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Week 12: Giants at Bears Game Preview

| November 21st, 2019


Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears…

…and if they don’t win this game Sunday, they could lose the remaining games on their schedule. They won’t be a bigger favorite the rest of the season. (And the line was set at 6.5 without a quarterback announcement. This means Vegas – who are quite good at this – see no difference between Trubisky and Daniel.)

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Saints at Bears Game Preview, Volume II: Rest of the Football Stuff

| October 18th, 2019

[NOTE: I’m not writing about Mitch Trubisky in this preview because what is left to say? He needs to play well. That’s all.]


Why Do I Like the Chicago Bears This Week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

And I believe in this coach. I believe he’s a very good coach. And a very good coach understands what needs fixing, fixes it and beats Teddy Bridgewater in his own building.


Oh When the Saints…

  • Alvin Kamara is not healthy and it greatly limits the effectiveness of this offense because Teddy Bridgewater, while statistically fine, has been mostly in a managerial role outside of exploiting a useless Tampa secondary. When pressured, especially by Jacksonville, Bridgewater has looked eager to choose avoiding big mistakes over making big plays. That works against bad defenses. Against the decent ones lately (Jax, Dallas), the Saints have scored 12 and 13 points.
  • The Saints defense is very good. From Bobby Hebert in a WWL Radio piece: “This is winning football no matter who the quarterback is. Over the last three games, the defense is giving up an average of 13.3 points per game…They’re allowing an average of 71.3 rushing yards. And, in this day and age, for total offense, they’re giving up under 250 yards. That speaks volumes. They’re trending in the right direction at an unbelievable rate. It’s really amazing to me that they’ve shown they can win in all three phases.”
  • Deonte Harris is one of the best returners in the NFL. The Bears can’t let him flip the field and make things easier on Bridgewater and the offense.

Ditka’s is Closing (Tweets of the Week)

These are the transcribed Tweets of the legendary Jackson D, of the Q Brothers Collective. Check out his Twitter feed. It’s good.

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Saints at Bears Game Preview, Volume I: An Open Letter to Matt Nagy

| October 17th, 2019

Dear Mr. Head Coach,

Your offense sucks.

I know that’s an abrupt way to start a letter, and may discourage you from reading any further, but I’ve never been known for my subtlety. Your offense isn’t struggling. It isn’t sub-average. It just flat out sucks. It sucks in America. It sucks in England. It sucks. And being an offensive-minded head coach, that’s on you.

Your left tackle, a damn good player, looks like he belongs in the XFL.

Your most dynamic weapon, Tarik Cohen, has been useless for five weeks.

Your quarterbacks, both of them, look like they left their playbooks in the men’s toilet at Rossi’s.

But more than anything else, this entire offense

lacks coherence. If someone were to ask me right now, “What is the Bears offense” I would have no earthly idea how to answer. And I have the strange suspicion you’d stammer a bit as well.

You were brought to this organization to modernize the operation, specifically when it comes to moving the football. (Hell, we even co-authored a tee shirt proclaiming you’d do just that.) Pace and Fox built the all-world defense. You were the finishing touch on one of the most dramatic rebuilds in organization history. Year One was a massive success. You won 12 games. You won the NFC North. But the offense had very little to do with that.

Year Two was supposed to be the year the complete picture emerged. But through five games, the offense not only doesn’t look better than 2018…it looks significantly worse.

So, you know, fix it. Just fix the fucking thing. Get creative. Coach the players up. Make this unit better. You had the bye week to diagnose the ailments and this thing is quite diseased. Now load up the syringe with penicillin and jam it into your offense’s ass. No more excuses.

There are about 15 teams that can win the Super Bowl and you coach one of them. But that status currently exists despite the script you author each week. Fix it. Because while you’ve tried to absorb the blame for the struggles, you’ve yet to receive much criticism.

That won’t last much longer.

Sincerely,

Some Guy in Queens

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Rapid Fire Reaction to a Disheartening Loss in London

| October 7th, 2019

It’s very hard to analyze a game from inside the building. You really have no idea what’s going on. But here are a few points:

  • The building was 80% Bears fans. And the lack of run defense took them entirely out of the game. Bears had zero push up front.
  • Charles Leno is officially a problem.
  • David Montgomery has to absorb contact almost immediately upon every touch. He’s in an impossible spot back there.
  • Chase Daniel processes the field in slow motion. The Bears has open receivers all over the field but Daniel (a)took too long to identify them and (b) almost never put the ball in the right spot. If the backup is playing, the Bears aren’t winning.
  • Allen Robinson is a great player.
  • Anthony Miller is not. Yet.
  • Khalil Mack spends a lot of time on the sideline.
  • This was the first time in two years I’ve seen so many wide open receivers running through the Bears defense. Just an off day or did Jon Gruden figure something out?

3-2. One game back of Green Bay. In position to have a season but with A LOT of improvement needed. The bye week comes at a perfect time.

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