Week 14: Bears at Bengals Game Thread
On this abbreviated DaBearsPod, Jeff hoarsely weighs in on why there’s a benefit to firing the coach mid-season & why the Bears are missing a big PR opportunity. Oh, and Reverend Dave discusses his uncle eating baby mice or something and it’s disgusting.
We have received hundreds of dollars in donations for the holiday drive above. Hopefully that will continue. $2 buys a composition book and with AREENA matching, it actually buys two. You can donate HERE.
I always like the Chicago Bears. And with the USMNT out of the World Cup, I don’t have another team to root for. But hey, Tiger Woods may be back.
i hear the fox whisper, whisper to me
i hear the fox whisper, behind the oak tree
come help me he says, with anxious dismay
i’ve lost, oh i’ve lost, oh i’ve lost my damn way
—–
once i could run
now i can not
once i defended
myself from this lot
once all my plans and ideas seemed to work
now here i stand, an omnivorous jerk
—–
his whispers receded, he wandered away
where he was headed, no one could say
i’ll always remember, this time with the fox
but now there may be less than eight in the box
In last week’s game preview I gave some space to the charitable efforts of Cook County Commissioner – and friend of DBB -Bridget Gainer. The image is above.
Since this is a blog, and since writing is a central component, I’ve decided to focus our attention on the composition notebooks. Incarceration ain’t easy. And while providing shampoo and conditioner would be nice, providing these women with an outlet to express themselves would be far more impacting.
And our sponsor, AREENA, has decided to match the total donations of our readers. We’ll then take the money and get hundreds of composition notebooks to Gainer’s people the week of December 18th.
So donate! $2 buys a notebook. $5 buys three notebooks. Give what you can. The Bears stink. So let’s try and make a difference. The button to donate is directly below.
Player: T.J. Edwards, ILB, Wisconsin
Game: Big Ten Championship Game vs. Ohio State (#8), 7 PM CT
Here is a breakdown of Edwards’ Butkus Award-worthy season from the official site of Badgers football:
Wisconsin’s first Butkus Award finalist, Edwards has been a constant for the Badgers’ outstanding defense once again this season. The Lake Villa, Illinois, native ranks second on the team with 60 total tackles and has recorded 8.5 tackles for loss and 2.0 sacks.
Edwards’ four interceptions – including one returned 54 yards for a touchdown – are the most by a linebacker in the FBS this season.
His efforts have been key to a unit that ranks No. 2 nationally in scoring defense (13.1 points per game), total defense (246.4 yards per game) and pass efficiency defense (94.8) and stands No. 1 in rushing defense (79.4 ypg).
From Chris Trapasso at CBS, projecting Edwards to the Seahawks with the 20th pick:
Bobby Wagner has challenged Luke Kuechly as the game’s best off-ball linebacker, and he has made a compelling case to earn that title this season. To give him a young running mate, the Seahawks select Edwards, a smart, polished inside linebacker who, like Wagner, has no problem sinking into coverage to make plays.
On this week’s episode:
I always like the Chicago Bears. And my effort will remain consistent when it comes to these game previews even if the players don’t match that on the field.
these doth be the fox’s final prances
on the lakefront’s tortured green field
the music has stopped, and so the dances
as a fate seems cer’tainly sealed
you shall be remembered fair fox, fair fox
for simply, sly smirks and feeble’ish frowns
but always remember, fair fox, fair fox
one’s allowed to go’eth on occasional fourth downs
Spent all day Monday reaching out to every single contact I have in the NFL. All four of ’em. Why? Because I was angry, frustrated, tired of writing about a losing team…etc. I figured I could only spend so much time yelling at my cats about the Bears’ misuse of Tarik Cohen so I might as well use the energy for good. Here’s what I know.
(None of this is based on guesswork. This is stuff I was actually told.)
(1) There is a roughly .01% chance of John Fox being the coach on January 2nd 2018. Ryan Pace will hire his replacement.
(2) There was consideration given to firing John Fox after the Green Bay game but ownership/Pace don’t believe there’s a good interim option on the staff. This includes Vic Fangio who, I’m told, would not be super keen on the assignment and has turned down extension offers from the team to stay on as defensive coordinator.
(3) George McCaskey idolizes how the Giants and Steelers are run and has decided to emulate their approach. He does not want to fire a coach in-season. This does not mean he would never do it. But, honestly, emulating the Giants and Steelers is never a bad thing, folks.
(4) If Fox loses this week to the 49ers, don’t be surprised if his tenure ends Monday morning. If he loses to the Browns on Christmas Eve, he won’t coach the finale. I don’t know why so much emphasis is being put on two meaningless games against awful opponents, other than their being at home, but that’s what I was told.
Five years ago the Chicago Bears fired a head coach because they deemed 10 wins in 16 games that season were not enough. Through 30 games of his Bears tenure, John Fox has 12 wins.
On October 16th 2016 this space advocated for the firing of Fox for many valid reasons. But primary among them was the Bears seemed ready to move into a new era – with a new, young quarterback – and Fox was clearly not the man to usher the organization through that era. It wasn’t so much an indictment of Fox’s job performance as a recognition that he’d done his part to bring the Bears back to respectability post-Argonaut and the time had now come to transition from respectable to competitive.
That was 2016. This is 2017. And now it’s ENTIRELY about job performance. Because the Bears are a terrible football team.
Is it worth going through the litany of things wrong with John Fox’s approach to game day football? No. We’ve been talking about the lack of preparedness and penalties and awful mismanagement every day over the three years he’s run the show in Chicago. But the deal breaker for the organization has to be that for the first time Fox has young offensive talent to work with and develop and he, as well as offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains, are squandering that opportunity on a weekly basis.
