Football

Week 3- Bears vs. Racial Slurs Preview: Let It Break Through

By Tony Martin 1460 0

vs.

 

Records: CHI 1-1    WAS 0-2

TV: ESPN 7:15 CST

Radio: WBBM 780 AM/105.9 FM

Fun Fact: The Washington football team name is racist!

Welcome back, sports fans! It’s Week 3, and we’re all eagerly anticipating the arrival of the Chicago Bears offense to the fold. Come join us, dudes! It’s been a pretty fun season for plenty of other teams and I’d like to be able to talk shit to the Packers fan I work with. After a wild Sunday where all the other NFC North teams won, the Bears need a “Get Well” game for the boys on the offensive side of the ball to maintain pace with the relevant Packers, Vikings, and the somehow 2-0-1 Lions. There’s “Must Win” cliches all over this game, since the abysmal offense has written the team into a corner early on just like a Stephen King novel.

This should be the game the Bears really lock it in and turn up, ideally with a trip to Club Dub after a thorough thrashing of America’s least-favorite perennial cellar dweller. The Washington Slurs don’t have the “woe is me” luck of the Browns, the tailgate ECW homages of the Bills*, or even the “How could this get any worse?” vibes of the 2019 Miami Dolphins.

*If the Bills are ECW, that makes Josh Allen Tommy Dreamer, which I fuck with.

Mitch Trubisky has talked all week about how close the Bears offense has been to breaking through, and this soft Washington defense gives us all the chance to see how close they are. The Bears should carve up this awful team. Their offensive line is held together with duct tape, their defense couldn’t stop any sort of running attack, and their QB has been garbage his entire career, save the year he had two top-10 wide receivers and an outstanding defense. Simply put: this team is shit-awful. They come in 0-2 after blowing a lead in Philly, and getting smacked in the face by Dallas. They’ve given up 50+ yard touchdown passes in both games, and have put up a majority of their (admittedly decent) statistical output in the first half of week one and in garbage time in Week 2. Basically: this is a get-well game early on in the season, and the Bears must capitalize.

Is this the week when the offense shows us what it can really do? It’s a question worth repeating. They’re a joke so far, looking downright lost and vanilla even with the most impressive skill position roster I can remember in my 33 years on this Earth. Ideally, the Washington pass rush continues to look like a calm summer breeze and Mitch can sit back in the pocket and pick them apart. Honestly, I’m sick of worrying about the offense. They need to come in and drive the ball up and down the field in a dominant way. Even though the offense looked better in the first few weeks last year than the first few weeks this year, it took Nagy’s group until Week 4 to hang a 40-burger on a team that they should’ve blown out. Let’s hope it happens earlier this season, and everyone executes in a way that eases some of our collective fears.

The biggest story this week is the uncertain status of kicker turned folk hero Eddy Pineiro, who hurt himself in the weight room and is listed as questionable as of this writing. If he can’t go, the Bears have until the early afternoon to pick someone up off the street to play in this game. It’ll be tough to see him not play if that ends up being the case, but let’s be honest with ourselves: if the game comes down to the kicker, the Bears have already lost. There’s no excuses here: no “we didn’t play starters in the preseason so they’re just getting warmed up”, or “Vic knows our offense well so of course they didn’t play super well.” This is it, the team has no reason to not look like a well-oiled machine tonight.

The defense has played stoutly so far this year, but need to really step up in the turnover department. So much of what made the Bears successful last season was how much the constant pressure led to quick changes of possession and the dramatic flipping of the field. With an offense struggling, having a short field will help the offense get into rhythm.

Look for big plays on offense, a couple turnovers, and solid play all around from our beloved Bears. If this team is a contender, Monday night should be easy and boring to everyone who isn’t a fan of the Blue and Orange.

Prediction: Bears 31 Washington 17

 

 

Football

Bears Week 3 – Matchups to Watch: Something’s In The Air

By Wes French 1126 0

He did it again. “DJ Yung Milwaukee” lent his talents for another tandem matchups post from your resident Bears heads at FFUD.

“Big shouts out to my boy Wes for letting me drop another guest verse on a Bears positional preview; if our tandem breakdown of the Bears/Broncos was the FFUD version of Mariah Carey’s iconic “Fantasy” remix with ODB, let’s try to make this her even more legendary collab with Jay-Z on “Heartbreaker”.”

Enjoy. 

Tony on the Bears Defense vs the Racial Slur’s Offense

How ugly could Monday get? Writing about Washington’s offense is difficult. Case Keenum makes Joe Flacco look like Joe Theismann, and though I don’t want Case Keenum’s leg to explode it’s not hard to see Khalil Mack going full L-T on an offensive line missing its star LT. Statistics show that from 2010-2019 the average amount of games it takes for a first round quarterback to make his first start is 4.5, and if this game is a bloodbath (which it has the potential to be), it wouldn’t be too far of a reach to suggest there’s a chance Dwayne Haskins makes an appearance in garbage time.

Speaking of garbage time, this Washington team has gotten a lot of their offensive numbers in situations where they are down multiple scores late in games this season. So, the question is: which Washington offense shows up? Is it the offense we saw in the first half against Philly, or the offense that has played their other six awful quarters of football this season? The answer will be found through the air; “Scary” Terry McLaurin looks like a steal in the 3rd round of this years’ draft. He has speed to go over the top, finds the holes in the zone well, and with Chuck Pagano’s designed man-blitzes, look for Keenum to test the Bears with the deep ball.

Outside of Scary Terry, the skill position players on this team are a real haunted house of mediocrity. Paul Richardson isn’t a threat, Vernon Davis will put up a solid  three-catch, 24-yard performance, and the sun has set on All Day. Chris Thompson is an issue coming out of the backfield, so look for the Bears to drop down a safety or ask Buster Skrine to cover the backfield receiving specialist.

Washington’s run offense permits a pathetic average of 0.31 yards before first contact on running plays, so the Bears up front will feed. The right side of their offensive line looks so bad that any two fans sitting in FedEx field that Dan Snyder hasn’t personally banned might be able to do a better job, given they’ve had a couple $8 beers and are wearing hogs’ noses. The Bears defense is gonna steamroll these nerds.

Wes on Mitch Trubisky vs the Racial Slur’s Defense

Lets look at some numbers for this week’s exercise:

Mitchell Trubisky: 68.1, 39.1, 36.6, 15.1, 33.1 and 3.05

Racial Slurs Defense: 455, 78.3, 6, 168, 68, 34:54

Beep boop beep beep, numbers! Okay, so you’re not a computer and these all just look like squiggly lines and decimals. But here’s the story they tell…..

Trubs is bottom-10 in the league QB rankings with an overall accuracy-percentage of 68.1. This number drops to 39.1, still bottom 10, on passes that travel beyond the first down marker. Moves these numbers to 3rd down plays only, and you get a disastrous 61.1 accuracy %, which has translated to a comically bad 33.1 QB rating and 3.05 yards per attempt. That ain’t it.

Enter the Washington defense, just what the doctor ordered (or so Matt Nagy hopes). Washington is allowing an average of 455 yards/week early in the season and opposing QBs are a league-leading 78.3 in completion %. They’ve also allowed six passing scores thus far, good for 31st in the league. All of this shapes up to help improve the Bears sputtering offense, but how?

Trubs does lead the league in, wait for it…….targets to his RBs. By a lot. 36.6% of his targets have gone to RBs this season, a full 4% more than any other QB. Compare that with a sub-50% target share for his WR, good for second to last to only Baltimore (who lean HEAVILY tight end). Monday night presents the best opportunity to level this disparity out. Dak Prescott laid out the blueprint in Week 2: 25 of his 30 passes travels 15 yards or fewer through the air, continually abusing the poor coverage and soft zones to stack completions.

The Washington defense is also 31st in rushing yards allowed per game at 168. Herein lies another way to get Mitch and the offense going, through establishing the run and then exploiting the secondary through play-action. Mitch has only thrown out of play-action 15.1% of the time this season for 72 yards, more numbers that put him among the bottom third of the league. Week 2 in Denver saw Nagy lean heavily on the run after basically abandoning it against Green Bay. A more balanced play calling plan should open up the opportunity for big plays via play-action, again something everyone saw Dak do against this defense last week. That successful balanced attack shouldn’t be tough to do against a team that’s currently averaging 68 defensive snaps and 34:54 on the field each week.

Of course, the Washington defense could be looking at Nagy, Mitch and Co. and thinking the same thing – here’s the week that we right the ship against a bottom tier offense. Something’s gotta give between these two bumbling units, and which side prevails/how they execute will tell us if Nagy knows what he’s doing and if Mitch is capable enough to not waste this Chicago defense.

Passing stats from https://nocheckdowns.com/

 

Football

The Vault: 2001 Bears vs. Washington

By Tony Martin 1635 0

The Vault: Chicago vs Washington, 2001

Welcome back to THE VAULT, the place where I wax nostalgic over players that eventually let us all down in one way or another (save for Peanut Tillman, he could never let me down). The overarching theme of these so far has been “remember this time the Bears sucked?”, so today I’ll highlight a win from a Bears team that had a strikingly similar vibe to the team that the field in 2018. Seriously, look at the 2001 and 2018 Bears side by side. They each had:

-Dalton-Line level quarterback play given their respective eras
-A young defense that just absolutely wrecks shit
-An inability to sweep the Packers
-Offensive players who were useless in fantasy football
-A young, potentially dominant middle linebacker
-A free safety known for defensive touchdowns
-Beaten in the playoffs at home by the Eagles

The 2001 Bears were the first squad that really gave me hope. It was destiny: the back-to-back Mike Brown overtime walk-off pick sixes were only two of the five comeback wins that season. Jerry Azumah was about to be Devin Hester before Devin Hester was a thing, and Anthony Thomas ran for over 1100 yards, which looks like a typo but I swear is accurate. Looking at the Bears offense in 2001 is awful, but we’re two weeks into 2019 and I don’t want to watch current game tape because it’s SO SO SO BAD, so not much has changed.

A lot of the 2001 team is etched into my memory. I won an award in 2016 that the Bears sponsored, so when I won they asked me who my favorite Bear of all time was. Out of the 16 teachers that won, there were three players listed: Brian Urlacher, Walter Payton, and Mike Brown. Guess which one I picked. I really do believe Mike Brown could’ve been Ed Reed if he stayed healthy, because he was always around the ball. Book it: the Bears win Super Bowl XLI if Mike Brown doesn’t get hurt in the Arizona comeback game and Daniel Manning isn’t put back there and toasted to a crisp by Peyton Manning. Tony Parrish used to lay motherfuckers out, and Rosevelt Colvin looked like an all-time great pass rushing LB. It was literally impossible to run up the middle on this defense, sporting 700 lbs of combined BEEF between Keith Traylor and Ted Washington. Just looking at the defense lined up on Youtube today looks downright goofy with all that space those two managed to occupy. It’s also weird to see the 4-3 look so good, since the NFL seemed to make the switch wholesale to 3-4 being the dominant defensive front a few years after this season.

This shit-ass offense managed to beat Washington in 2001, but it took Brian Urlacher’s first ever offensive touchdown on a pass from the illustrious Brad Maynard on a fake field goal to push the Bears to a win. The box score tells you all you need to know about this game:

Jim Miller: 13/26, 98 yards, 0 TD, 0 INT- 59.3 QB rating
Brad fuckin Maynard: 1/1, 27 yards, 1 TD, 0 INT- 158.3 QB rating

Brian Urlacher was the second leading receiver for the Bears in this game, but the defense managed to sack Tony Banks six times and force two fumbles. This was the second of four straight wins for the 2001 Bears, a streak that took them straight into the woodchipper against the Eagles in the playoffs as demolition crews sat outside Soldier Field to begin renovations. I heard totally unfounded rumors years later that the Bears were paid to throw the game so construction could start (I’m pretty sure the dude who told me that was wearing a Korn shirt so take that shit with an entire shaker of salt), but if there’s anything that could undermine a team as fated for the Lombardi Trophy as the 2001 Bears were, it would be Chicago political graft.

To end on a positive note: two weeks after this game the Bears played the Jaguars, and Keith Traylor returned an interception 67 yards. No politician, regardless of how corrupt they are, could ever take that from us.

Football

Week #3 – QB Study: Would You Rather Have CASE KEENUM As Your Quarterback?

By Brian Schmitz 1232 0

Do you know who the quarterback of the Washington Redskins is? No? Well, when the Bears face the Redskins this week on Monday night, they will be going up against a quarterback who is quietly having as good of a season of anybody not named Mahomed or Prescott. Redskins QB Case Keenum–yes, Case Keenum–has started the season by putting up the following gaudy numbers:

There is not a single stat on this line that an OC, HC, or GM wouldn’t be ecstatic about. Now take it a step further and realize that every stat is better than what Mitch T is doing here in Chicago. Pay especially close attention to the 70% completion number, the 300 yards/game, the 5-to-0 TD to INT ratio, the two sacks taken, and finally, the 111.2 passer rating. If, and it’s a big if, these numbers continue through the next 14 games, Case Keenum will be in line for a Pro-Bowl appearance and more importantly for him, a huge pay raise heading into unrestricted free agency. Could this be a guy that is brought in to replace compete with Mitch Trubisky next season? Only time will tell, but I’m not counting it out and I’m not not excited about it.

Monday Night Football Matchup

Enough about next season, what can we expect for Keenum on Monday night? For one, you can anticipate most of his throws to be completed 10 yards from the line of scrimmage. Last week against a very good Cowboys defense, Keenum’s throw chart looked like this:

What also stands out is Coach Jay Gruden’s affinity for both traditional screen and tunnel-screen looks. 12 of Keenum’s 37 attempts were within two yards on the LOS. Additionally, only three passes over 20 yards were attempted. What all this means is that the Bears linebackers will play a significant role in pass coverage; something that they struggled with against Green Bay in the opener when Jimmy Graham was able to get open for much of the game.

The Redskins QB throw chart in Week 1 against an Eagles defense that quashed the Bears in the playoffs last season was very similar within that 10-yard range. However, the screen package was not as evident as most of the short passes were the 3-7 yards range. Keenum’s overall performance against the Eagles was uber-proficient:

In Comparison

Just in case you were wondering, here is a quick snapshot of Mitch Trubisky’s performance against what amounts to same Eagles defense last year:

My biggest takeaway from comparing these charts was that Keenum was vastly more effective on virtually the same amount of attempts. What is ultimately most maddening about the overall comparison is that Keenum was undrafted while we all know where Mitch was drafted and what was given up to get him. Fuck!

Can Case Keenum Beat The Bears By Himself?

On Monday night, Keenum will ultimately be responsible for how his offense performs. The Redskins running game is brutal; rushing for 28 yards and 47 yards in their first two games. Adrian Peterson will go down as one of the greatest dads running backs in NFL history but it’s not 2009 anymore and Peterson is probably best suited not suiting up. The dire running back situation puts the onus on Case Keenum and his receivers to carry the franchise. Keep an eye on rookie Terry McLaurin, who has been phenomenal thus far with almost 190 yards and two TDs thru two weeks. However, in what appears to be an effort to ease McLaurin into the offense, he lines up exclusively on the left side of the field. If this trend continues, this will undoubtedly help the Bears match up with the electric rookie out of THE Ohio State.

So What Does This All Mean?

Reskins coach Jay Gruden is an offensive genius. He is going to find ways to match up his skill guys with linebackers and try to exploit as many of these scenarios within 10 yards of the LOS as possible. I think Case Keenum will continue to perform at an elite level and the Redskins will defeat the Bears in a very close game.

Football

The Sons Of Wilber Marshall – Week 2 Wrap

By Sam Fels 1266 0

Once again, our Bears troika comes together to pick up the pieces after Week 2’s breathless win in Denver. 

So do we feel good the Bears gutted out a win while not playing particularly well (at least on one side of the ball) or still apprehensive they don’t look all that imposing?

Brian Schmitz (@_BrianSchmitz): In this league, wins are so hard to come by, you have to be grateful no matter how they look. BUT, this win and this team has a lot of warts. I am starting to believe that they are just not that good. They haven’t faced a good team yet, and the offensive results continue to trend the wrong way. It’s even more alarming that a quick fix doesn’t seem possible. The Bears need to get better with the guys they have, but unfortunately, these guys may not be as good as they thought.

Wes French (@WFrenchMan): Any win in the NFL is a positive, and an especially high energy finish of a walk-off 53-yard FG from a team that has this kicker-shadow hanging over them should be a boost for all involved. 

That said, the images of “Club Dub” in the immediate post-game did not look like many were celebrating. The offense was scaled back to the 1950’s, going way run heavy with mixed results and seeing the same poor ball placement from Trubisky. His pass to Robinson to help complete the comeback on 4th and 15 with 9 seconds left was only his second attempt that far down the field all game, and that first one came on the first drive. 
The defense was great until it wasn’t at the end, and everyone got a glimpse of what too many blitzes looks like from the Pagano playbook. 
A win is a win and 1-1 looks way better than 0-2, but there were not too many answers to the questions that came from the Week 1 debacle. 
Brian: Yes…Trubisky continues to struggle with accuracy issues that have played him his entire career. But as this point, how do you coach this up and improve? I’m not sure you can. Also, I’m trying to figure out if Mitch is bad because of Nagy or is Nagy bad because of Mitch?
Wes: Put me in the camp of “Nagy is bad because of Mitch” for now. 

The plays are there to be made, and you can’t fault the coaching when wide open guys are missed by five yards in any direction. The two most egregious plays were the ball short to Cohen and the one over Gabriel, both of which were going for big yards if your QB can simply throw a remotely catchable ball. I don’t know if it’s coachable or how you fix it, but this is going to be a very disappointing season if they don’t find out how to manage the offense to the point they can get to 20 every week. 
Tony Martin (@MrMartinBruh): There’s an old Bomb the Music Industry song called “Even Winning Feels Bad” and that’s the best way I can describe what we saw on the field Sunday afternoon. Oof, that was an ugly one. It felt like watching the Kyle Orton years, and I’d be devastated if this team wasted another year of this defensive core and couldn’t fix the offense. 

I agree with the overall sentiment in this thread so far that the scheme doesn’t matter if the QB can’t execute, and Nagy schemed some guys wide open and those plays were not converted. 
On the plus side: David Montgomery is going to get better and better, and the offensive line was better than it was last week (not like that’s saying much). The defense got their clutch turnover, the pressure was consistent, and Eddy drilled that kick. For every holding call, there were three more that could’ve been called and weren’t. This defense beat a team that is run by someone who knows them inside and out, and maintained some level of domination considering the offense only had the ball for 28 minutes for the entire game. Mitch ran a great 31-second drill. There is room for hope, but I’m not sold yet and I doubt I will be until we see consistent QB play. 
It’s at this point it feels like the truly optimistic would point out that the offense started out extremely slowly last year too, aside from the first half against Green Bay. But they gutted out wins against Seattle and Arizona before coming alive against the admittedly terrible Bucs. Do we think there’s no chance this could be the same situation?
Wes: There is still plenty to be optimistic about, but it’s more being optimistic that the coaching staff can find a way to carry their QB until he turns their advice into action. Trubisky is still very inexperienced at the position, but has the athletic ability to be capable enough to be in most games. He still seems to do better in hurry up situations and when he’s on the move, and while that’s not ideal it’s something they could lean on in the meantime. 

Maybe getting reps in preseason would have helped mitigate some of this bullshit, but this is where we are. Monday will be another tough road test, even though Washington doesn’t look very good. The coaching staff rubbed everyone’s nose in it by becoming a running team in Week 2, now let’s see if they can balance things out and make this look like a decent, NFL level offense. 
Brian: I don’t. I am very down on this team and I think they just may not be very good. Like six or seven wins bad. The Bears haven’t scored over 27 points since last November 11th. My concern is that Matt Nagy has been figured out and hasn’t yet figured out how to counterpunch.
Football

Wide Receivers Are Very Special People – Inside The Locker Room – Vol. 1

By Brian Schmitz 1249 0

In dissecting the never-ending news stream that is Antonio Brown, I can’t help but be reminded of one of my favorite all-time teammates. A teammate that will re-name nameless for reasons you will appreciate as you finish reading the following story. For the sake of clarity, this teammate shall be referred to as “Not Alvin Harper.” Keep in mind, this is a story best told live, but I will do my best to provide as much detail as possible in an effort to truly capture how entertaining this entire saga was.

The year was 2003, and I was playing Arena Football for the Orlando Predators. Our coach was Jay Gruden, who also happened to be our quarterback; now that’s some Arena Football shit. Jay was the best! Super funny. Always laughing. Never taking himself or the job too seriously. Loved to party. He was just a good, normal dude. So, if being the quarterback and head coach of a professional football team wasn’t enough, Jay was also the Player Personal Director who was in charge of signing and cutting all players.

During training camp, Jay decided all his receivers sucked; so he cut all of them and signed Travis McGriff and went out and traded for a guy who was arguably the greatest WR in Arena League history; not to mention a former Super Bowl winner with the Dallas Cowboys. Unlike most of us, this guy wasn’t in the AFL because he wasn’t good enough for the NFL, he was in the AFL because he couldn’t stop drinking and blowing rails. The Arena League was the perfect landing spot because there was no drug testing of any kind. Coke, Weed, Meth, Oxy, PEDs – anything and everything was acceptable. The reason being is that the AFL did not want to pay for rehab for offenders so they just decided not to drug test anyone for anything.

Once the season started, every Monday (our off day), “Not Alvin Harper” would throw a party for the team at our housing complex pool. Except this wasn’t just some guys with pizza and cans of Bud Light listening to a radio; this was a full on jam in which he would pay for all the booze, food, and a DJ. Everyone was invited. Whether it was some professionals from Dockside Dolls or some Hooters waitresses or even some homeless dudes one time. This weekly free-for-all made Tuesday morning practices especially entertaining to watch.

Virtually every football team starts their practices in the same manner: a pre-practice period, followed by stretch, followed by an individual period. The individual period for quarterback and receivers starts by going thru the route tree on air. On this one very special Tuesday practice in which I will never forget, “Not Alvin Harper” decided to not go to bed after partying through the night. He strolls out to practice late and immediately jumps into the receiver drills. The first route he runs is a simple hitch, the easiest route in football history and one that 2nd grade football players learn on day one. But on this day, “Not Alvin Harper” comes off the line, hits his five hard mark, stops, and promptly forgets to put up his hands to catch the ball. As the ball rockets off his chest, he doesn’t recognize what just happened and simply runs back to the line of scrimmage and to the back of the receiver’s line. The next route is a slant. Again, “Not Alvin Harper” comes sprinting off the line, hits his 3-yard mark, turned on a 45 degree angle. This time he remembers to use his hand to catch the ball, but he places them about two feet too far apart and the ball hits him on the facemask which knocks the ball and his helmet into the air. What happened next is the single funniest thing I’ve ever seen on a football field: “Not Alvin Harper,” after taking the ball off the face-mask, doesn’t break stride and keeps running his route completely off the field and into the locker room. As he’s running away, something catches my eye – “Not Alvin Harper” wasn’t wearing any socks or shoes. He had forgotten to wears socks and cleats and was running around barefoot thinking no one would notice.

As if this entire seen wasn’t enough, when we returned to practice, “Not Alvin Harper” was sleeping on the floor in the middle of the locker room and his car was parked on the infield dirt inside a local minor league baseball stadium that was adjacent to our practice facility.

***My favorite part of this story was that he went out three days later and caught 11 balls for 102 yards and three TDs.

Football

3 Things We Learned From Week 2’s Win

By Sam Fels 1502 0

As an introduction, this was something they had me doing at FanSided last year, but FanSided is evil and stupid so I’m going to do it here in my own playground. This is not meant to be serious football commentary in the least, but just one cockeyed fan’s view. 

Matt Nagy Might Think Mitch Trubisky Sucks As Much As You Do

Before entering whatever they call Not Mile High these days, I was discussing with Fifth Feather that as a giant middle finger to everyone after criticism of the Packers loss, Nagy might run the ball 40 times. Well, he did, and the punk rock portion of my soul wants to believe that it was a middle finger to all the press and fans that have been calling for a fullback to somehow enter this offense, it felt like more likely Nagy was terrified of letting Mitch do anything.

Mitch attempted one pass down the field all day until the final, this’ll-never-work-holy-shit drive, and that was on the first drive of the day and after a third down scramble that he nearly hit Tarik Cohen on. Had he, perhaps the whole complexion of the game changes and Nagy feels more comfortable with a lead and a more confident Trubisky. Alas, from there Mitch average 4.4 yards per attempt the rest of the day.

It was particularly galling on the Bears second-to-last drive, protecting a pretty slim touchdown lead. Four minutes left, a chance to salt it all away. The Bears did get a first down with an actual pass, if you can believe it, but then stalled out. Two consecutive plays with eight yards to gain and Mitch barely threw over the line of scrimmage, much less anywhere in the area code of the sticks.

That’s the game. You can take it right there. If your QB can’t make the throws to ice a game, then you might have a problem. This isn’t about constructing a drive for a score to win from behind (which to his credit, Mitch did). You just need a first down. Surely there’s a 10-yard route you feel Mitch can make in his sleep.

You understand on one level why Nagy wanted to trust his defense. The problem is a scalding hot day at altitude are the exact conditions that might wilt a defense that had already been asked to do a lot thanks to the offense’s conservatism/balloon handedness. And so it told. If the game’s there, take it. Don’t wait.

Perhaps it’s just going to be a process. Maybe Nagy got spooked by Vic Fangio on the other sideline, salivating to take advantage of more Mitch dumbness (there’s an image for you). Either way, this bumpy ride is long from over.

NFL Rules Don’t Make Any Sense Because They Can’t

Before any Broncos fan comes in here to start tearing up the furniture while lambasting their lot in life after that roughing the passer call, let’s be clear that Eddie Goldman got one just as soft and Leonard Floyd’s unnecessary roughness wasn’t much better.

The spirit of the rule I agree with. Protecting QBs is a good idea not just because they are the faces of the league, a team’s season goes in the shitter when one gets hurt pretty much automatically, and they are the unique player that is eligible to be contacted when they don’t have the ball, at least for a short time.

Accepting all that, it’s nearly impossible to have rules that are going to navigate that perfectly .The whole “full body weight landing” clause to roughing the passer calls is clearly meant to avoid broken clavicles, but how exactly can defenders adjust how they’re landing in half a second or less? I think we all know an intentional body splash when we see one and what’s just a normal tackle.

The officials may tell defender to aim for “half” of the QB, thus being able to spin off to the side. But that’s only going to make getting any mobile QB near impossible to wrangle, which is what I guess the NFL wants.

The NFL already has a “did it count?” problem, with every play not really official until we see no flags or reviews. We’re getting close to every drop-back by a QB needing to be vetted as well, which makes it feel like everything you’re watching isn’t happening and then questioning what truly is reality.

Football Jerseys Do Not Do Well In The Heat

There are currently three undiscovered life forms in my Tillman jersey today after a day in the sun and heat with it. I’m afraid they will eat my suitcase in the overhead compartment as I travel back tonight and will be left with nothing but a rapidly growing organism with no sense of social graces.

Football

Week #2 – Bears vs. Broncos Preview: A Calming Trip to Denver? I Mean, That’s Where Everyone Else Goes…

By Wes French 1671 0

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Records: CHI 0-1 DEN 0-1

TV: 3:25 pm FOX 32

Radio: WBBM 780 AM/105.9 FM

Joe Flacco joined the mile high club before you: Milehighreport.com

Ah, there it is. That sinking feeling. The one that rushed in as you saw Adrian Amos come down with the back-breaking interception last Thursday night. All those lofty expectations and National media criticism crashing down at once.  All the sudden, a Week 2 trip to Denver and former Bears DC Vic Fangio that looked like a mildly challenging test in August is now a near must-win road game against the guy that probably knows your playbook better than your QB. Luckily, Fangio has many a mess of his own to clean up to make this game look more winnable than it did on Monday Morning.

Denver limps home after failing to come all the way back to beat the rival Oakland Raiders late on Monday night in what was a decent upset, all things considered. The 24-16 scoreline is misleading, as Oakland thoroughly dominated this one, pitching a first half shutout (14-0) and withstanding some late garbage time scores to prevail. The Broncos were bad in just about every phase of this one, lowlighted on defense where they gave up a 98-yard drive for a TD to open the 2nd Q and EDGE savants Von Miller and Bradley Chubb were credited with a combined ZERO pressures. Fangio was also without his former Bear FA signing Bryce Callahan, having to to watch second year DB Isaac Yiadom get picked apart play after play by guy-liner aficionado Derek Carr.

The offense and new QB Joe Flacco did little to provide bright spots, settling for FG attempts through three quarters on 215 for 6 points. Flacco led two scoring drives late, but with Oakland holding a 24-6 lead they were happy to give up completions to keep the clock going. Flacco is not going through a renaissance in Denver if he keep on the path from Week 1, especially if the Chicago secondary can take away Courtland Sutton and Emmanuel Sanders. Those two accounted for 12 of 21 completions and nearly 3/4 of the team passing totals. The ground game is very much a work in progress, with Royce Freeman and Phillip Lindsay spitting carries and combining for under 100 yards. As stated, the Broncos have a long journey to figuring this thing out.

Matt Nagy drags his bag of tricks, or lack thereof, to the Mile High city with plenty of answers of his own to provide. The focus for over a week has been on the abysmal offensive performance and how exactly they go about getting to average, let alone progressing to the top of the NFL’s offenses like many had hoped for in year two of Nagy-ball. Mitchell Trubisky is continuing to be coddled, with the Bears brass opting against him even speaking about his failures from Week 1. Trubs has plenty of his own work to do with reading the plays and not panicking into awful throws or abandoning pockets in half a second. His offensive line, a major strength of 2018, needs to get their shit together as well after they gave up a near league-worst 19 QB pressures to start the season. It’ll be interesting to see what tweaks, if any, are made with the stable of RBs and what that usage looks like. The major disparity of runs to pass plays will no doubt be better than 15/50, but many were confused by the usage in general of Tarik Cohen, Mike Davis, David Montgomery and Cordarelle Patterson. Unlock the backfield, and things could start to fall into place for the offense as a whole. Trey Burton‘s mystery groin injury doesn’t seem set to heal just yet, and his full participation could also be a key to opening up this offense.

The Chicago defense is hoping it won’t be wasted like many of the stout Bear D’s of the recent past. This unit looked as good as advertised, even with a few new faces and new coordinator in Chuck Pagano trying not to bungle the gift Fangio left him. The Broncos only gave up sis QB pressures in Week 1, but the Oakland rush isn’t exactly what you’d call “remotely passable” for an NFL team, and that was before Denver lost the best RT in football in Ju’Waun James. Khalil Mack and co. have to be more than eager to get after the swiss cheese right side of the line and statuesque Flacco. Eddie Goldman will be a game time decision, but with the emergence of Roy Robertson-Harris last week that may be a moot point.

Neither of these teams probably expected to come into this game with this much uncertainty, and how it plays out for the victor will be very telling of where their seasons go from here. Can Nagy sort out his shortcomings to the point the offense runs smoothly and becomes watchable, possibly even…exciting? I’d settle for boring and good for now. Can Fangio tighten up his defense enough, with so many young/new players and a new system, on a short week?

My money is on Nagy, Mitch and the offense doing enough to lean on another stellar defensive performance to get Chicago it’s first win of 2019. Fangio might know how to solve Nagy, but the personnel doesn’t seem like it’s ready to execute as needed. Remember, it took three full years for the Bears to go from bottom third of the league to top five in DVOA under Vic.

Prediction: Bears 22, Broncos 13