One of the best dogs in the country. Biker Jim’s. Denver.

Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

And I have never had this strong a belief in the Chicago Bears defense.

Trite, Boring Thoughts on the Broncos

• Attacking the Broncos defense is ALL about neutralizing their edge rushers – Von Miller and Bradley Chubb – because the rest of Vic Fangio’s group is mediocre. How did the Raiders do this? First, they gave Derek Carr a ton of quick, easy throws. (Commentator Steve Levy even compared Carr’s MNF performance to Phil Simms’ historic Super Bowl in terms of completion percentage.) Second, they committed to the run game even though it wasn’t particularly successful. This kept play-action believable and kept Miller and Chubb a half-step slower.
• Joe Flacco didn’t play poorly in the opener but he’s in this tiny collection of aging, modern quarterbacks who need everything working around them to be successful. Players like he and Eli Manning don’t have the legs to extend plays so they need a rush game and they need brilliant protection. If Bears keep Freeman and Lindsay quiet in the run game, it’s hard to see the pass rush not harassing Flacco endlessly. If that happens, the mistakes will flow.
• Courtland Sutton is going to be a star in this league and the Bears better be aware of his location at all times Sunday. He bought a timeshare in the middle of the field against the Raiders. It’ll be interesting to see if he plays with that level of boldness against a far more intimidating, physical defense.

Tweet of the Week

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

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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.

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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.

Can they stay healthy?

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.

Can they find reliability and consistency at the kicker position?

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.

Can Trubisky be good enough?

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.

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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.

• The Bears allowed ten points to Aaron Rodgers at Soldier Field. And lost. The Bears sacked Rodgers five times. And lost. The Bears gave up about 250 total yards to the Packers offense. And lost. The Bears have a brilliant defense and that defense is going to win them a lot of games this year. And that’s all I’m going to say about that unit today.
• Matt Nagy called one of the worst games I’ve seen from a Bears head coach. Whatever that was on third-and-inches. Going for it on fourth-and-ten. Not giving the ball to David Montgomery AT ALL. Sometimes Nagy calls plays like he’s smarter than the guys on the other sideline. He needs to start calling plays that put the gentlemen on his sideline in the best position to be successful. There’s no way to argue he did that last night.
• Mitch Trubisky was awful. Don’t feed me silver lining shit about a throw here or a throw there. Last night, Trubisky looked like a backup quarterback, called into action mid-game, scrambling to find his helmet. He threw one interception. He should have thrown four. He had zero command of the offense and less awareness of the defense. That’s a lethal combination. (I guess we can postpone that contract extension talk for a bit.)
• 1st and 40.
• The Bears better not have too many games like this. The best defense in football won’t stay calm and quiet as their brilliant, heroic efforts are wasted by a limp, futile offensive effort. A mediocre offensive performance beat the Packers by a touchdown. This isn’t new to Chicago. But with this coach and this quarterback, it was supposed to be different. Not only did it not look different Thursday night. It looked worst than it ever has before.

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.

Nobody wants to wish hours away. We only get so many over the course of a life. But today is the kind of day where an overwhelming majority of Bears fans would pay $20 to hit a button right now and make it 5 minutes before kickoff – just enough time to grab a beer and a quick piss. Sadly, that button doesn’t exist. It is one of many buttons I’d like to invent, including a button to get your home from long trips abroad in 30 seconds.

Here are some ways for you to pass the time between now and then.

Play Golf

It’s still warm out everywhere so even if you don’t enjoy the game, go and play golf. Why?

It’ll kill at a minimum four hours on the course. And figure an hour getting there and ready, hour getting home and showered, and you’ve got a solid six-hour kill. What else is killing six hours?

(Trick for new golfers: don’t keep score. Just swing the club and hit the shots and enjoy yourself. If you hit 2 or 3 good ones, it’ll make the experience worth it.)

Work Super Hard (Anticipating Tomorrow Off)

You’re probably reading this early in the morning, at your desk.

Your work email is right there but you don’t want to click the icon because you know once you do, the day will be a 700-foot shit tsunami and you’re the only one with a boat.

But what if you commit, right now, to taking tomorrow off. Think about it. Either the Bears will win and you’ll be unable to sleep until 3 AM or the Bears will lose and…you’ll be unable to sleep until 3 AM. You’ll be in no condition to work tomorrow. So double time it today.

Don’t procrastinate on anything. Make a solid to do list and check em off at a pace previously unforeseen in your cubicle. Something can wait until Monday? Do it today. Something you can pass off to Asshole Jim in Accounts Payable, do it yourself. This way when you call in tomorrow, you can tell the boss that you were prepared for the day missed and got way ahead on everything. You can turn not showing up to work into a positive.

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The Game Poem

Walk with me,

into that dark, dark corridor called Hope.

Believe with me,

though believing is a slippery slope.

Join me on this journey

to a place we never dared go.

Dream what I dream,

’tis impossible to know.

Trite, Boring Thoughts on Football

• Khalil Mack is going to get his pressure on Aaron Rodgers but it’s hard to believe the Packers will let one of the best defensive players in the game ruin the game. That means the Bears will have to generate pressure from elsewhere and they have plenty of options. Akeim Hicks and Roquan Smith up the gut. Leonard Floyd off the opposite edge. Buster Skrine from the slot. If Rodgers gets comfortable, he’ll dice up any defense. Chuck Pagano and the Bears can’t let that happen.
• The expectation is this will be a vastly-improved Packers defense. Maybe, maybe not. But the Bears have an element of surprise in Week One they haven’t had in years. How are they going to use David Montgomery? How will the Packers cover Cordarrelle Patterson and Tarik Cohen, if they’re on the field at the same time? What will change for Mitch Trubisky in year two of the system? One would imagine Mike Pettine’s approach will be “stop the run and make Trubisky beat us”. But has any Andy Reid disciple operated his offense that way?
• The last three Bears/Packers games at Soldier Field have been decided by one possession. (3 point loss, 7 point loss, 7 point win.) Both sides know this game is going to be close. The Bears lost a few stalwarts on their coverage units and have a question mark at kicker. If special teams determine the outcome Thursday night, the advantage swings to Green Bay.

The Three Best Opening Numbers in Musical History

There are many not making this list that will surprise people. “Tradition” is a masterful illustration of the Fiddler themes. “Fugue for Tinhorns” perfectly sets up Guys & Dolls stylistically. “Magic To Do” was a marvel in Bob Fosse’s original Pippin staging. But it’s my list. Fuck off.

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