Thread: Anyone watch "Playbook" today on the NFL Channel?

I can agree with all of that. I saw millen break down Urlacher and Briggs, and i must say, i feel that i stand corrected on Urlacher's play. His reading of Cam's eyes before the snap, and not buying into the play action, and moving accordingly showed he may have just started...

Just wanna say, that's a damn good post.

Originally Posted by Henry Burris

I can agree with all of that. I saw millen break down Urlacher and Briggs, and i must say, i feel that i stand corrected on Urlacher's play. His reading of Cam's eyes before the snap, and not buying into the play action, and moving accordingly showed he may have just started...

That surprised me too. Urlacher is still very very valuable to the Bears defense. He may not be able to play like he did when he was younger, but he can still play at a high level. And the guy is brilliant, understanding and correctly reacting to what the offenses throw at us. Millen helped me understand that too.

We really need Briggs and Urlacher to stay healthy. Between those two, we have an incredibly valuable pair of LB's with the highest "football IQ's" that is priceless.

Originally Posted by Warlock

Cutler is definitely not playing well this season. He doesn't trust the protection and doesn't trust many of his receivers. These are pretty big issues for a QB, which is why he is primarily looking to Marshall and forcing balls to him. I think Cutler trusts Bennett and Jeffery, but with them being hurt a lot and other receivers sharing playing time (even when those two are available)... Cutler only has a single go to guy the majority of the time, Marshall.

The lack of faith in his protection is why Cutler isn't stepping up into the pocket as often as he should be.

Hopefully the OL can improve, giving Cutler a little more confidence to scan the field before deciding to throw. In addition, once that happens, hopefully the other receivers stop dropping balls... giving Cutler confidence that if he throws to them, they'll make the catch.

All that said, I believe some of the issue is due to Cutler being rattled and not necessarily that the OL can't protect him or his receivers can't make catches... I think some of it is only his perception and not reality. As a person who has been a competitive athlete, I can tell you that once you feel a teammate can't be trusted, it's kind of a sub-conscious thing that requires an actual conscious effort to change and/or a sub-conscious change in perspective that those teammates can now actually be trusted to do their part. Which unfortunately means that Cutler's teammates need to step up their game or the coaches have to start taking power away from him by limiting his options. I think ultimately it'll be a combination of the two, the OL needs to play better and the coaches need to reign in Cutler's options.

I agree. It's a "head thing" now with Cutler. He's had a few years of taking brutal physical beatings due to Chicago not having a decent oline. It's crept into his head now, and his "pocket presence feel" isn't there. He's not stepping up. He's making bad decisions.

I don't blame him. I'm not trashing Jay here.

This is somewhat similar to what happened to Rex Grossman. I saw a confident and gifted player get reduced to "Bad Rex" and he never overcame that. I really believed we had our franchise QB in the beginning with Rex Grossman. Everybody hates him now, but in the beginning, the guy was incredible. But he left Chicago a bad QB. He had the physical skills. But he was damaged goods, it was in his head where he was screwed up. But it wasn't like that in the beginning.

I'm not saying "Bad Jay" = "Bad Rex"

They are very different. I'm just pointing out that Jay's been physically abused here to the point it's now "in his head" a bit. I'm sure he can overcome this. But he's going to need a better protection, and begin to trust (as you pointed out Warlock). He's got excellent receivers. He's got to trust them too, and not just B.Marsh

My #1 issue with the Bears is that they have miserably failed their quarterbacks, by failing to value the offensive line. It's a QB killer.

Can you imagine how different things would have played out, if we had, even an average offensive line when Jay arrived here? Same with receivers. If we had even had average receivers, and an average oline, things would have been so different.

I just hope we haven't ruined the guy.

Warlock, I thought that was a great post.

Whatever the reason, I'm hoping he has a great game today, and it's a precursor of good things to come.

These "analysts" are obviosuly JC haters and have never played the game or had to deal w/a 300lb linemen coming at them. They obvsiously have no idea what JC is going through back there. What could these guys possibly know? I mean one is Sterling Sharpe, wr 7 years, and the other is Brian Baldinger, a NFL OG of 12 years...not like they played the game at a high level or anything; probably never broke film down either; these guys are just hacks...what do they know of taking on 300 lb linemen trying to kill the qb; it's not like they were back there throwing the ball afterall. Their opinion is completely irrelevent.

It's the other wr's fault for not getting open, the OL's fault for not holding the DL 5-6 sec's while BM gets open, it's the RB/HB/TE's fault for not being able to hold a 300LB DL for more time.....it couldn't possibly be JC's fault for holding the ball to long, or not trying to get it to the open guy while trying to force it to BM when he's covered by 3 DB's. That's all just JC hate.