The Chicago Bears Fan Forum

Based upon the responses I’ve read to Brian Urlacher’s comments to Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune, I’d say that Bear fans are getting a little tired of his petulance.  Here’s a sample:

“Yeah, (Steve Slaton’s 47-yard run) was my fault. Every long touchdown we gave up this season, it was my fault. Every time a receiver caught a pass for a touchdown, it was my fault too. In Atlanta, when the guy caught that pass that allowed them to kick the field goal, that was my fault.”

OK, sarcasm aside, Urlacher’s got a little bit of point.  He had an up and down season but even after his good games there were always a number of fans calling in to the local sports talk stations to criticize Urlacher’s play.  I admit that I also did not go out of my way to compliment Urlacher in my own post-game comments as readily as I should have when it warranted it.  But that ignores the larger issue here, which is why does Urlacher even care?

Urlacher is beloved by his teammates.  GM Jerry Angelo loves him:

“The one person I do believe in, in terms of every day and who he is, is Brian Urlacher.  I will never question his commitment, his passion, his love for football. He has too much character, too much pride to ever not be the best he can be.”

Head coach Lovie Smith certainly wasn’t excessively down on him earlier this week, even as he gave a realistic evaluation of his performance:

“Brian, at times, played well this past year and other times, he needed to pick up a little bit.”

In a post last week I quoted the movie Fight Club:  “No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide.“  Critical comments made in places like radio talk shows, in fan blogs and in newspaper columns do not matter.

Last April when Urlacher decided not to show up for voluntary workouts, I wrote that his behaviour was becoming disturbing.  These comments only exacerbate my concern.  What happened to the player who would warm the hearts of both fans and teammates by laughing on the field after a good hit?  Why does he feel the need to answer questions from the media (and thus address the fans) with one word grunts?  Why is Urlacher becoming so thin skinned?  Why so touchy?  Why so bitter?

What I said in April still applies:

“Many (aging veterans) become an example for younger players by being there for the team despite the fact that they know they can get away with doing less. They choose to give back to the game. Instead, Urlacher shows every sign of becoming the opposite.”

It’s New Years Day, a time for new beginnings.  Urlacher is a team leader.  His attitude affects younger players on the team who need his example.  He needs to resolve to focus on what matters.  He needs to resolve to be there this off-season.  He needs to resolve to work even harder to improve upon an up and down season and to be the best that he can be.  And above all, for the good of the team and of himself, he needs to resolve to have more fun doing it.

Just a short entry as the Bears consider what changes should be made in the offseason.  David Haugh wrote yet another strong column for the Chicago Tribune this morning with nine assumptions, one for each Bears win, that the Bears should not make in the offseason.  I will add a tenth and an eleventh.  Let’s call it one for each game the Bears aught to have won and didn’t:

10.  Faulty Assumption:  That the Bears should give up on Tommie Harris.

Brad Biggs addressed this, among other things, in his article for the Chicago Sun-Times this morning.  He highlighted the fact that much of Harris’ contract is bound up in roster bonuses.  Harris is due an $6.67 million dollar bonus on the first day of the league year.  So the Bears could cut him loose before then and limit the salary cap damage.

There’s no doubt that  Tommie Harris underachieved this year.  He showed flashes of his old self but performed with no consistency.  He’s had knee problems the last two years and its possible that this has limited his production.  Assuming this is the problem (and its a big assumption to make), I think the Bears should pay the bonus and give Harris another year for two reasons.

First, these knee injuries appear to be tricky things.  Players who have knee surgery often come back the next year and gut thier way through it but they aren’t the same until the second year after the surgery.  Harris has had knee troubles since late in 2006 and actually had surgery in January.  He might not be fully recovered from those unjuries even now.  Another year might do wonders.

The second reason is that Harris would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.  Many people trace the decline of the defense from the firing of Ron Rivera.  What they forget is that the defense under-performed late in 2006.  The decline started right when Harris started having knee problems and the defense has never looked the same since.  I still remember how shocking the difference was in 2006 with and without Harris.  Like no other player on the roster, as Tommie Harris goes, so goes the Bear defense.

11.  Faulty Assumption:  The Bears should fire Bob Babich and hire Rod Marinelli as defensive coordinator.

I’m as frustrated as anyone with the Bears defensive scheme.  I hate seeing those defensive backs 8-10 yards off the line of scrimmage and much prefer the aggressive style that the Green Bay Packers show.  The problem is that the Packers defense stunk this year.  In any case, the scheme is Lovie Smith’s, not Bob Babich’s.  Replacing  Babich with Marinelli won’t change that.

In addition, Marinelli has never been a coordinator and he might not make a good one.  Consider these comments given to Chris Mortenson of ESPN at the time of Marinelli’s hiring as head coach by the Lions (reposted yesterday in an article by Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com):

I know exactly what Kiffin and Dungy are talking about.  Being a good coordinator requires a different skill set than being a head coach.  That’s why excellent coordinators like Scott Linehan often don’t do as well upon promotion.  It’s why Wade Phillips is destined to fail.

One consideration that does have merit is that Babich can’t motivate the defense the way that Rivera did.  Certainly he doesn’t seem to have inspired  as much confidence based upon the comments from players.  But that can be addressed without demoting Babich.

Marinelli is a very good football man and, based upon what I’ve seen of his press conferences, he’s probably a very good motivator.  By all accounts, he is also one of the best defensive line coaches in the league.  Certainly the defensive line in general, and Mark Anderson in particular, haven’t been the same since Don Johnson was fired after the 2006 season.  Perhaps the best of all worlds would be to hire Marinelli as defensive line coach and assistant head coach.  It would seem to me to plug a lot of holes.

The column by David Haugh in The Chicago Tribune this morning was enough to warm any Bear fan’s heart.  I loved his take on the mental state of the Vikings and their head coach, Brad Childress:

Childress was asked if the score of Sunday’s Bears-Texans game at Reliant Stadium will appear on the Metrodome scoreboard while the Vikings simultaneously play the Giants, the implication being an early Bears lead could affect the Viking adversely.

“I haven’t decided,” Childress said. “I think we’re better served to focus on what’s happening on our field.”

With such uncertainty, Childress all but guaranteed the Vikings won’t focus on anything but what might go wrong.

If the Bears had a sense of humor, they would finagle some tickets behind the Vikings’ bench and send a team employee with a greaseboard to hold up periodic updates from Houston.

Childress even considering a news blackout at the Metrodome for Bears-Texans updates shows how little he trusts his team’s mental toughness.

Haugh also expressed his confidence that the Bears will live to fight on:

But somehow, someway, it just seems as if these Bears will find a way to survive as they have enough during the first 16 weeks to be in position to win the NFC North.

I fervently hope that this is so.  But while not generally averse to anything that is going to be critical of Childress and complementary to Lovie Smith and the Bears, I can’t help but say that I don’t share Haugh’s confidence.

There are two things about the Viking game, which they must lose for the Bears to win the division, that make me think that our hopes maybe near an end.  One is that the Vikings are surely going to come out and play hard if not particularly well.  That’s pretty much a given.  The second is that the Giants probably won’t be playing their starters for a good portion of the game.

The optimist will point out that Tom Coughlin played his starters in the Giants’ last game in 2007.  But last year they weren’t playing particularly well going into the playoffs and needed a good game to get their act together.  In addition, they were fighting history and an undefeated New England team. The story is a bit different this year.

I’ve heard many talking heads on the radio over the past week claim that the Giants could still beat the Vikings with their backups in the second half.  They claim that even if they are backups, they are still NFL players and the drop off in talent isn’t that big.  I can’t bring myself to believe this.  The Bears played their backups against Green Bay in the last game of 2006 and the difference was night and day.  I can’t believe that the Giants will be that much different.

Having said that much, as a fan I am determined to mimic the attitude of the team we all love so well this Sunday, as Haugh once again relates:

The trick for an NFL head coach isn’t blocking out reality. The trick is getting good at ignoring or dismissing it for the good of his team.

Lovie Smith has mastered the difference.

If the Bears coach was ever in the same situation as Childress, can anybody imagine him publicly pondering such a thing? Say this about Smith: To a fault, he allows almost nothing outside the Bears’ locker room during the week or on Sunday affect him. Thus it has little or no effect on his team.

Like the Bears, I have an afternoon of scoreboard/ESPN Gamecast watching ahead of me.  All the more because I am with family in St. Louis and will be able to watch neither the Bear game nor the Viking game.  But of the two, I will be almost entirely focused only on the Bears and I am determined that the Vikings will have no effect on me (other than to try to keep from hurting myself while rolling on the floor laughing if they lose).

Like the quote from the movie, Fight Club, “No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide. “  The key for any Bears fan tomorrow is to be happy with the Bears.  As former NFL player Matt Bowen advises in the Chicago Sun-Times:

As a fan of this team, cheer for what you do have. A solid defense, great special teams, and dominant players at the tight end and running back position.

It has led to nine and what should be 10 wins by the end of this Sunday.

And no matter what else happens, that will be enough.

As Dan Pompei writes for the Chicago Tribune this morning, Cedric Benson is once again trying to convince the NFL that he a new “man”.  Let’s take a look at the article with translations from NFL speak to the language of the rest of us, shall we?

Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick gave this endorsement to Bengals.com: “From everything you read in the papers and online, I think people were hesitant to welcome Cedric, with his problems in the past and his perceived attitude. But he’s been awesome. He brings enthusiasm. He always works hard. He has become a leader out there, which is a hard thing for a guy who has not been around very long.”

Translation:  “They haven’t asked him to block for me, yet.”

Benson believes the Bengals’ offensive scheme and their play calls suit his style better. Whereas the Bears use a lot of powers and counters and tend to run downhill, the Bengals take a wider zone that stretches the field horizontally, and they run more draw plays.

Translation:  They don’t ask him to catch passes, either.

“My position coach here (Jim Anderson) has been really helpful, much different from my position coach there in Chicago,” Benson said. “(Anderson) told me how excited he was I’m here. He’s helped me adjust as fast as possible to the playbook. He’s been a support guy in the corner, which I didn’t get much in Chicago.”

Translation:  “It wasn’t my fault.  It was (runningback coach) Tim Spencer’s fault.”

Asked how Spencer was different, Benson said, “I don’t think he was a fan of Cedric, not at all.”

Translation:  “Spencer didn’t coddle me enough.”

Benson also says the Bengals have blocked better for him than the Bears did in 2007.

Translation:  “Its wasn’t my fault.  It was the offensive line’s fault.”

He had his blood tested to see if his diet was on target and discovered he is allergic to gluten. He subsequently cut out breads and pastas from his diet. Now he says he is in the best shape of his life. He weighs 225, a few pounds less than last season.

Translation:  “It wasn’t my fault.  It was the gluten’s fault.”

“But for the most part, it’s hard for me to say I made changes because I never was intoxicated in those situations.”

Translation:  “It wasn’t my fault.  It was the cops in Texas.”

“I’m still going to enjoy my summer. I would never go downtown and have one drink and drive, and I would have in the past. That’s what got me in this situation. But who doesn’t have one drink and drive?”

Translation:  “I didn’t do anything wrong and I’ll eventually do it again.”

“Any time you go through some difficult times, it’s life-changing,” Benson said. “It’s always important to take in the lesson that’s being taught. I’ve learned a lot. I grew a lot as a person, as a man.”

Translation:  “I think I’ve grown up because I’ve been through a lot, not because I’ve actually changed.  New team, same the little boy.  I’m a victim in a world that hasn’t been fair to me and I always will be.  See you on the NFL scrap heap.”

While it is relatively easy to follow the Bears in Chicago it can be a trial to get a good look at other teams because they aren’t shown on television as consistently.  However, I have been able to watch the Vikings the last few weeks and I’ve come to one conclusion that I think most other fans have as well.  They are very talented.  I mean really talented.  Like maybe the best in the league at the line of scrimmage.  More talented than the Bears.  So the question in my mind has been, “How can the Bears have the same record as Minnesota despite a very noticeable talent gap?”

In my mind part of the difference can be described in just five words.  “Brad Childress and Lovie Smith.”

How you ask?  Lets take a look at the Viking game last week as a typical example.  Minesota played Atlanta in a game that both teams needed to win badly.  And despite the fact that the Falcons are a very good team, Minnesota looked much, much more talented.  Their front seven dominated Atlanta on defense, getting great penetration and putting a great deal of pressure on quarterback Matt Ryan.  Offensively Adrian Peterson was all over the field as the Viking offensive line also dominated.  Even Tarvaris Jackson was passing well and showed excellent athleticism and escapability.  So how did they lose?

The Vikings came out too cranked up and stayed that way the whole game.  Each player gave so much that they all tried to do too much.  Peterson ran so hard that he swung his arms (and the ball) too far out from his body.  Jackson had guys hanging off of him and he was still handling the ball with one hand as he tried to make plays out of hopeless situations.  The result of it all?  Seven fumbles, four of which were lost.

Teams that play in this state make mistakes.  Every head coach knows, or should know, that.  Most people also know that in almost all sports the personality of the team reflects the personality that the head coach exhibits.  What Minnesota needed last Sunday was someone who could settle them down and keep them on an even keel.  Each shot of Childress on the sideline showed that what they got was much different.  Childress was constantly on the field, yelling, gesturing, lobbying officials during first down measurements when they had nothing to do with it other than stretching out the chains or after fumbles when the only question was who would come up with the ball.

It has become evident to me, based upon his behaviour on the field and some of his comments off of the field, that Childress might be a major problem with that team.  He’s an emotional guy and, to his credit, he acts like himself in all of the honesty that I’m sure he exhibits as part of his character.  I think I’d like him if I knew him.  But, unfortunately, he is exactly what a head coach usually can’t be in the NFL.

Emotionally, Childress allows himself to blow with the wind, magnifying the emotional problems that young players exhibit instead of damping them out.  Not sensitive to what his team needs and lacking the self control to give it to them even if he did, he’s more like a player on the sidelines than a coach.  Even in interviews after games he looks like he’s too high after wins and too low after losses.  Every game the Vikings lose with such a decided advantage in personnel is an indication to me that Childress is stealing Zigi Wilf’s money by wasting the talent that he bought.

The Bears’ Lovie Smith is a study in contrast to Childress.  When Chicago fans criticize Smith you can bet that one of the first things they’ll bring up in his stoic expression on the sideline.  What they don’t understand is that Smith is almost certainly at least as emotional as they are.  But he keeps his emotions under control on the sidelines, in press conferences, and at all other times largely to guard against the natural highs and lows of the NFL season.  Smith’s teams play on an even keel, sometimes losing to a divison rival like Green Bay or Minnesota but rarely letting down in the weeks afterward like a very young Packers team did this year.

The result?  Like most years, Smith’s team over achieved, doing much better than most fans and NFL experts expected.  Generally speaking, they won the games they are supposed to win and then some because they didn’t make as many mistakes and didn’t turn the ball over as often.  Smith’s teams perform closer to optimum for their talent than most other NFL teams.

Unlike Childress, Smith is an anchor of stability for his team in the midst of the storm that swirls every week of the NFL season both on and off the field.  He is a rock against which the winds may blow and the waves may pound.  And it is upon that rock that good teams may be built.

I was awfully tired last night as the astute reader will notice from the numerous typographical errors in yesterday’s game comments.  Since I’m in St. Louis with family (read “bored”) I’d like to expand on some offensive issues that I saw (again) yesterday.

Wide Receivers

Though many will disagree, I don’t think this was the Bears biggest issue yesterday.  Nevertheless, though I know it has been done to death, its worthwhile to reiterate that the Bears wide receivers are slowly killing them.  Color man, Ron Jaworski was right on in his comments indicating that the Bear wide receivers weren’t getting separation and I think this is due to a talent gap, pure and simple.

What is not due to a talent gap are the drops.  Once again, we saw too many of these when, and this can’t be emphasised enough, the Bears can’t afford any.  Devin Hester failed to catch at least two critically important passes.  This is lack of concentration pure and simple.

Kyle Orton

Once again, this point makes me “Captain Obvious”.  I don’t actually consider Orton to be the most important problem either but he plainly is one.  What isn’t plain is why he’s regressed.  Here’s my theory on two problems that Jaworski pointed out last night:

1. Orton isn’t planting and throwing off of his back foot.  This is (to me) obviously a result of his ankle injury.  Orton was not wearing a heavy wrap yesterday and I doubt very much that pain in the ankle is still affecting him.  But he seems to have picked up some bad habits as a result of playing with the injury.  Orton still throws like he did against the Packers in the first game when the ankle was still bad.  His mechanics need to be re-adjusted as soon as possible.
2. Orton is staring down receivers.  This could well be partly a byproduct of the wide reciever problem.  Early in the year, Orton was throwing to spots in anticipation of where his reciever would or should be.  But last night (and in the first Packer game) the receivers were getting knocked off of their routes at the line of scrimmage by defensive backs, thus disrupting the timing of the Bear offense.  This could well give Orton enough discomfort to cause him to stare down his receivers as he is left waiting and wondering if, where and when they would come open.

The Offensive Line

Like in their first meeting, the Packers played the nickle a great deal of the time, even when the Bears had base personnel on the field.  The idea was to put a cornerback on tight ends Greg Olsen and/or Desmond Clark.  The Bears consider themselves to be a running team that should be able to pound the rock even in the face of eight man fronts.  Yet they absolutely could not budge the Packers for most of the game even though they were playing a passing defense.

This is inexcusable and it highlights what I consider to be the Bear’s major offensive issue - the play on the interior of the offensive line.  The Bears have never been good in this area and now, in addition, they are undersized, especially left guard Josh Beekman, and its killing them.

No matter what the Bears do in the offseason, they must fix this problem if they expect to run the ball.  I laughed some years ago when the Vkiings threw all of that money at Steve Hutchinson.  Well, I’m not laughing now.

A hard look needs to be taken at perhaps replacing both Beekman and Roberto Garza to get better inside.  The Bears should look toward moving John St. Clair to guard and toward drafting one, at minimum to make sure they have an option if St. Clair doesn’t work out.  If they don’t start moving some defensive tackles out of the way, they will only see more of what the Packers gave them in the coming years.

Author’s Note

Since I am out of town for the holidays and the game was unavailable for recording when I left, I may not get game comments up next week.  I will most likely be sweating out the game score while watching the Rams get pummeled.  I apologize in advance if I don’t get anything up.  Have a happy holiday and please be safe.

Tom

Defense

1. The Bear cornerbacks spent most of the game 8-10 yards off the line of scrimmage (again).
2. The Bears did better than they have before but occasionally couldn’t get enough pressure on Aaron Rogers.
3. The combination of one and two is obviously very bad.  The Packers wide receivers were free to run in defensive back field.  When the Bears got pressure, it was OK.  When they didn’t, this was basically the Packers playing pitch and catch, especially in the first half.
4. Mike Brown was a terrible loss to the Bear defense.  The run defense suffered badly without him.  It reminded me of the Indianapolis Colts defense without Bob Sanders.

Offense

1. The Packers just plain won the line of scrimmage again.  They stuffed the run all night.  What’s most impressive is that they often did it in a nicle defense.  If you are the Bears and you have what you consider to be a running offense and you can’t run against that, you are in bad shape.
2. Hard to believe that the Bears could come out so flat in such an important game.  Thier first first down was with 1:24 left in first quarter.  Time of possession roughly 2:1 in the first half.
3. The Bears didn’t have much success doing anything until the started throwing more over the middle (as many of them have been begging them to do for weeks.
4. The Packers really played the Bears just ike they did in the first game.  Besides the nickel defense, they knocked the wide receivers aff their routes, ths disrupting the timing of the Bear offense.
5. Like in the first game, I couldn’t quite figure out why the Bears gave up throwing to Matt Forte out of the backfield.  I was glad to see it work so well in the fourth quarter but what took so long?
6. Too many mistakes, too many dropped balls… yada, yada, yada.

Miscellaneous

1. I was thinking “Fake” on my couch before Matt Flynn carried that ball for a first down on the fake punt in the second quarter.  Where were the coaches?
2. What was the deal with the pooch kincks that the Bears kept throwing out there and why weren’t they deeper
3. The Bears had some terrible penalties in this game.  That obviously can’t happen.
4. If you listen to Ron Jaworski, the Bears have some bad QB coaching.  He didn’t say it outright.  But Kyle Orton apparently can’t stop staring down recievers.  This seems like a question of poor fundamentals to me.  That’s coaching.
5. Fantastic support from the fans tonight.  Kudos to all who came out and stayed to the end of the game to support the team.  It was inspiring even watching on television.
6. The Bears got outplayed so badly in the first half that I have to say that I thought the game was probably lost.  Kudos for coming back in the second half with a good effort but I still can’t understand how they came out so flat in such an important game.  Once again, they were extremely fortunate.  Here’s hoping that this doesn’t happen again against Houston next week.  Otherwise I have to figure that the Bear’s luck may finally run out.

Unlike last week when the playoff Gods turned away from the Bears and their post season hopes, when the likes of Tampa, Arizona and the NFC leading frikken New York Giants needed to win, but all came up empty, thus putting the Beloved’s playoff chances in dire straits. 
 
At least for one night the deities looked a little kinder toward the Midwest, when the Baltimore Ravens ran for long touchdown runs, including the longest TD romp by an opponent in the history of Texas Stadium, to beat the Cowboys 33-24 in the last regular season game played at the field with the hole in the roof.
 
Midway thru the 4th, Dallas finally got untracked to score their first TD since the first quarter, only to see Willis McGahee take the first snap on the Ravens ensuing possession 77 yards for a score to seemingly put the game on ice.
 
Tony Romo, who until the last period had a dreadful night, rallied Dallas with yet another score, this time a 21 yard pass to Jason Witten to cut Baltimore’s lead to 26-24 with 1:40 to play.
 
With all three timeouts remaining the Cowboys kicked the ball deep againt the Ravens Hands Team.  Mark Clayton caught the ball at the 6 and ran to the 18 before sliding to avoid a miscue.
 
Ravens runningback Le’Ron McClain then proceeded to etch his name in the Texas Stadium annals by taking a handoff and went right, breaking a tackle and bounding 82 yards for the clinching score.  McClain’s romp was the longest TD run by an opponent in the history of the stadium during the Cowboys last home game.  Dallas opens their new $1.1 Billion football shrine next season.
 
This game was Baltimore’s only visit to the Cowboy’s home.  With the win, they become one of only two teams to never lose at Texas Stadium.  The Raiders, at 3-0, are the only other team to go undefeated there.

This now means that no matter what happens in games on Sunday, the Bears go into Monday’s game with a playoff berth still on the line.
 
Dallas had to win along with victories by Philadelphia, Minnesota and Tampa to end the Bears playoff chances.
 
The Bears still need a lot of help to make it to the post season dance and their best bet is still the NFC North crown.
 
Hopefully those playoff Gods will still be smiling at Chicago when the weekend is over.

Ambrose Bierce, the writer of The Devil’s Dictionary defined “optimism” as “The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly.”  I find this to be particularly appropriate given some of the optimistic rhetoric I’m hearing from Bear fans and some of the media lately.

For instance, there was this from Brad Biggs of the Chicago Sun-Times Monday morning:

The implication is that they are a playoff caliber team regardless of whether they make the playoffs.  Indeed, just the day before Biggs wrote an entire article on how the Bears have the right mix to make noise in the playoffs:

I hate to take issue too much with a fellow Missouri alumnus and so I’m happy to say that I do agree with the above.  I thought the Bear defense played like champions against New Orleans last Thursday and they were everything that you could want in a playoff team.  My problem comes later in the article:

While Kyle Orton hasn’t played great the last three weeks — he has four touchdowns and six interceptions — he has proved he can play with his injured right ankle. Orton has shown he has a knack for playing well at the end of games. He would have been a legend had his touchdown pass to Rashied Davis with 11 seconds to play held up in Atlanta. Orton is poised in pressure situations and knows what he is doing directing the offense.