Monday Monologue [AUDIO]
One of the best dogs in the country. Biker Jim’s. Denver.
I always like the Chicago Bears.
And I have never had this strong a belief in the Chicago Bears defense.
A cat has been installed as the “lord” of an ancient castle in western Japan, drawing tourists and helping the area’s recovery from a deadly rain disaster last year. The cat is named Sanjuro in tribute to Tani Sanjuro, a samurai warrior in the Edo period pic.twitter.com/ZhzGBD5W4L
— 41 Strange (@41Strange) September 9, 2019
The moment is here for Matt Nagy and Mitch Trubisky.
This week.
Sunday.
In Denver.
1-1.
Don’t fuck around. Win.
Opening night was an offensive debacle. The coach was overwhelmed. The quarterback was over-matched. They were not ready to call or perform in a football game, respectively, period.
But this ain’t the 3 AM show in the lounge. This is ain’t the place to work on your material. This is the showroom and the gents are in top hats and tails. The Bears don’t have the luxury of time to figure things out.
They are in one of the best divisions in football.
They have the best defense in the league.
The moment is here.
Sunday.
In Denver.
This offense doesn’t have to be great to keep the 2019 vintage of the Chicago Bears on the league’s top shelf. It has to be serviceable, at least for now. It has to help this team stack wins until the season gets serious in November.
And doing that falls onto the shoulders of two men. Nagy. Trubisky.
Hey Matt, wake up. David Montgomery is a horse. Ride him. The quarterback is still inexperienced. Get him some quick, easy throws. You don’t get credit for the other side of the ball because it wasn’t built by you and it isn’t coached by you. Yours is the offense. Lead them.
Hey Mitch, enough. Enough with the silly throws into holiday weekend traffic. Enough with not calling your own number and getting easy first downs with your legs. Enough with making rookie mistakes because this is your third year in the league, second year in the system, and a few more rookie mistakes are going to lead to your rookie contract being your last contract in the league.
The Chicago Bears have played one game in 2019, and it was soul-crushing.It was also just one game.
Of course they can still be the team we hoped they would be this year, but there are three vital questions they need to answer. If it’s “yes” to all three, I don’t see why Chicago isn’t in the playoffs come January. If the answers are “no”, we could be in for a long season.
This is both completely obvious, and something the Bears have little control over, but it’s still one of the most crucial pieces to having success this season.
After Thursday it’s clear there’s no regression on the defensive front, and the only way they don’t continue to be one of the most formidable units in the NFL is if key players suffer significant injuries.
Similarly, even though the offense was an absolute embarrassment against Green Bay, we know there’s still plenty of talent on that side of the ball as well. Keep them healthy, and we’re sure to see it. With one game in the books and 15 to go, all we can do is hope the team stays as healthy as possible the rest of the way.
The Bears’ search for a kicker defined their preseason, and after exhaustive tryouts they decided Eddy Pineiro was their best option.
Pineiro had an inconsistent training camp, a decent preseason, and against Green Bay went 1/1 with a 38 yard field goal before proceeding to send the kickoff out of bounds on the very next play. So far he’s been the very definition of mixed bag.
Pineiro seems like a good kid with a strong leg, and maybe, just maybe has the potential to be an upgrade from last season. That said, do I feel confident that he can march out there and reliably hit 40+ yard field goals in high pressure situations? Not yet, at least. There’s just not a big enough sample size. Fortunately for Pineiro, he has a whole season to prove himself. For both his and the team’s sake, he better.
It’s been six days now, so there’s no need to belabor the point. Trubisky played like garbage in Week 1. Yes, Nagy called an awful game. Yes, the offensive line was atrocious. But he was still very bad. It was a frustrating, bewildering performance, and he deserves all the criticism leveled at him, but one game doesn’t give us the final answer here.
Because the question isn’t can Trubisky be great, or will he be better than Mahomes or Watson. Those are separate discussions. With the caliber of defense Chicago has they don’t need an Aaron Rodgers or Drew Brees. They proved that last year by going 12-4. What they need is a good QB who is comfortable in Matt Nagy’s offense.
There were multiple times last season where Trubisky looked to be exactly that, including his performance against Green Bay in Week 15 where he threw for 235 yards, two touchdowns, and helped the Bears clinch the division. That game counts in his evaluation just as much as Thursday night does.
We’re slowly getting to the point where we can start to say with some certainty what Trubisky’s baseline performance level is, but we’re not quite there yet. In a month to six weeks, if Trubisky is regularly playing more like the guy who showed up on Thursday than the guy in December of last year the Bears have a serious problem, but it’s not time to hit the panic button just yet.
The more time the Chicago Bears have had to prepare for game day under Matt Nagy, the worse they’ve been.
Last Thursday’s loss dropped the Bears to 0-4 under Matt Nagy when they have had more than eight days to prepare for a game. That stretch dates back to last season’s opener when they fell to Packers 24-23. It also includes includes a post-bye week loss to a bad Miami team led by Brock Osweiler and a post-Thanksgiving loss to a bad New York Giants team.
The only real similarity in all of the losses was inconsistent and sloppy offensive play. While the defense let them down in all three losses last year — allowing more than 30 points twice — the offense wasn’t necessarily sharp either. “Not sharp” would be a generous assessment of last week’s performance.
Why the Bears tend to struggle in these situations is a bit of a mystery. It’s possible that Nagy over-thinks the games. That appeared to be the case Thursday when many of his scripted plays appeared to be designed to trick the defense. That worked a year ago when the Bears marched down the field on their first two possessions against the Packers. But this is a different Packers defense, with six new starters, and they didn’t fall for any of Nagy’s misdirection.
Could the Bears have benefited from preseason action? There is some evidence.. Of the five quarterbacks who didn’t throw a single pass in preseason, four struggled for at least a half. Trubisky and Rodgers were terrible. Jared Goff’s Rams got going offensively, but he struggled individually, finishing with a passer rating of just 69 in a 30-27 win over Carolina.
There is no correlation between performance in early September and performance in January. Bears need to stay healthy on D, get better on O and – most importantly – leave London with a winning record.
This is going to be short because Thursday night’s opener was one of the worst football games I’ve ever watched and it doesn’t deserve an extended recap.
Sunday in Denver becomes becomes pretty close to a must win for the 2019 Chicago Bears. And it is definitively a must perform for the offense.
