Thread: With an Arm/Accuracy Like This Does Anyone Care Whether He Smiles Enough?

Nice breakdown of a play showing what Cutler can do when he's allowed to free lance a bit. It's one hell of a throw rolling to his left and into coverage and he puts it where only Spaeth can get at it. Six points the hard way!

Not that I'm complaining but why is it that Spaeth and Davis only seem to be able to catch passes in or near the endzone and when in the other 80-90 yards of the field they're basically useless?

If Spaeth could actually make grabs like that all the time he'd be another Mark Bavaro and of one hell of a lot more use to us than he's been. If they keeps those two around next year they should make them spend 4 hours a day every day in front of a "Jugs" machine. It worked for Jennings and maybe it would work for them.

It was one hell of a catch too so I'll give kudos to Spaeth for that one.

You see a catch like that and you'd think Davis could make routine plays like that. But then you look and it's Spaeth and you do a double take. Love to see super plays like that but heck I'd settle for just a bit more consistency and catch ability.

Spaeth doesn't have a whole lot of speed or any over the top athleticism but if he could make grabs like that more often he'd be a nice solution for our TE woes. It may not be asking much but up to this point it sure seemed like too much. It shocked me that he made that catch.

I'm losing a lot of my faith in Davis especially after I saw that interview after he had that bad game against SF. I think he's another "goof ball" just like Webb. He's another one who just doesn't "get it". He lacks focus and makes too many mental mistakes which to me says he short on football smarts and maybe others as well.

There has to be a reason why guys with the kind of perfect size and perceived athletic ability of Webb and Davis end up being drafted long after you'd think they would be. My guess is that they are deemed a "little slow" on the uptake and as a result not very coachable.

Davis could have walked in this year and taken "ownership" of that TE spot for years to come and instead he takes a dump which may well cost him the remainder of his contract. I can't see us keeping both him and Spaeth next year. Keep one or the other and get Rodriguez involved catching passes either as a FB or as an HBack.

Somewhere along the line we need to find a consistent TE.

I know a former teammate of Kellen Davis' from their days at Michigan State, and he has nothing but nice things to say about the guy. At the time I talked to Jared (the former offensive lineman for MSU), he said Kellen Davis was one of the biggest guys he had every seen and had freakish athletic ability. At the time, it was still preseason, so I didn't expect Davis to come out and totally stink up the place. Jared said that Davis would become a huge asset for the Bears. So far, he's wrong. That being said, I still think Davis can improve, but I think he's going to have to go in front of the machine and take hours upon hours of practice in catching footballs. Do I expect him to catch every pass thrown his way? No, of course not, because some catches are going to be hard to do. But what I do expect is for him to put forth a better for the rest of this season and then come out this offseason and really work on his catching abilities. Of course, it would help if Davis would actually learn to block too.

Originally Posted by Dagan81

I know a former teammate of Kellen Davis' from their days at Michigan State, and he has nothing but nice things to say about the guy. At the time I talked to Jared (the former offensive lineman for MSU), he said Kellen Davis was one of the biggest guys he had every seen and had freakish athletic ability. At the time, it was still preseason, so I didn't expect Davis to come out and totally stink up the place. Jared said that Davis would become a huge asset for the Bears. So far, he's wrong. That being said, I still think Davis can improve, but I think he's going to have to go in front of the machine and take hours upon hours of practice in catching footballs. Do I expect him to catch every pass thrown his way? No, of course not, because some catches are going to be hard to do. But what I do expect is for him to put forth a better for the rest of this season and then come out this offseason and really work on his catching abilities. Of course, it would help if Davis would actually learn to block too.

I get the big, nice and freakish ability part and I don't disagree but it takes some brains to put all of that talent into play and that's what I'm questioning.

When anyone, football player or plumber, keeps failing by making the same mistakes over and over again then some light bulb is not going on in there heads. Certain connections in the "cause and effect" circuits are shorting out.

If Davis was a rookie I'd buy into more of it but the guy has been around for four years and if he hasn't figured out how to carry out his blocking assignments and catch a football 90% of the time it's thrown his way by now when does that ever happen?

I was complaining that we didn't use him enough but when we finally did he failed miserably. He's recovered with a couple of nice red zone catches but we need far more out of him than that for his $6 mil.

Originally Posted by JPosh2012

Great breakdown. Regarding Cutler he could be the biggest prick in the world and I wouldn't care as long as he wins games for us.

I don't think most people would think he was the biggest prick in the world or even a prick at all if the press didn't always make him out that way.

I posted a comment Manning made to a stupid question asked by a reporter and he was described as being facetious. If Cutler would have responded the same way then he would have seen as being an asshole.

It's all about the filters the press surrounds certain players with and Cutler's is black.

Originally Posted by soulman

I get the big, nice and freakish ability part and I don't disagree but it takes some brains to put all of that talent into play and that's what I'm questioning.

When anyone, football player or plumber, keeps failing by making the same mistakes over and over again then some light bulb is not going on in there heads. Certain connections in the "cause and effect" circuits are shorting out.

If Davis was a rookie I'd buy into more of it but the guy has been around for four years and if he hasn't figured out how to carry out his blocking assignments and catch a football 90% of the time it's thrown his way by now when does that ever happen?

I was complaining that we didn't use him enough but when we finally did he failed miserably. He's recovered with a couple of nice red zone catches but we need far more out of him than that for his $6 mil.

We might need to take a couple of things into consideration when we examine the case of Davis. First of all, how often was he targeted in his first three seasons in the league? I bet he was targeted a grand total of 30-35 times between 2009-2011. In that time, he came up with some big catches, most of them for touchdowns. It looked like he was going make himself a nice replacement for the departed-Greg Olsen, and then you had this abomination of a season in 2012 that has come to fruition, and everyone is ready to throw to the wolves.

Look. Davis has talent. I think a lot of this might be nerves on his part because he doesn't want to screw up. Just like in the case of Gabe Carimi being essentially a second year rookie due to injury, so, too, can it be made a case for Kellen Davis being a fourth year rookie due to poor coaching and mismanagement by the coaches. Think about it like this: he blocked very well for the Bears last season. Does that just go away over night? Does he simply regress so much that for what it's worth, he will never be able to block well again? And what about all those big catches he made in 2010 and 2011? Sure, there weren't that many of them, but what, then, say you to those? Does he simply lose that ability because it was a flash in the pan and he "never had it" to begin with? The answer to both of these questions is a resounding "no." Davis is still the young player we saw play very well and improve over the course of his first three seasons in the league.

I think the problem with Davis is that he has been too coachable, to the point where he has been given some bad instructions this year in how to improve route running, the proper mechanics of receiving, and of course, the proper fundamentals of blocking. This can also be blamed on Tice seeing as how he has been responsible for teaching Davis how to block over the past three seasons, and on tight ends coach Mike DeBord. Let's face it: the only reason Greg Olsen was any good at all for us was because he was an excellent receiver with soft hands; he couldn't block to save his life. Davis doesn't have all of Olsen's natural talents (There is a reason why Olsen was a late first round pick while Davis was, what, a fourth or fifth round pick?), but I bet you that with a good tight ends coach and a better offensive coordinator/offensive line coaching combination, he would be more than just a sub par tight end. In fact, I think he could be Pro Bowler if he is ever the recipient of good coaching.