The OFFICIAL Offensive Line Sucks Thread

[Dagan81]

As the years go by, I grow more and more weary of the same mistakes being made over and over again. These mistakes, 90% of the time, have been on the offensive side of the ball. We have, no doubt, among the top defensive and special teams units in the league. However, in this day and age, defense no longer guarantees a team will make it big in the playoffs, but offense will. The Saints won the Super Bowl in 2009 with a less than stellar defense, and the Patriots were in the Super Bowl last year with the league's second worst defense. While the Steelers, Giants, Ravens, and 49ers all win with a nice combination of all three areas of the game, the Bears are only proficient at one, so-so at another, and severely deficient at the other area of their game plans. We cannot even boast a solid special teams unit this year based on giving up a touchdown on a fake field goal and Devin Hester's steep decline as a result of overusing him on offense.

This year, I think this team will finally step on the straw that will break the proverbial camel's back. I think this team is going to miss out on going to the playoffs, and that this failure to make the playoffs will result in Lovie Smith being fired and a new coach with a new philosophy of offense and defense being brought in. Who this person may be is anyone's guess, but this is an undeniable truth that will be realized. Lovie's failures to create an atmosphere on offense that is conducive to winning and his obstinate nature will be his undoing. Emery only had to give Lovie one season to coach the team per the wishes of George McCaskey and Ted Phillips. He will now have full control of the coaching situation in Chicago, and there will be nothing to stop him now.

[rich1978]

Monday night was bad, hell it wasn't bad it was horrendous! but the whole line was bad. Rachel stunk extremely, and there were two or three instances where he missed an inside stunt or just plain whiffed on a block and let Bowman or Smith a straight run at Campbell. Rachel screwed up a screen and got pushed back into Campbell continuously. Let's not defend him, he was useless!

BUT Webb and especially Carimi were made to look like children. they were straight out embarrassed. We're used to it in Webb, the whole world and his blind and deaf grandma knows webb is a pea-brained cretin who gets continuously beaten by any single DE/OLB who tries more than just colourful language to beat him. All season long I have despaired as I've seen defenders go back to the huddle after the first series, safe in the knowledge that they have already seen the full array of Webb's talent and are now free to terrorise Cutler with impunity for the next 58 minutes

But Carimi? well, he was meant to be our big mean Soulman-endorsed Wisconsin 'honey badger don't give a shit' Outland winning saviour (no offence soul!) He was meant to be the answer, the solution, the 'pity he got injured last year or we'd have been getting measured for rings' messiah. but no, he's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy. a boy against men. there were playes where he was getting near lifted off the ground and thrown back into campbell, there were plays where he was beaten inside, then out, then back in again and probably got up not knowing what day it was. there were plays where he returned to the bench sniffling like a child, top lip quivering like he was about to burst into tears. He got founf out in that game, he got schooled, he got humiliated. I witnessed that and it was the kind of game that can break a man, that can ruin careers! man, he blew!

as for the rest,well, they sucked too, but we know that. thats what you get when you field bums, when you cut your failed LT who was good at LG but play an emotionally unstable and limited RG at LG. Thats what happens when Webb is protecting your blind side, when a RG is playing centre, when well, who the fuck knows what was going on because the whole line looked lost. lost confused and dazed.

they all sucked and Rachal sucked too. none of them deserved to wear the shirt, to eb a bear or have our support and the fans' respect and adoration. they besmirched the good name of the bears


Somethinhg has to change this off-season and by that I mean everything. the whole O-line, players, coaches, scouting, play-calling needs a rethink because the Bears are a proper team, a historic and respected team with tradition and pride. wearing the shirt MEANS something and what we saw last week was flat out unacceptable.


Rant over, and please excuse my french - not that anyone should ever excuse the French for anything but you catch my drift (i'm allowed to say that, I'm a brit, bashing frenchies is our national sport, the hatred is mutual!)

[Henry Burris]

I disagree that Lovie needs to be canned. I also disagree with this feeling that this team isn't any good because they were beaten two weeks in a row. The reason being is that just about EVERY team of nite has had a horrible loss this year, and these two just showed that the Bears, like any recent team of late, are not runaway favorites. Hell, with all of these emotional conclusions based all around the league, it sounds like Colin Kareerepoinick is the new Big Ben with the accuracy of Tom Brady. The demise of Alex Smith in SF is a bit premature, just wait and see.

Now, back to personnel, none of us know how much sway Lovie had on Angelo's decisions, but regardless, that doesn't matter. After 2008, when it was obvious that WR, OL and several other positions were at a dearth in terms of talent, but Angelo wanted to fix the QB position. FINE, but it should've been very obvious to him the line was still a problem. He never really adressed that, and the team and coaching staff has had to suffer. We have a new GM, that picked 2 very talented players, both of whom it would seem are going to have nice careers. It's still early, but obvious that he is neither complacent, nor stupid enough to go against his scouts' opinions. Think about that, we have the same staff in place, but a different guy making the final call. He's making all the signings he can this year to fix things. We all knew that either DE, wr or the o-line was simply gonna have to wait another year for an influx of talent(he was wise not to pay for an expensive guard the way the bucs did, they had a lot more money to throw around). With that said, although we have injuries at wr, we are well to do in that area (with bennett and jeffrey both having nagging or serious injuries, that does change things). We also seem to be good enough at the dline. We just have to realize there is only so much that can be done to improve a roster each offseason.

Now, to firing Lovie Smith. I'm hoping those of you beating the "hire Cowher" drums aren't really serious, because he has given no real consideration into coaching again and we would be gambling that he still "has it". That is not an automatic that he would come in and vastly improve things. Also, with a really high rate of coach turnover this year, it is more unrealistic to say we would get someone better than Lovie than getting the o-line a lot closer to being fixed.

[rich1978]

Rachal / Rachel, hell whatever, he played like a girl up there. same difference.

[rich1978]

I'm worried. Is it wrong that I found myself thinking that I'm more excited by next year's draft than by the rest of the present season?

Don't get me wrong, I haven't given up on the season, that would be foolish when we're 7&3 but I've got this horrible nagging feeling beginning to well in the pit of my stomach when I think about our O-line, Cutler's health, what happened last season when Cutler finally succumbed to the pummelling that was meted out to him with reckless abandon every sunday and the fact that whenever we come up against a half-decent team we are outplayed and outcoached. we've been relying on unsustainable and incredible production from our D for too long now, it's ominous....

[Dagan81]

I disagree that Lovie needs to be canned. I also disagree with this feeling that this team isn't any good because they were beaten two weeks in a row. The reason being is that just about EVERY team of nite has had a horrible loss this year, and these two just showed that the Bears, like any recent team of late, are not runaway favorites. Hell, with all of these emotional conclusions based all around the league, it sounds like Colin Kareerepoinick is the new Big Ben with the accuracy of Tom Brady. The demise of Alex Smith in SF is a bit premature, just wait and see.

Now, back to personnel, none of us know how much sway Lovie had on Angelo's decisions, but regardless, that doesn't matter. After 2008, when it was obvious that WR, OL and several other positions were at a dearth in terms of talent, but Angelo wanted to fix the QB position. FINE, but it should've been very obvious to him the line was still a problem. He never really adressed that, and the team and coaching staff has had to suffer. We have a new GM, that picked 2 very talented players, both of whom it would seem are going to have nice careers. It's still early, but obvious that he is neither complacent, nor stupid enough to go against his scouts' opinions. Think about that, we have the same staff in place, but a different guy making the final call. He's making all the signings he can this year to fix things. We all knew that either DE, wr or the o-line was simply gonna have to wait another year for an influx of talent(he was wise not to pay for an expensive guard the way the bucs did, they had a lot more money to throw around). With that said, although we have injuries at wr, we are well to do in that area (with bennett and jeffrey both having nagging or serious injuries, that does change things). We also seem to be good enough at the dline. We just have to realize there is only so much that can be done to improve a roster each offseason.

Now, to firing Lovie Smith. I'm hoping those of you beating the "hire Cowher" drums aren't really serious, because he has given no real consideration into coaching again and we would be gambling that he still "has it". That is not an automatic that he would come in and vastly improve things. Also, with a really high rate of coach turnover this year, it is more unrealistic to say we would get someone better than Lovie than getting the o-line a lot closer to being fixed.

My argument about Lovie Smith probably getting fired at the end of this season due to poor results has nothing to do with emotion but rather was heavily taken into consideration based on fact and logic. Lovie Smith has been a very good coach for us, probably the third best coach in the history of this franchise, but that has nothing to do with whether or not he will be retained at the end of this season. If this team makes the playoffs as I think it still has a decent chance of doing, but not a great chance, his job is safe. If the team goes 9-7, which is a very real possibility when you consider the Bears are 2-3 against teams with .500 or better records this season and that we play four games during the remainder of this schedule against teams with winning records, I think it is very reasonable to conclude that they will struggle to win but nine, maybe ten, games. Our offensive line is the worst it has ever been, even worse than it was the past two years, and our wide receiving corps needs to jettison some talent and pick up some fresh blood with an abundance of talent, i.e. get rid of Hester on offense and cut Sanzenbacher, retain Bennett but be ready to dump him when his contract is up, and draft/sign another talented receiver or two.

I have never really considered Bill Cowher to be a serious coaching candidate for the Bears to be perfectly honest with you up until now, simply because it would require a complete overhaul of the defense by switching personnel from a 4-3 Cover 2 defense into a 3-4 Zone Blitzing schematic. However, if this was ever going to happen, I would think that now would be it because Phil Emery has worked for teams who ran the 3-4 defensive scheme (Kansas City Chiefs) and he drafted Shea McClellin in the first round, who was a ROLB in the 3-4 at Boise State. So yeah, I could kind of see it happening more now that we have a guy with a background in the 3-4 defensive scheme than anything else.

Another possible head coaching candidate if Lovie by chance gets fired (and again, I'm not advocating that we fire Lovie because he's the coach and we are underachieving, but rather that Emery force Lovie to change his ways), I could also see Emery courting Jon Gruden hard and heavy. There are a lot of circles who are courting Gruden right now in both the NFL and college football. Hell, here in Knoxville, the local TV news stations have done special reports on the ties Gruden has to the University of Tennessee with his past as a graduate assistant under former head coach Johnny Majors and how he met his wife while working here and how her family is all from East Tennessee. Does that mean that Gruden will take the Tennessee job? No, but don't tell the people on VolNation.com that. The owner of the Cleveland Browns (Jimmy Haslam) is also an alumnus of the University of Tennessee, and I assume that he will be interested in making an offer to Gruden to go coach the Browns when he finally decides to fire Pat Shurmer at season's end. He may run into a conflict of interest with his daddy, "Big Jim" Haslam, who owns Pilot/Flying J Travel Centers and is a former Tennessee Vol football player from the early 1950s. It is rumored that Tennessee would be willing to spend up to as much as $6-$7 million annually on Jon Gruden if he were to take the job. That shows you just how high in demand he is.

But all of that is just pie in the sky and probably won't happen. I think Lovie will probably get his team to crawl their way across the finish line into the playoffs and will therefore get to keep his job. Truthfully, it would take another monumental crash of epic proportions (notice that I used a double superlative to emphasize this point) like last year in order to not make the playoffs. I think that at least two of those games down the last six to be play are very winnable (Arizona and Detroit), while we should win at least once against Minnesota and possibly against Seattle since they've lost to some teams that are not currently playing very well. Winning against the Packers is, in essence, a pipe dream and won't happen with the way this offensive line is playing unless we give Webb and Carimi a lot of help and don't commit so many stupid penalties in that game. The best I think the Bears will finish will be 12-4-0, but a 9-7 at worst, 10-6, or an 11-5 record are more likely to be the results we shall see.

[Dagan81]

rich, where in Britain are you from? I know you live in Singapore, but where in Britain did you live before moving there? I had an old friend from Britain I knew over the Internet who lived in Hemel-Hempstead, which apparently is a suburb of London. She was a little too left-wing for me, though. She was a Liberal Democrat, which is further to the left than that of the Labour Party.

And by the way, that was a nice rant you went on. I only watched the first quarter and half of the second on Monday night simply because I couldn't bare to see us get totally manhandled for a full three hours.

[rich1978]

rich, where in Britain are you from? I know you live in Singapore, but where in Britain did you live before moving there? I had an old friend from Britain I knew over the Internet who lived in Hemel-Hempstead, which apparently is a suburb of London. She was a little too left-wing for me, though. She was a Liberal Democrat, which is further to the left than that of the Labour Party.

And by the way, that was a nice rant you went on. I only watched the first quarter and half of the second on Monday night simply because I couldn't bare to see us get totally manhandled for a full three hours.

Heh, my family were from Leeds (hence supporting Leeds United - a very Chicago Bears type team) but I grew up in South London. Hemel Hempstead is ok but a bit dull and its a reasonable way outside London. the liberals are a bunch of airy fairies who don't really have any proper policies that work in the real world. Good for high school debating classes but sold ouot their principles massively to get a sniff of power for the first time in nearly a century as part of the coalition. For so called liberals they are pretty big state and anti-personal freedom, and have reneged on a ton of manifesto pledges so far. Most people in the UK dont take them seriously.

ah man, where to start with the rant? its just so damn frustrating. I know i'm preaching to the choir here and we can all see what a shambles the O-Line is and indeed has been for a number of years. I'm just praying Emery can work a minor miracle in FA and the draft while we still have a few years in our D and while Cutler is still somehow avoiding being pummeled into a vegetative state!

[rich1978]

....

[Henry Burris]

The only real disagreement i have with your post is that i think the '04 team had a worse offensive line. We simply MUST draft another offensive lineman this upcoming draft. I really hope we could get one of the possible FA LT's this offseason, but would be shocked if we do. Either way, if a tackle or guard worth the 32nd pick is available we can't afford to pass that up again. Honestly, i would lean towards guard, simply because we need the interior built because tice loves running up the middle...