In for the Reverend, our old friend FQD1911 (or Doug)…

Here’s the story on this one.

One of my work colleagues and I made a bet on who would win the NFC North last year. Obviously, this came down to the last game of the season. I 100% thought this was in the bag FOR SURE when it happened.

Cutler turnover here, Brandon Marshall dropped pass there and Randall Cobb burning Chris Conte for the season-crippling (and ending) touchdown.

For the record this is the first time in my twenty-eight years on earth to ever have a Packer jersey touch my skin.

If someone were to challenge my fanhood, I would go nuclear on them.

NOTE: Have a picture or story you want to share on DBB? Send it to Jeff@DaBearsBlog.com and we’ll share it on the RevZone Channel one of these Saturdays.

Can the Bears hit Aaron Rodgers enough times to make him not want to finish the football game?

Greg Blache was the first person in professional football I heard publicly state sacks were an overrated statistic. He was no longer Bears defensive coordinator a few months later.

Sacks are important. They are more important than pressures and hurries. They are more important than the newest ludicrous stat: disruptions. (According to Adam Hoge’s disruption chart Lamarr Houston was having a Hall of Fame year.) The reasons sacks are important should be obvious to anyone who has ever watched an NFL game. (1) It involves hitting the opposing team’s quarterback and potentially knocking him from the game. Nobody roots for injuries in the league but knocking the opposing QB out of the game has been a goal of defensive coordinators since defensive coordination began. (2) When you sack the quarterback, he is holding the football and thus there is a chance he will drop it and you might pick it up.

I’ve never heard of someone hurrying an opposing QB out of a game. Nobody has ever disrupted a fumble.The Bears need only to look at their win at Lambeau a year ago to understand why they must hit Aaron Rodgers Sunday night. (And I’m talking about hitting him in the black-and-white highlights on an old Zenith, John Facenda symphonic narration kind of way.)

Rodgers is a rhythm passer who will dissect any defense without hitting the ground repeatedly. The Bears need to make Rodgers aware that every attempt more than five yards down field comes with a bruise. If they can’t achieve this with their front four, they must manufacture the pressure. Can they do it? Will they try to do it?

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November 6, 2014

Chicago Bears
Halas Hall
1920 Football Drive
Lake Forest, Illinois 60045

Dear Bears,

Each week since late 2005 this internet space has predicted the Chicago Bears will win their upcoming football game. It has done so by prefacing each column with the simple question, “Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?” The answer has become a sort of rallying cry for those who frequent this site: I always like the Chicago Bears.

I am writing to you today because I have a confession to make. I apologize for the impersonal platform email provides this painful and stirring admission but your ignoring of my texts and phone calls has left me with no other recourse.

I should stop stalling. My admission is this. As I sit in front of my computer preparing this letter I must acknowledge that right now, at this moment, I do not like you.

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“I think every team at some point faces a little bit of adversity in the season, and the measure of that team is how they react to that adversity,” [George] McCaskey said. “We’ll see what these guys are made of. We have every confidence in Phil and Marc and the players to pull us out of this.”

-From a Michael C. Wright piece for ESPN

Ponder this question when someone asks if you believe the Bears would consider firing Marc Trestman at the end of the 2014 season. What is the worse crime: changing the offensive system on quarterback Jay Cutler for the 212th time during his tenure in Chicago or potentially wasting another season of one of the NFL’s best collections of offensive talent?

Because that question exists, because it can be asked, the next seven days are the most important seven days of Marc Trestman’s professional coaching career.

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STATISTICAL CHECK-IN

• When is the last time the Bears, six games through a season, had someone in the top ten in the league in passing yards (Cutler-4th), rushing yards (Forte-7th), catches (Forte-1st), receiving yards (Jeffery-T6th), sacks (Willie-1st) and interceptions (Fuller-T1st)? This season may be laden with individual errors but it also has been defined by exceptional individual performances to this point.
• Have you looked at Jay Cutler’s numbers these days? He’s completing 68.1% of his passes for 1,676 yards, 13 touchdowns and 6 interceptions. Two of the three quarterbacks ahead of him in yardage have thrown more interceptions and all three have been sacked AT LEAST five times less.
• Through six games the Bears are tenth in the league against the run. Last year they ranked 431st.

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The Packers deserved to win. Their offense made fewer mistakes than the Bears offense. But this game left me hollow for a lot of reasons. Rapid fire…

• The referees destroyed this game for me. Even when the Bears have been blown out I usually find my angles of watching, my momentum for the coming week. But the calls made is this game were the worst I’ve seen since Mike Holmgren and the Seahawks were jobbed out of a Super Bowl. On both sides! But the Bears defense is not good enough to overcome Aaron Rodgers being handed new sets of down on ridiculous, nonsensical calls. The hold on Bostic on the field goal? The late hit on Lamarr Houston? Once again, the referees were not the reason the Bears lost. But they absolutely ruined the afternoon.
• Bears defense was horrible. Outside of Willie Young making a few nice hustle plays and blocking a kick, I can’t think of a single player on the defensive side of the ball worthy of praise.
• Mel Tucker criticism is warranted but Aaron Rodgers made a half dozen outstanding throws. He was special yesterday.
• This game was decided by a simple factor: mistakes. The Bears dropped a perfectly called onside kick. Cutler missed a wide open Alshon Jeffery high in the end zone. Josh Morgan should score on a screen but didn’t bother to extend the ball. Martellus Bennett runs a route at the one yard line instead of the goal line to end the first half. Brandon Marshall runs the wrong route on the second interception. Bears have a lot to clean up.

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Three Final Thoughts

(1) Unless Cutler goes 31-37, 385 yards and three touchdowns and the Bears lose a shootout, the quarterback will be the story today. Sometimes the NFL is not about Xs and Os. Sometimes its just about about one guy putting a team on his back and saying, “We’re not losing today, fellas.” That is what Cutler needs to do today.

(2) Bears need Jared Allen. They need his presence and they need his production. If he misses the game due to illness or is limited due to weakness, the Bears will need heroic efforts from Young and Houston.

(3) Mike McCarthy likes to be creative with his special teams calls against the Bears, especially at Soldier Field. Bears should be careful every time the Packers line up to kick/punt and be wary of the Packers overloading the Bears right side when P.O.D. is dropping back.

Why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

(But this week just a bit more.)

A Thought on Aaron Rodgers

For the first time in his tenure with the Green Bay Packers, The Golden Boy hath lost his shine. His gold is more a beige. The Beige Boy.

It started a year ago with Greg Jennings criticizing Rodgers on the way out the door, causing national NFL media types to start a letter-writing campaign in hopes of having Jennings ex-communicated from the league. Aaron Rodgers not a good leader? Aaron Rodgers not a great teammate? How dare anyone insinuate such a thing!

(Side note: Outside of Devin Hester, who couldn’t play the position he was asked to play, how many players from Jay Cutler’s huddle have made such accusations?)

On opening night of the 2014 campaign there was Aaron Rodgers verbally ripping his fifth-round rookie center in front of a national audience. After the Packers loss to Detroit, one of their most woeful offensive performances in years, he ripped the individuals responsible for adjustments. (Some call these individuals “coaches”.) From Packers.com:

“We didn’t make enough adjustments to score enough points,” Rodgers said.

Adjustments?

“Adjustments, yeah. We didn’t make enough adjustments,” Rodgers said.

“Their goal was they were going to limit the number of one-on-one coverages and roll the coverage to Jordy. We need balance. We have to run the ball better, more effectively. We haven’t done it in the first three games,” Rodgers said.

So it’s the coaches and their adjustments. And it’s those responsible for running the ball. So everybody on the offense except for…him? You think this was harmless? Mike McCarthy did not and took veiled shots back when he met the media:

“I’m not really up here to talk about scheme,” McCarthy said at his Monday news conference. “One thing I always talk to our players about all the time is scheme is not a crutch. The fundamentals and the things we do from an execution standpoint were not good enough, clearly, on offense.”

There is blood in the water for the first time in the Aaron Rodgers era in Green Bay. If the Bears don’t pounce on them at home like Alex Kintner, they are not ready to seize the moment and control of the NFC North.

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