Archive for the ‘Blog Entries’ Category

The Bears family has given out very few big contract, but when they do you have to wonder if they ever live to regret it. Take for example Dick Jarun, Cade Mcnown, Curtis Enis, Phillip Daniels just to name a few.

So when signing Lovie Smith to the extension making him one the top ten highest paid coaches. Do you get the feeling in the pit of your stomach that Ted Phillips is taking a lot stomach  medication  after giving Lovie the big extension and now seeing it come back to possibly haunt the Bears  in the long run.

Bill Cowher is siting out there, along with Bill Parcels and hey even Jimmy Johnson could have come back for the right price.

Now, don’t get me wrong the Bears family backed themseleves into a corner by saying to Lovie prove it, that you can win two years in a row and that’s when he took them to the SuperBowl last year, but with one year left on his old deal. They had to make the deal.  You have to wonder, if the bears fail this year will Lovie be on the hot seat next year.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

What will it take for teams to realize that Devin Hester is in a league of his own. If you kick to Hester you will lose and lose big.Two return by Hester were the the key  in the Bears  37-34 victory and keeping the Bears playoff hopes alive for another week as they  play the New York Giants next Sunday.

 The thing for the offense to do is make Hester the focal point.His skills are needed to bring excitement to offense that is needed to bring stability to a team with the defense that is sputtering. Hester can be the difference maker on offense. “Please Ron Turner, give Hester the Ball.

This week the Bears travel to the West Coast again, but this time with much maligned quarterback Rex Grossman at the helm. While Rex did come in for the injured (and mostly ineffective) Brian Griese last week and save the day, he has not made any Bears fans forget the torture of the first three weeks let alone last season. Still this is Grossman’s chance, his moment: the do-or-die, last chance, million to one shot at redemption… those always work, right? Well at least he has a 2-0 record against this week’s opponent the Seattle Seahawks. Which I’d feel a whole lot better about had they not just completely dismantled the 49ers on Monday Night Football. Oh well, “In Rex We Trust”… sort of.

Bears Offense vs. Seahawks Defense: Last year Rex Grossman led the Bears to two victories of the Seattle Seahawks. However, there will be two things this week that are very different from both of those games: 1) The game is in Seattle which is an incredibly though place to play and 2) Unlike then the Bears can no longer run the ball with any sort of consistency. These two factors will put a lot of pressure on the passing game and in turn Rex… yippy (I don’t think sarcasm gets across the why I’d like it to in text). Anyway, it seems that the Seahawks win when the apply pressure and get sacks and their defense, 20th against the pass, gets torn up a bit when they don’t. Lucky for us we have a sturdy offense line and a veteran Quarterback who knows how to avoid sacks… oy vey. The more I look at this the fewer and fewer chances I see for the Bears offense to get on track and be effective. Their best chance probably lies in a lot of screens and short passes to the tight ends with at least one bomb early to hopefully loosen up the D enough to get some semblance of a running game going. The problem is all that seems like a lot to ask of a QB who just got his job back and wasn’t all that good or consistent to begin with. I want to be optimistic, but this could get ugly.

Bears Defense vs. Seahawks Offense: Over the last two weeks the Seahawks have gone pass happy. With Shaun Alexander and the ground game unable to provide any sort of support for Matt Hasselback, our good friend Mike Holmgren went back to his routes and a more traditional version of the West Coast offense. As such the Bears are likely to see a lot of short slants and swing passes as replacements for the Seahawks stagnant running attack. This is going to put a lot of pressure on the Bears defensive backs who will once again be without Nathan Vasher. This means rookie Trumaine McBride as well as Rickey Manning Jr. must step up and have big games. Additionally it will be of the utmost importance that the Bears provide pressure without blitzing. This means you Mark Anderson, at least if you ever plan on making an impact in the second half of the season. This is a dangerous game because this is the kind of offense the Bears struggle with. Just like the Green Bay game earlier this year, if they can’t provide pressure and disrupt the timing the Seahawks will likely march the ball up and down the field. Pressure and turnovers are going to be the Bears best chance to win this game. Unfortunately the Bears have not done either with any consistency this season. Not exactly a situation which breeds confidence.

Special Teams Glance: To say the least last week is one Devin Hester would like to forget. The Oakland Raiders showed no fear in kicking to him all day and Hester could not respond by making them pay, especially since his one big return was called back for holding. The quickest way to make that a distant memory is to come out and have a big game against the Seahawks. The Bears will need Superman in top form if they are to win this game, and removing the bad taste from last week would simply be a bonus. On the kicking end of things the Bears continue to have an above average season. Brad Maynard has become Mr. Reliable to the point where I don’t think Bears fans really appreciate the fine season he’s had. Robbie on the other hand continues to struggle beyond 50yrds but he has been so consistent from 49yrds in that it’s hard to complain. It’ll also be important for the Bears to be solid against Nate Burleson in their coverage units. With the Bears not matched up well in the other two phases they can not afford to lose any portion of this battle.

Prediction: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I am not waiting around to be fooled a third time. The Bears just have not shown they can carry any momentum from week to week, and the Seahawks are just a team they don’t match up well with. Bears 17 – Seahawks 28.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

Herman, Gabe, and I went over our mid-season grades for Bears during our last show. I am going to take this opportunity to reiterate my grades and expand some of my reasons (like more on my hatred or Ron Turner and man crush on Israel Idonije). I’ll also mix in little bit of how I hope we can turn things around.

Coaching Staff – C; Unlike my co-hosts I think the switch to Brian Griese was made in a timely manner. I do dock Lovie a little because he was quoted as saying you need four weeks to evaluate a position the week before he benched Rex after his third game. Bob Babich I am giving a mulligan to because at several points this season he was down to as few as 4 opening day starters. I am a little upset they have refused to turn Mark Anderson’s job back over to Alex Brown, but that’s a minor quibble on a unit that has been lucky to keep people off IR. The major reason I didn’t go any higher was because Ron Turner is the devil, or at least the patron saint of inefficient offense. He has shown no creativity in getting the Bears best offensive weapons (Devin Hester, Greg Olsen, Bernard Berrian) the football. He also continues to show inconsistent and uneven gameplan, committing to the run so long that the Bears build themselves a big hole and then completely abandoning it often leading to Griese or Grossman INTs. Neither of those QBs should’ve thrown more than 30times a game and yet they have done so in 6 of the first 8 games including throwing over 40 times on 4 different occasions. That is not Chicago Bears football.

Offense - D+; Things were quite obviously stuck in neutral with Rex at the helm. His lack of confidence and questionable decision making meant there was no chance this unit was going to get on track. Under the guidance of Brian Griese the Bears have scored a respectable 22pts/gm, but the steady hand and silly turnovers that were supposed to go away with the Quarterback switch have continued. The core of the problem all season has been the aging and ineffective offensive line. Ruben Brown and Fred Miller in particular have really begun to show their age and as a result the Bears have had no running game and both QBs have been under consistent pressure. While Benson continues to be the scapegoat for this unit, with Rex now on the bench, he is more often met with multiple defenders in the backfield than he is with a decent hole to run through. With the O-line’s struggles defenses no longer need to bring a safety down into the box to stop the run and have used that to limit the Bears shots downfield. The end result is a sputtering offense who’s most consistent weapons are its TEs who create mismatches when matched up with linebackers and safeties. The Bears must start working in more effective screen passes and improve their short passing game to have any chance this year. Another loss or two and it might be time to hand the keys to Kyle Orton.

Defense - F+; I know that this side of the ball has been completely decimated by injuries. I think at one point every starter save for Mark Anderson and Hunter Hillenmeyer have missed time due to injury. But forget injuries, they happen to everyone, and we need to grade on what we’ve seen on the field. Unfortunately it’s been a bottom 5 defense as opposed to the top 5 group we are used to. The early season losses of Dustin Dvoracek and Mike Brown left this team thin at two key positions. Pile on the additional injuries and more importantly extremely poor tackling and the Bears have struggled to stop the run outside of the first two weeks. However, the biggest issue for the Bears has been their lack of pressure on opposing Quarterbacks. After the early season surge which saw even Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs racking up sacks the only consistent threat to the QB has been Tommie Harris who is playing at 75-80%. Without the need to double team a single Bears’ defensive linemen opponents have consistently gotten a guard or center to the second level and helped to neutralize Urlacher for much of the season. This is the side of the ball the bye week will help the most as they start to get healthy again, but the Bears best bet may to bring in a large 325-335lbs DT who may not fit their system but would at least command the occasional double team and free our linebackers up to make some more plays.

Special Teams - B+; Devin “Superman” Hester is great, there’s no question of that, and along with the steady play of punter Brad Maynard the Bears have been consistently winning the field position battle every week. Also the Bears had a ridiculous early season streak of blocked kicks (4FGs and a PAT) that was amazing, including three by my man and special teams ace Izzy “The Beast” Idonije. But Robbie Gould has struggled of late with several missed FGs and the Bears still have not found a good way to counteract teams effort to kick away from Hester, although an effective offense would probably be the best deterrent. Overall this is the best unit on the team, but even they have been prone to lapses, highlighted by the Evil Twin’s kickoff return that set up the game winning FG against Minnesota. This group must find a way to get that early season spark back because it may be the only chance we have.

So there you have it, my mid-season grades. What do you think? Was I too kind? Too harsh? I am just hoping they all turn in some extra credit so I can raise their grades before the end of the season.

View more of Jeran’s work here.

So how many games can the Bears have to “save their season” in the first 8 weeks? By my unofficial count this will be the third as the Bears must absolutely get to 4-4 before this much needed bye week. Most players were talking immediately after the Eagles game about the importance of their re-match with the Lions this Sunday but we’ve heard that all before from this team. After all it was coming off our first “season saving” win against the Packers that they Bears were embarrassed at home by divisional foe Minnesota and the Evil Twin (Adrian Peterson). Can they avoid a similar fate this week?

Bears Offense vs. Lions Defense: This is will not be the same Bears offense that the Lions saw 4 weeks ago. Now that Griese is finally comfortable under center the turnovers that cost the Bears that game in Detroit now seem to have gone by the wayside. Additionally Hester and Muhammad are now full fledge parts of the offense and have opened things up for Clark and Olsen to become Griese’s favorite targets. The Bears still lack any form of a running game but their commitment to keep letting Benson get stuffed in the backfield has kept the most essential part of Turner’s offense, the play-action pass, keep working. Ideally the Bears will adjust more to their personnel and we will see more 3WR and single RB sets but I wouldn’t expect to see that drastic of a change. The 27 points the Bears put up on this defense was no fluke. The Lions gave up over 400yrds to the Bucs last week and escaped only because Tampa was completely incapable of finishing drives. More importantly if Ernest Graham can rush for 92yards on this team then Benz and the Bears better be able to at least match that. The Lions D is about as resistant as wet tissue paper and while we might get to .500 without a running game we won’t get much farther.

Bears Defense vs. Lions Offense: The biggest difference between weeks 4 and 8 in this match-up will feature a healthy Kevin Jones and perhaps a Mike Martz who isn’t allergic to running the ball. Last time the Bears held the Lions to 3 points through the first three quarters before giving way to the fatigue caused by so many injuries. The Bears defense comes into this game healthier but also without their turnover mojo. Two consecutive weeks without a turnover is a big cause for concern especially with the surgical precisions (20/24) that Jon Kitna went through this secondary with the last time. The addition of Peanut Tillman will help the Bears shut down Roy Williams but without the missing pass rush of Anderson, Harris, and Ogunleye the Bears might have trouble stopping this high-powered unit. With the Lions offering a more balanced attack this week the Bears could be in serious danger of losing another time of possession battle which will wear down our thin and undersized defense. We’ll see if Martz can stick with the running game and if he can it could spell big problems for a defense that is now more “bend but don’t break” than a dominant force.

Special Teams Glance: Robbie Gould made a few hearts skip last week when he missed one and then banged another in off the upright, but I am sure most Bears fans would take 4 for 5 and day. Brad Maynard has continued to have a solid if unspectacular (save one fumble recovery) season and there is no reason to think that’ll change. But the real story, as it is every week, is the question of whether or not teams with kick to Superman. The Lions are the first team we have faced for a second time and they were burned by Hester the first time. However, looking back to last week do the Lions want to give up field position to the Bears the way Philadelphia did and help out an offense that has been wildly inconsistent? One way or the other Hester is going to have a big impact on this game and I have an itching feeling he’s going to get back in the endzone this week.

Prediction: The Bears came out flat against a division opponent at home after their last road win. They won’t let it happen again: BEARS 31 Lions 24.

View more of Jeran’s work here.