has been stupid and continues to be stupid. Lovie and Tice need to stop looking at reality the way they would like it to be and see reality for what it is. Bennett makes plays. Hester does much less so. They need to see that, understand that and digest that. If the issue is that Hester makes more money, well, that is on them. That still doesn't make Hester better. Continuing to throw money into an inferior investment just nets larger losses. It usually does not turn things around.
Just bad coaching/management/decision making here. No way to sugar coat it.



Panthers squibbed to keep the ball away from Devin Hester, but the Bears couldn't capitalize:

Last time the two teams faced each other, Hester had a 69-yard punt return for a TD and another long kick return, so this time the Panthers kicked it away from him. This created terrific field position for Chicago, but they couldn't take advantage.

I see the same things you do. I feel we are in trouble against the top tier teams unless we live up to our potential, but I feel that the worst time to try to grow is when we facing the type of pass rushes and scoring abilities that teams like the Texans and 49ers are going to throw at us. I am worried we may lose both of those. We can definitely win though. I just haven't seen the ability to put it all together and do it though.

I don't know about you all but I'm getting kind of tired of Mike Tice playing "stand up comedian" at his press conferences with all of his self deprecating humor in order to deflect attention away from is self defecating work as an OC and Play caller. Yeah, that's right. He shits himself every game and so does his offense.

You know it may be a lot harder to dislike him than it was to dislike the cold and arrogant Mike Martz but it's getting an awful lot easier to criticize him than it was Martz. Right now his offense is getting involved in more "train wrecks" than it is wrecking other teams defensive strategies. Something has to change!

Martz had to go, but to be unbiased, Martz has forgotten more about offensive game plans than Tice has ever known. The knowledge of the game was not Martz's problem. However his arrogance and refusal to change was. That also made him ineffective. pick your poison.

I'm not one whose wishing Martz was still here but I am one wishing the staff would wake up and look at some realities. Playing Hester at the #2 WR spot hurts in two ways and I don't give a crap how much we pay him. Spencer is making around 5x times what Rachal is and there's a reason Spencer isn't playing either.

It's time Lovie grew some ball again and stepped in. If Tice won't make the needed changes willingly then order him to. Pull rank if you have to but do it! The players are there once you start using the right ones and stop experimenting with the offense like it was a God damn Madden game.

Originally Posted by motownbear

I know you dont like Martz soul but the offense was allot smoother with him at the helm then Tice. Hell it was more balanced with more running also lol. Tice is just not getting it done imo with a much superior offensive unit

That's true mo. I'm not a Martz fan and I never was. I always thought he was the wrong guy for the Bears. But yeah his offense ran smoother last year than Tice's is now but in 2010 there wasn't much difference. It's why I hate the fact that Cutler has had to endure as many changes in OCs and offensive systems as he has. Take that away and he's be setting records himself.

I'd expect Martz to have a better overall offense just based on his experience but it wasn't the right offense to run in Chicago. Tice probably has a better handle on it but he's still misusing players left and right and his play calling is just about as bad or maybe worse than Martz. They both abandon the run too early.

The ace in the hole around here is Bates. If he hadn't turned us down in 2010 to go with Pete Carroll in Seattle he'd be the OC here and Cutler would be in his third year of running the same offense instead of another new one this year. And to make matter worse it's an offense devised and run by a rookie OC and it looks like it most of the time too.

The bottom line is that Tice needs to move over and give Bates more say in what goes on including play calling. So far I've seen nothing from Tice that indicates to me that he's any good at it at all. It's almost like he has plays scripted and pays no attention to what's working and what's not. We run the ball through a then yesterday and the next thing you know he's dialing up pass after pass after pass and we end of with six sacks in one half down in the score and almost needing to pass to get back in the game.

I can't find any common sense in an offensive approach that virtually ignores a RB whose gaining over 5 ypc and whose also run roughshod over the same team in the past by going to the air before they've even put a dent in stopping your running game.

So am I being critical of Tice. Yep, your damn right I am but do I wish we still had Martz. Hell no, and neither does Cutler so nuff said on that score. Just get Bates in there doing more to run the show and it will make a difference.

Things that need to happen:

1) Run the ball 60% of the time.

2) When we pass, go for the short yards; having Marshall doesn't mean we need to try to score on every play

3) Hester should see as many offensive touches as Tebow is seeing in NYJ

4) Until Jeffrey is back, Bennett is #2, Sanz #3. We could honestly use Plaxico because

5) Our TEs are not good targets. The one with the best potential is being used as a blocking FB.

6) Our 2 TE sets should be used a lot less, as they are largely ineffective.

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

Things that need to happen:

1) Run the ball 60% of the time.

2) When we pass, go for the short yards; having Marshall doesn't mean we need to try to score on every play

3) Hester should see as many offensive touches as Tebow is seeing in NYJ

4) Until Jeffrey is back, Bennett is #2, Sanz #3. We could honestly use Plaxico because

5) Our TEs are not good targets. The one with the best potential is being used as a blocking FB.

6) Our 2 TE sets should be used a lot less, as they are largely ineffective.

Hey, how about that Henry. When was the last time you and I agreed on everything one of us posted.

LOL. I think the best we usually get is close to Tice's pass ratio, haha

Oh yeah, I agree. The Jax and Indy games, we only really went for kill shots when it was all over, and it seemed like we would be just wanting to kill the clock. I think in a game that we're up by, say 10 points, as long as we've been reasonable in playcalling, going deep couldn't hurt...