These are my first ever (I think) rapid first game notes taken during the game. Not usually my approach but we’re giving it ago…

FIRST QUARTER

• The turnover-or-bust defense was in full effect. Nice plays on the ball by Bowman and Jennings (for a touchdown) but allowing Brandon Jacobs to gash the defensive line and linebackers was disconcerting.
• Lance Briggs getting barreled on the Jacobs touchdown run was oddly sad.
• No pass rush outside the opening drive.
• Understand Marc Trestman’s approach on fourth down but always want the zero off the board as soon as possible. Why take a turnover and allow it to be a momentum builder for your opponent?
• Brilliant work by Cutler and Marshall on the second Bears drive. When these two are in sync they are arguably the most fun pair in football to watch work.
• Bears have had substitution issues this season. I’ll write it off to a new coaching staff until around November. Then I will yell about it.

Read More …

Three final thoughts on Bears vs. Giants tonight:

1. Must win for the Bears. If they lose to the 0-5 Giants their season will not be over but it will become very difficult to stay positive and mount a significant charge at the postseason. This is a game a title contender wins 30-10. This is a game a playoff contender wins 27-24. This is a game a mediocre team loses.
2. No David Wilson means I’d be shocked if the Giants muster anything in the run department. Without the Bears respecting the run, the Giants will be forced to throw into the cover-2 shell most of the evening. I expect Major Wright and Chris Conte to get their hands on some footballs.
3. Giants offensive line is in shambles. I’d be very surprised if Shea McClellin and Julius Peppers don’t deliver solid-or-better performances. If the Giants go to a max protect look it will limit their one offensive desire: throwing deep.

Bearing down. Hey, you never know.

DaBearsBlog’s own Jeff Hughes appears on 1490 the Jock in Des Moines, Iowa with Marty Tirrell and Trent Condon.

The Bears have lost two straight games and the Marc Trestman regime is now facing its first real scrutiny. They have gone from 3-0 to 3-2.

So, why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

BUT WHAT FOOTBALL REASONS, JEFF?

• The New York Giants are one of the proudest franchises in the NFL and deserve the respect of fan bases across the country. But right now they are an abysmal team. They are not just winless through five games. They have had their doors blown off on a weekly basis, surrendering the most points in the league. (They are actually four points clear of the Jacksonville Jaguars.)
• Giants turn the ball over more than anybody else in the league and the Bears are in the midst of a turnover drought. I would think this goes the Bears way Thursday night.
• Giants can’t cover either of the Bears wide receivers with their current corners.
• Giants linebackers and safeties – outside perhaps the halfway decent Antrel Rolle – should have an impossible time with a motivated Martellus Bennett and Matt Forte out of the backfield.
• Giants are allowing 126 yards a game on the ground and only rushing for 56.
• Bears will make starting fast a priority after slow starts in almost every game this season (including all three home games). A fast start, a double-digit first quarter lead, will end this game. Bad teams don’t rally on the road. They shut the windows and close down the shop.

Read More …

Who knows what the Reverend will provide us as the season goes along. You see, our little Reverend is a fancy pants going off to help the world. He’s going to Malawi for ten months. Here’s his final stateside Rant of the calendar year.

REMEMBER. DABEARSBLOG IS MOVING. DABEARSBLOG.COM IS THE ONLY PLACE TO READ THIS CONTENT STARTING NOVEMBER 1. CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS!

There are a lot of things that bore me. Baseball games. Motivational speakers. Any dinner/ceremony related to a wedding. Waiting in the tee box for the group ahead of me to complete their woodland pilgrimage to find an ill-driven ProV1. (This also infuriates me to my breaking point.) I am starting to become very bored by two NFL writing trends: the regurgitation of numerical evaluations from Pro Football Focus and X & O breakdowns from anybody who shelled out the sixty bucks for All-22 tape. Admittedly I was guilty of both for a few weeks. I’m done.

Side note Tweet: 

Biggest question re: Pro Football Focus rankings? How much do they investigate assignments? How do they ascertain OL liability w/out knowing assignments?

This is not a column positing my knowledge of the inner workings of defensive football. I don’t pretend to have all that much. This is a column asking very basic questions about how the Bears defense progresses through the 2013 season.

Here’s what I know about the Tampa-2 defensive structure: it needs to be built strong up the middle like a great defensive baseball team. At its best in Tampa it was Warren Sapp, Derrick Brooks, John Lynch. At its best in Chicago it was Tommie Harris, Brian Urlacher, Mike Brown.

On Thursday night it will be a hobbled Stephen Paea, D.J. Williams, Major Wright. Oh Hamlet, what a falling off was there! (Does this count as a pop culture reference?) Little push from the middle of the defensive, little coverage of the deep middle from the linebacker position and little discipline from center field. Due to injuries sustained by Henry Melton and Nate Collins the Bears no longer have the personnel to run the Tampa-2 defense. They no longer have the strength in the middle of their defense.

What does this mean? I have absolutely no idea. There is no chance Mel Tucker is going to spend the next twenty-hours in his defensive laboratory, concocting new schemes to fit the current Bears personnel. The Bears aren’t suddenly going to play bump-and-run on the outside or switch to a 3-4 defense overnight because they are down to there third and fourth tackles. But I have a few questions based on what I watched between the Saints and Bears Sunday.

1. Shea McClellin turned in arguably his finest performance as a defensive end and it seemed as the game progressed he took his hand out of the dirt on third downs. Is this something the Bears would consider doing on a regular basis?
2. How many times this season are we going to see Bears corners with their hands in the air, surprised the safeties have not provided support over the top? Playing a safety over the top is a perfectly fine device to keep plays in front of the defense but it can be lethal if the safeties are continually late? Would Tucker ever allow Tillman and Jennings to simply play men and not space? Aren’t Tillman and Jennings two of the best defenders on the club? Can’t they just play them play?
3. Will the Bears go to a more NASCAR look with regularity? The “NASCAR look” idea was coined by the Giants of a few years back when they’d put their four best pass rushers on the line of scrimmage and let them go. Seems to me the Bears would be wise to get out of the “technique” mentality and just go after quarterbacks on occasion.

Again, I don’t expect the Bears to make any significant changes with two days until the Giants come to Chicago. But after this Giants game the Bears only play one game over the next twenty-four days. If the coaching staff was going to make any large-scale shifts or installations that would certainly be the time to do it. They no longer have the talent to stay within the current defensive structure.

REMEMBER. DABEARSBLOG IS MOVING. DABEARSBLOG.COM IS THE ONLY PLACE TO READ THIS CONTENT STARTING NOVEMBER 1. CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS! 

One of the shortish-term goals of the new DaBearsBlog will be a call in radio show on the Monday after each game in 2014. The show will open with a standard radio monologue and then go directly to calls (and hopefully include a guest each week.) For the remainder of the 2013 campaign I will be doing a Monday Monologue. Here is the first.

REMEMBER. DABEARSBLOG IS MOVING. DABEARSBLOG.COM IS THE ONLY PLACE TO READ THIS CONTENT STARTING NOVEMBER 1. CHANGE YOUR BOOKMARKS!

Bears move to 3-2 on the season. Is it devastating? No. But are there things to be learned? Of course. Rapid fire.

• It seems the Bears are a very good reactive coaching staff. They come out of the break with an understanding of the defense and move the ball much more effectively. If Marc Trestman is going to become an elite head coach he’ll need to be able to make those kinds of adjustment DURING the game.
• Not bad, Adam Podlesh.
• I’m tired of seeing Robbie Gould attempt onside kicks.
• If you were to give academic grades to players you’d give Alshon Jeffery an A+.
• What would yo give Earl Bennett? (F?)
• Lance Briggs played a wonderful game. Really, though? You jump there? When the whole world knows they’re not running a play?
• I thought Shea McClellin played well.
• Hell the entire defense played well. The Saints were always going to score 20-25 points against the Bears this week and it was incumbent upon the Bears to match those points.
• James Anderson should be brought back in 2014.
• I don’t know how different this system is from last year’s but Major Wright seems lost in it.
• How many good things does Eric Weems do each season? 1?
• I thought Matt Forte would be the difference between the Bears and Saints today. Forte wasn’t good.
• Saints know how to run a screen. It’s almost beautiful to watch.
• Marc Trestman and Aaron Kromer can’t let Jay Cutler be hit as many times as he was today. They were hired to do the opposite. Cutler wasn’t hit because of player error. He was hit because Rob Ryan brought more rushers than the Bears could block and they didn’t adjust. That is inexcusable.
• But I loved Trestman declining the hold and taking the down loss. I’ve wanted coaches to do that for years and they seem to hate it.
• Have to look at tape to evaluate offensive linemen but didn’t think they played poorly.
• Earl Bennett did.

These are just the rapid fires. But the Bears have made one thing certain: Thursday night’s home game against the Giants is now an absolute must win. If they lose Thursday night, the season becomes a difficult journey.

REMINDER! DABEARSBLOG IS MOVING! We are leaving ChicagoNow effective November 1st. We will be housed exclusively at www.dabearsblog.com from that date (and perhaps sooner) on. 

Three final thoughts on today’s game:

• Don’t discount the importance of the Saints not having a running attack. I can’t see Brees dropping back, throwing it forty-plus times and managing to keep the Bears offense from scoring. Reggie Bush was the reason Detroit controlled the Bears for two and a half quarters. 
• Been spoking of to death but Bears need a pass rush today. Without a pass my prediction of thirty points might not be enough. They may need forty.
• Good news. After a lengthy session with Noah yesterday I am pleased to announce the new and far improved DBB will be ready for action well ahead of the November 1 deadline.  We’re sticking with that date to attempt a seamless transition.

Bearing down is the new twerking.

REMINDER! DABEARSBLOG IS MOVING! We are leaving ChicagoNow effective November 1st. We will be housed exclusively at www.dabearsblog.com from that date (and perhaps sooner) on. 

I disagree entirely with the Reverend’s Rant this week. I believe if Marc Trestman can evolve the Chicago Bears into a perennially top five offensive unit, Bears fans should accept a decline in defensive and specials performances. The Bears are no longer a team driven by defense. Get over it. They need to be serviceable, turn the ball over and make a few stops in big fourth quarter situations.