Football

Three Things We Learned From…Whatever The Hell This Bears Thing Was

By Sam Fels 1593 0

There wasn’t too much to be gleaned from the Bears finale, given was a dead rubber it was. So I guess this is the Three Things from the entire season. God help us.

The Bears Offseason Is Going To Be A Mess – I mean, they all are, but this one especially could turn into a real circus. Without knowing exactly who will be available and what the Bears are going to do or want to do, any offseason where this many questions that are this big about the quarterback position is a real swamp to get through. And there aren’t really any good answers.

Look, you can pop up and get to a Super Bowl with just about any goofus as your quarterback. You can even win one. Nick Foles won one. Matt Ryan should have. Somehow, Eli Manning has two and yet the Giants were barely ever a playoff team other than those two seasons and I’m fairly confident he always sucked. A completely decrepit Peyton Manning managed on with the Broncos, and they’ve yet to be heard from since. So the idea that the Bears could tailor an offense to Mitch Trubisky’s strengths with an improved offensive line and a world class defense and maybe have everything go right for a year isn’t completely outlandish. Fuck, they came within inches last year.

But if you want to be consistently around the picture, look at the NFC playoff picture. Rodgers, Wilson, Brees. Cousins is going to embarrass his entire lineage next week, and we can’t be totally sure what Garoppolo is yet (though he looks more like the first group than Cousins), but you get the idea. And Wentz probably deserves more credit for putting together nine wins with rodeo clowns and janitors as his receivers and running backs this season.

The thing is, you don’t get the QB who keeps you around the picture for multiple seasons off the scrapheap. Andy Dalton will not do that. Cam Newton will not do that (although there’s a big part of me that wants to see Bears fan/media reaction to his first sulky press conference after a loss here. Great theater that will be). Fucking Marmalard will not do that. Teddy Bridgewater will not do that, and all will be insanely expensive for a team that will not have that much cap space no matter what kind of binds and inversions it performs this offseason.

Which means you have to draft one, or find one masked as a backup somewhere else like Garoppolo. Can you do that in the second round? Maybe, it’s not unheard of. Or maybe you think Bridgewater is that guy and make the commitment (highly skeptical).

But if the guy isn’t there in the second round, and Bridgewater goes elsewhere, what’s really going to piss Bears fans off is that Trbuisky with a revamped offense is just about as good of an option as any. Sorry, it’s the truth.

No, that doesn’t mean I think Trubisky will be more than ok ever. Even with the perfectly tailored offense he’ll probably never be more than just a shade north of acceptable. And that’s almost certainly not going to be a plan for sustained success, unless the defense can remain dominant for a longer stretch than most manage (even the Seahawks one was only together for about four seasons). What I’m saying is that for next year, it very well may be as presentable of an option as any.

And that won’t make you feel good.

The Offensive Line Has To Be A Priority, But It Has So Much Ugly Money – They couldn’t handle a Vikings defensive line shorn of starters and desire. This is a problem.

We already know that Kyle Long’s spot will be open for next year. I feel like I want to say that Cody Whitehair and James Daniels can be ok if surrounded by other good linemen. I’m fairly sure Bobbie Massie and Charles Leno Jr. need a swift boot in the ass out the door. Except Massie comes with at least $8M in dead cap space for next year. Leno’s penalties are worse in 2021, and maybe the Bears will think they can kick the can down the road a bit here.

But part of the offense’s problems, and the ghosts Mitch was seeing, is that he rarely had time and the o-line rarely opened holes for Montgomery either. Sure, the running game looked better when it was moved to a simpler I-formation and not the RPO’s and zone blocking. But let’s be real, the Bears are never going to move to that full-time, and they’re still going to need to pass block a good portion of the time. The line needs at least one big addition, probably two. Maybe Massie improves with more quality around him, but the Bears had better find out.

The Bears Need To Find Akiem Hicks A Sidekick And Heir Apparent – We can at least try to argue that turnovers are cyclical, but the Bears didn’t get enough of them because they didn’t sit on the quarterback’s head nearly enough. 32 sacks this year, after 50 last year. In a vacuum, slightly more than one per game doesn’t sound like much, but if you think about where those sacks and pressures could have come and you realize how much the Bears lost out on. And almost all of it is not having Hicks pushing linemen into the QBs face and giving him nowhere to go. You saw it in the first two games of the season.

Sure, Nichols or Robertson-Harris or Goldman flashed plays here and there, but not nearly enough. It affected Mack’s season and probably Floyd’s too (though his own limitations are equally to blame if not more). The Bears cannot depend on one player so much next year for so much. They can’t buy another one, but finding someone under the radar, or through the draft, or the development of someone has to be the biggest order of the day for the defense. Hicks isn’t going to play 16 games next year, that you can bet on. He’s also 30, so just how much more time do you have?

I’ll worry about young linebackers in the middle and a secondary that will lose some veterans a hell of a lot less if they only have to do anything for about a second and a half every play.

 

Football

Week 17 – Bears 21, Vikings 19: It’s An Ending, That’s Enough

By Sam Fels 1358 0

It doesn’t mean anything, unless Anthony Miller’s shoulder actually detached from his body this time. The Bears finish 8-8, which seems more fitting for this team, the very definition of completely mediocre and pointless. They couldn’t be more in the middle. They couldn’t block the Vikings’ backups, and the defense did just enough to put the game on a knife-edge both good and bad.

It was somehow telling and symbolic that the Bears only TD drive, the first of the second half, was when they cut out the bullshit, lined up in the I, and ran the ball. David Montgomery had 57 yards on six carries and a touchdown on the drive. Mitch Trubisky had to throw one pass, and it was for a first down.

And then we never saw it again.

Also symbolic that on the biggest play of the game, a 4th and 5 at midfield as the Bears were trying to find the winning field goal, Mitch finally got out of the pocket (not sure it was designed that way) and found Ridley for a first down and set up the winner. That was just about the only time we saw it.

So the game was more of what we already knew. When Mitch gets to be an athlete–getting on the move or stepping into his throws and being decisive–he’s ok. When he’s doing all the gadget stuff, he doesn’t make plays. When the Bears keep it simple, they can move the ball. But they don’t keep it simple. They didn’t get enough sacks, though they did get the turnovers today and even a safety.

No questions will be answered by this. We’ll have to wait some months for those.

Everything else…

-I would imagine Riley Ridley is being groomed to take Taylor Gabriel’s role next season, as that’s one spot the Bears can get some cap savings.

-Khalil Mack will end the season with 8.5 sacks. No matter what else was going on, that’s just not going to get it done.

-Yeah I think I’ve had enough of Ha-Ha. Try something else next year.

-Mitch didn’t even end up with 3,000 yards. That’s hard to do these days. And while it certainly speaks to his struggles, it also speaks to an offense that could never push the ball down the field. Some of that is the o-line, a lot of it is Mitch, but a lot of it is the playcalling. We’ll at least hear whispers of someone being brought in next season to take that over. Don’t know if it will happen, but it should at least be discussed.

-The Bears actually got two turnovers today, which has been a problem this season. That they only resulted in six points is why this was a game at all.

Ok, that’s enough. It’s over. We lived. That’s about all we can say.

Football

Week #17 – Bears vs. Vikings Preview: Escorted Out By Al Bundy

By Sam Fels 3393 0

vs.

RECORDS: Bears 7-8   Vikings 10-5

KICKOFF: 12pm

TV: Fox

READY TO BE KICKED IN THE NUTS AGAIN: Daily Norseman

It was only a year ago that the season ended in the same exact spot with just about the opposite feeling. The Bears marched up to Minneapolis, with nothing to play for essentially as the Rams were up big by the 2nd quarter to eliminate any chance of grabbing a playoff bye. The Vikings however, had everything to play for, needing to win to get into the playoffs. And the Bears used their face to mop the floor simply because they felt like it, because they wanted to. It really felt like they were on to something then, that it was just the beginning. After all, a team that does that simply for the sheer joy of it must’ve been capable of so much more.

One scared playoff game, one missed kick, and a broken coach and QB later and now it feels like that game might as well have taken place in another dimension. Of course, the funny thing to think about is if the Bears had rested everyone, let the Vikings in, would they have simply kicked their ass again a week later on the Lakefront? How would that have changed things? Rather pointless to think about in the end, but you can’t let it go completely, can you?

Either way, the Bears will slink off the stage tomorrow after a dead rubber against the Vikings. Minnesota is locked in as the 6th seed, preparing to watch Kirk Cousins embarrass himself in Green Bay, or Seattle, or New Orleans. Take your pick. So they’ll be resting everyone who matters, making it unclear what the Bears can get out of this other than a win that makes the record look a little better. And hopefully no major injuries to carry over into training camp or something.

The Bears are intent on playing the full team, or at least the one they have. The long-term casualties are still out. You get the impression if the Bears had even been representative last week, not even won necessarily but played well, they might treat this as a time-filler as well. But last week so helpless and sad, they probably can’t end the season with two of those. The offseason will be long and unpleasant enough without that kind of stench hanging over it. Or at least they can fool themselves into thinking there’s less stench.

Maybe 8-8 looks way better to them than 7-9. The difference in draft position won’t matter all that much, they’ll be entrenched in the middle of the second round either way. There won’t be any answers tomorrow, and those won’t come for a few months. The post-mortems have already started.

It’s funny, there have been far worse Bears teams in recent memory. But rarely has a season been this unenjoyable. Even the wins were whiskey-dick experiences. Only the one in Denver due to its excitement and the still very much present hope that was around in just Week 2, the first Vikings game, and the Cowboys win were ones you could get excited about. Feel good about. Washington was what was supposed to happen. The two over the Lions were far harder than they needed to be. The Giants suck. When were you excited to watch the Bears past September?

So we’ll dispose of this season tomorrow, slamming its head into the wall before throwing it out the door, cursing its presence in our lives at all and hoping to never see the likes of it again. We probably will. It’s the Bears after all. But at least there will be time to cleanse.

Football

Week 17 – Bears vs. Vikings QB Spotlight: Chilling Vision Of The Future?

By Sam Fels 1431 0

The Bears won’t get to see Kirk Cousins Sunday. Because the Vikes have nothing to play for, they’re the 6th seed who will get murdered by the any of the Packers, Saints, or Seahawks. Which is unfortunate, because seeing Kirk Cousins is usually high comedy. Until now, because it might be what’s coming for the Bears.

You probably know the records by now. Cousins is 6-30 against teams with winning records. 0-9 on Monday night. Not much  better in other primetime games. Whenever the Vikings need Cousins to be good, he’s been terrible. This includes last year’s finale when they needed to beat a Bears team that essentially had nothing to play for. And the Bears whacked him around simply because they felt like it.

Cousins changed the narrative around him a bit after the first Bears games this year, where once again the Bears sat on his head without Akiem Hicks. He threw 22 TDs and just two INTs before last week. There was some hope in Minneapolis that maybe he’d turned a corner. And then he took a big shit against the Packers on Monday night, ending the Vikes’ hopes for the division, once again puking it up against a good team, and the Vikings are left with all the same questions.

And this could be the Bears’ future. Not Cousins, of course, as he’s slotted to make all the money in the world for one more season yet. But if the Bears decide to move on from Mitch Trubisky, and that’s still a rather sizable if, they choices from there are of the same ilk of Cousins. Andy Dalton? He has the same amount of playoff wins that you do. Cam Newton? One Super Bowl appearance that he pissed down his leg in and one other playoff win where he didn’t even break 200 yards and both of those were five years ago. Teddy Bridgewater? Way more questions than answers. Phillip Rivers and his arm that was 107 years old when he was 25?

All could be steadier than Trubes, that’s for sure. And maybe steady is all the Bears need that figures to be at or near having a contender-level defense next year (especially with a healthy Hicks). But you’d be asking QBs to do things they haven’t proven they can do or haven’t done in a very long time. How’s that working out for the Vikings, who in the Cousins era will have one wildcard berth and a playoff tonking to show for it?

Bears fans should know that once you get on the QB carousel, it’s really hard to get off of it. Maybe you draft someone in the second or third round you really like and hope they just provide competition for Trubisky, thereby still keeping your QB costs down so you can have the rest of the roster in place. That’s the other thing about the names available. They’ll still cost a lot. Cousins himself has a $31M hit next year. Any of the others really coming that much cheaper?

Maybe paying $9M with reasonable competition through the draft doesn’t sound so bad here.

Football

The Vault: Bears/Vikings 2018

By Tony Martin 1458 0

Welcome back to the last regular-season edition of THE VAULT, my weekly column dedicated to giving you 700 or so words about a nightmare of games past. For the 4th straight season, the Bears and Vikings will clash on the final week of the NFL’s regular season, and the words I’ve seen being used to describe this game are as follows:

“meaningless” (NBC Sports)
“disappointing” (BearsWire)
“miserable” (CBS Local)

This shit reads like a Kafka short story. So, in the interest of keeping myself interested in this bit, I’m going to go in-depth on last year’s season finale (a 24-10 Bears victory) as seen through the eyes of a fictional Bears superfan going through what could be best described as an “existential crisis”.

As Gregor Olson awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into Don Wachter (AKA “The Bearman”). He lay on his bed in suburban La Grange, Illinois, and looked at the dark ceiling. His alarm was going off, it was 3am. Time to get ready. Gameday. Noon. Bears/Vikings.

“Who am I? How did I get here?” It was no dream. Gregor’s room had transformed from the modest empty desked cold space he knew into one adorned with pictures. Pictures of him.

But that wasn’t him; it was just a facimile of him, like a bad photocopied picture. Him, with so many of his heroes: Bryan Cox. Donnell Woolford. Steve Stenstrom. What he wouldn’t have given to remember times like those. Times that he could use to help explain the situation he found himself in. How long had it been since he became The Bearman?

As if one might breathe or reach a hand to rub a bruise, Gregor was instinctively already at his dresser. His makeup was already halfway applied before he realized he was doing it. “What sort of rabbit hole have I fallen into? Hello?” he yelled. Silence returned his cries, and as the echo bounced off the walls of his rented room, he looked back at the mirror to see his costume for the day already applied. Everything fit perfectly, as if he had worn them in for years, though Gregor’s eyes still saw his old body. His soft limp now gone, he began to operate the body of The Bearman as if it was his own.

In a weird stasis between disoriented and confident, he got into his 2010 Toyota Bear-olla and made his way to Soldier Field, ready to watch the 11-4 Bears face off against the 8-6-1 Minnesota Vikings. In the car, Gregor began to feel more and more uneasy, considering he wasn’t even a sports fan, let alone a football fanatic! His brain began accessing stored knowledge of the current roster, the past legends, and a bunch of useless knowledge about RPOs. Gregor decided to fight it, for if he couldn’t control the whims of the body, he could certainly call out to the world for help, to free him from this prison.

Soldier Field was empty for gameday, and the security guard welcomed him as “Don” before asking why he was there if the Bears were in Minnesota to play at 3:25, having been flexed into an afternoon slot.

“Don, are you feeling okay? You look kinda queasy.” The man said.

“Please help me!” Gregor screamed. Gregor was trying his best to get out. He needed to be free. Free of Bearman. This had to end, Gregor was not welcome in the body of the Bearman. Gregor protested from inside of the Bearman, struggling in a way that to outside observers probably looked like a mild panic attack.

“Don? Um, I’m gonna call 911. You just stay here, okay?”

“PLEASE HELP ME!” The words exploded from Don’s mouth, propelled with all the force Gregor could manage to summon. Without another word, his foot pressed down on the gas and before he could blink an eye, the Bear-olla was on Lake Shore Drive. Gregor was no longer in control, the Bearman was in the drivers seat, literally and figuratively.

Gregor found the Bearman suit appalling, and when it dragged him into the Buffalo Wild Wings, he found himself even more disgusted. A lifelong vegetarian, Gregor knew this B-Dubs was where the final confrontation between himself, the very notion of free will, and his flesh prison would take place. As the game was playing on the TV, people came up to buy free drinks and take pictures with the Bearman. Everyone loves the Bearman. Let’s buy a beer for the Bearman. Let’s buy some wings for the Bearman. Boneless. Low heat, because the Bearman has low tolerance for spicy food.

“NO” he bellowed, the fake teeth on his Bear-hat rattling with the force of his rebuke. “I AM NOT THE BEARMAN.” As the bar fell silent, Jordan Howard ran in for his second TD of the first half, putting the Bears up 13-0. Cody Parkey’s extra point was unsuccessful, and for a moment, the eyes of the bar were no longer on the Bearman, but nervously darting around the room wondering if this team would be looking for a kicker before the playoff run. 

“Bearman, what do you think? Should the Bears sign someone off the street?” A patron said, handing Gregor’s prison a steaming plate of wings. This was it, the time was now. The body of Bearman reached for a wing, and dipped it in the ranch. Gregor fought. Bearman won. The meat entered his body, and the soul of Gregor Olsen became infuriated. As if a medieval army about to unleash their final charge, he balled up all that he had and exploded.

Chunks of Bear jerseys with human remains littered the floor like so much confetti. The playoffs began next Sunday, at home. 3am. There remained a room full of fans who would not see it, nor anything ever again.

Tarik Cohen was running in for a touchdown. The Vikings season was over.

Football

Week #16 – Chiefs 26, Bears 3: Thud

By Sam Fels 1465 0

That about sums it up.

I’ve said it before, but just to reiterate, I’m hardly a football expert. Just a Bears fan who’s as frustrated and disappointed as you are. Tonight was ugly, as ugly as it’s been, because other than the Saints game the Bears have been in every one and just missed here and there to lose. This was being outclassed, which hurts as a fan more than anything.

What makes it far worse is the lazy-ass narratives that come out of it. Yeah, we know Mahomes was taken 10th and Trubisky 2nd. This is such an easy branch to reach for when someone wants to sound right and profound. It’s over now. And it’s not fair to use that to judge Trubisky. To judge Ryan Pace? Absolutely, and it will almost certainly be his defining moment, probably for worse. But you have to keep those separate.

That doesn’t mean Mitch should be absolved. He was bad tonight, but so was everything. The gameplan sucked. So did the o-line. The defense was kind of helpless. We could do this all day. And those things have happened far too often this season.

I know everything now has recency bias, especially in the NFL where things change so much from year to year. But we’re still only 12 months removed from probably the most fun Bears team of our lifetimes (depending on how old you are). No one wanted anybody fired or cut then. It can’t be completely negated. Now, other than Allen Robinson no one has taken a step forward, and that team is basically still here. Is that on Pace? Maybe, maybe that’s everyone’s ceiling. Or is that on Nagy? Combination thereof?

If the Bears lose next week, their two-year record will be 19-13. That hardly seems like a fireable record. Remember, this team punted Lovie Smith after a three-year stretch of 29-19, and that sent them on a five-year spin-cycle of idiocy. You have to be careful on these things.

Also some history. Remember that John Fox was forced on Ryan Pace after he was hired, and he had to tailor a team to that idiot. That doesn’t mean those three years should be completely erased from the records or the evaluation, but weighted less heavily than you might normally. Again, when he’s had the run of the place, 19-13. And to repeat myself, that only means that next year is the make-or-break for everyone.

As I’ve said, the ship of Mitch being great has sailed. But I don’t see that we have to give up on good, though it seems a readily available thing to reach for right now. He missed Allen Robinson on a deep throw that could have started this game on a different note. And it’s another in the category of throws the Bears had to have, as I’ve catalogued. Hit those five throws, and the Bears probably have 10 wins right now. At least nine for sure. And if Mitch is never going to be that guy who hits those throws, and he might never be, well then it’s time to move on.

But fuck, Josh Allen is a playoff QB. So’s Kirk Cousins. So’s Carson Wentz. A year ago, you wouldn’t have swapped any of them in here. All that means is everyone gets one more spin. Matt Nagy isn’t solely responsible for the mess that Mitch is now, but he’s got a hand. A big one. Can he accent what Mitch does well next year? Is there anything? We’ll find out, because there aren’t many other options. You want to ride on the Andy Dalton merry-go-round? That’ll land you with y0ur dick in the dirt as well.

It sucks, because that team last year was so much fun and this one has been such a goddamn drag and you can’t remove the emotion out of it when it comes to the Bears. Especially when they’ve pretty much been a calamity for most of our lives. It’s beyond old at this point.

But we can do better than lazy. At least we’re going to try.

Football

Week 16 Preview – Chiefs at Bears: No Sense Dwelling On What Could Have Been

By Wes French 1331 0

 @

RECORDS: Chiefs 10-4 @ Bears 7-7

KICKOFF: 7:15 pm

TV: NBC 

I’m sure you all read that headline and thought, “please, no, not a post about why this team would be Super Bowl bound with Patrick Mahomes“. Guess what? I WOULD NEVER.

No, this is about what could have been for a team that looked on the cusp of becoming NFC contenders a scant 11 months ago crashing and burning into the mess you and I have been subjected to for the better part of the last four months. And while there were some pretty tall expectations, it’s reasonable to expect minimal changes within the organization and coaching staff. Some might clamor for major changes, but Ryan Pace, Matt Nagy, Chuck Pagano and most of the other coaches will remain for the job of cleaning up this mess of a campaign, which arguably starts this week.

The first test is how to get your team up and motivated for a meaningless game in late December, one that’s played a mere week after your slim playoff hopes ended at the two-yard line as time expired against the most hated of rivals. The Bears will need to find that energy as they host the AFC West Champion Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday Night Football, a game that Mahomes and Andy Reid desperately need to win if they’re to secure a bye for what looks to be a loaded AFC playoff field.

The Chiefs enter playing possibly their best defensive football of Reid’s tenure. The uptick on that side of the ball coincides with a 5-1 stretch, seeing KC secure their fourth consecutive AFC West title. The Chiefs have held opponents to 212 passing yards or less in five of six games during this streak, helping them to get into the top team passing defenses in the league overall for the year. They will have a true test this week, though, as Bears QB Mitchell Trubisky has averaged over 295 yards passing the last four weeks and gone over 330 yards twice. Mitch has been using his legs to greater effect as well, something KC hasn’t really had to deal with in games against the likes of Drew Lock, Derek Carr, Tom Brady and Philip Rivers.

The non-existent Bears rushing game failed to show up much against a near-league worst Packers side in Green Bay, so while the Chiefs rank near the bottom of the league in rushing yards against at 130+/game they are more likely to see that number improve than be gashed for worse. Unless, of course, Mitch runs wild like he did against Dallas on TNF a few weeks ago. Mitch is still working on his decision making, and what he does with the RPO all night will go a long way to determining if KC has any issues trying to get closer to that bye week. it’d certainly be nice to see Nagy and staff try some new things, maybe moving the line in different ways or using more misdirection/creativity to get David Montgomery some confidence in a lost rookie campaign.

Mahomes comes in seeing his otherworldly number from 2018 deflated a bit (he’s missed two+ games to injury), but the third-year QB is still making defenses pay when they give him any kind of window. Mahomes is top five in yards/game (300.5), has 23 TD against four INT in 12 games and comes in at 2nd and 6th in QBR and Passing Rating, respectively. He can and will beat you deep to Tyreek Hill (who will also simply just beat you, but only if you’re under 10 years old or female) or Mecole Hardman, or he’ll slowly kill you by feeding monster TE Travis Kelce or any one of the RBBC that seemingly 1) can all catch out of the backfield and catch well and 2) go for allll the YAC. LeSean McCoy, Damien Williams, Darwin Thompson, Spencer Ware…it really doesn’t matter. Reid plugs and plays at will and somehow employs backs that can do it all…it’s called a SCHEME,,, folks.

The Bears young stand ins at ILB (Nick Kwiatkoski, Kevin Pierre-Louis) and the defensive backfield (Kevin Toliver, Deon Bush) will all be tested over and over by these weapons and almost assuredly beaten unless the defensive front can create pressure – something that’s been missing since Week 1 for the Bears. Can they find some way to get pressure on Mahomes to help out their youthful next men up? Maybe Pagano has some new ideas for Khalil Mack and Co. after failing all year to get any sustained pressure.

The Bears constant is that they are inconsistent, including during this late 3-1 run to respectability. A loss here is expected, but more than wins or losses these last two weeks should be dedicated to continued learning experiences and trying any and everything to see what they’ve got moving forward. Everything should be on the table, anyone with questions should be thrown into the fire. Who knows, maybe the apprentice will catch the master and score an upset while having a little fun along the way (did you know Nagy is a Reid disciple????)

Prediction: Chiefs 38, Bears 29