Bears game 1: Sunday Sep. 12 vs DET on Fox

[UMFan83]

Cutler - somewhat disagree. A decent performance but the INT is completely unacceptable, and there were a couple more throws that were wildly inaccurate. Those things shouldnt happen when you are settled in the pocket for someone who supposedly has a million dollar arm. He also lost a fumble in the game. Still considering how bad the O-line was most of the game, it was a decent performance. I'd give him a B.

 

why do you hate cutler so much? peterson makes a great play on that pass to knox or it's right in knox's lap.

 

just enjoy a great game from cutler and accept that he is our qb.

Seconding sulleymon on this one UMFan, thats what you gotta live with as far as Cutler is concerned. Basically he's going to throw at minimum a pick a game on a play like that, on a 3rd and 20, because thats who he is.

 

I'll take the 370+ yards and the ridiculously awesome TD to Forte at the end of the game when it looked like they might get themselves out of field goal range.

 

That's fine..he only did it once today. Last year he had games where he had multiple plays like that (and I'm not talking about the ones that you could blame on the WR) where those single handedly cost us the game. I was more upset about times where he completely overthrew or underthrew the WR in this game. That's great that he had 370 yards, but he threw the ball 44 times...its not too extreme. (also, take away that 89 yard TD which was mostly blocking and Forte and its 289 yards in 43 throws which is 6.7 YPA which is basically what he did last year which is basically below average) It's great that the Bears can get 450 yards of offense, but when they have 6 different drives of 40+ yards and they only get 17 points from them, its not good.

 

And that's not all on Cutler. I'm not saying he's a bad QB, but I have really high expectations for him. And as such I'm going to be overly critical of him, or at least moreso than if Kyle Orton played the exact same game. But anyways, I said he played a B game today. Did some things really good, but that INT is inexcusible for someone that is supposed to have such a great arm. I believe he was standing in the pocket, he threw into triple coverage, and he underthrew the ball, leaving it up for grabs between 3 lions players. It's ok if he throws into triple coverage once in awhile if he's gonna make the throw. It's ok if he underthrows it occasionally, as long as hes not underthrowing it into triple coverage. And occasionally its ok if he does both at the same time and it gets picked off. But I've seen games where it isnt just that one time, and those are the things that kill the bears.

[UMFan83]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSYDYI4F4xs

 

If anyone wants to watch the controversial play again.

[Wilson A2000]

His knee/butt was down before his hand came down. Does your thigh count as part of the anatomy neened to be down?

[Magnetic Curses]

he absolutely did not underthrow the ball, it was right on target, but peterson made a good play on it. he split 3 defenders and it would have hit knox in the numbers.

 

if you want to start taking away big plays, you can do that with anybody because anybody's stats are padded by big plays. if you want to take away the big play, you have to take away the int as well and then analyze from there.

[JonJayCutler]

Not trying to be a homer, but the more I watch the replay the more I understand the call. His entire "motion" has to stop before the ball comes out and it clearly did not. I'd still be pissed if I was a Lions fan though just because of the extreme technicality of it.

[UMFan83]

I wish I had a replay I could show you. Knox had to break off the route he was running, ran in a yard or two and it was still tipped by a leaping DB. If it wasnt underthrown, Cutler was trying to get it intercepted because there was no way that throw was not going to be tipped by one of the 2 Lions that were in front of Knox.

[ConstableRabbit]

Cutler also threw a ridiculous ball to DA in the endzone, which was inexplicably dropped. He had a damn good game.

[Wilson A2000]

Cutler threw a bad ball. End of story. If he finishes with 16 INTs in a Martz system I will be overjoyed.

[Guest]

 

Receivers do that all the time. He caught the ball, got both feet/knees down, and flipped the ball up. The play ended when he got the 2nd knee down.

you don't know the rules. He didn't flip the ball up. It sucks but that is the rule.

 

Better explanation than I could give:

 

Calvin Johnson has the ball in two hands, then firmly in one. He gets both feet down and turns his body. His knee hits the ground with the ball solidly in his one-handed grasp, well off the ground. He is down. Touchdown.

 

That the ball contacts the ground in Johnson's process of putting his hand down and getting back up (a fluid motion in itself) and then is left on the ground shouldn't be the determining factor. Two hands, two feet, one firm hand still on ball, knee down, score.

 

The official with the best view of the play calls it a TD. Somebody comes along (apparently) and overrules him once, then refs back themselves up by "confirming" the already-overturned call with replay.

Whoever wrote that doesn't know the rules, either.

[UMFan83]

Not trying to be a homer, but the more I watch the replay the more I understand the call. His entire "motion" has to stop before the ball comes out and it clearly did not. I'd still be pissed if I was a Lions fan though just because of the extreme technicality of it.

 

See thats what I think. I know I'd be up in arms if it was against the Bears, but based on what I knew of the rules, it looked INC the first time I saw it. People have made it seem like he completely landed and stopped rolling, and then used the hand with the ball to help himself up and just dropped the ball.

 

In reality, in one motion he rolled, and as soon as the ball it the ground it bounced away from him. It's possible he was trying to prop himself back up with it in the same motion, but that's his fault for doing that. And there is absolutely no way he just dropped the ball, the ground caused that ball to come free, and since he was still in the process of making the catch IMO.

 

The thing is, the people that are livid think the act of the catch was over, and the others disagree. I don't think there is any way that either side is going to convince the other.

 

For the record I'm in the good call bad rule camp. But I'll take it.

[Magnetic Curses]

I wish I had a replay I could show you. Knox had to break off the route he was running, ran in a yard or two and it was still tipped by a leaping DB. If it wasnt underthrown, Cutler was trying to get it intercepted because there was no way that throw was not going to be tipped by one of the 2 Lions that were in front of Knox.

 

cutler had split the remaining 2 defenders after peterson, who jumped 5 feet in the air to swipe it. it was placed very well, it's just that another player made an extraordinary play on it.

[Magnetic Curses]

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_/id/16142/like-it-or-not-megatron-call-was-right

[UMFan83]

Cutler threw a bad ball. End of story. If he finishes with 16 INTs in a Martz system I will be overjoyed.

 

Id love it too. I didnt say he had a bad game I said he had a "B" game.

[Guest]

His knee/butt was down before his hand came down. Does your thigh count as part of the anatomy neened to be down?

There's a difference between determining in/out of bounds and determining a completed catch. What you're talking about in terms of getting something down matters for the former. Maintaining possession of the ball completely through the play determines the latter.

[UMFan83]

I wish I had a replay I could show you. Knox had to break off the route he was running, ran in a yard or two and it was still tipped by a leaping DB. If it wasnt underthrown, Cutler was trying to get it intercepted because there was no way that throw was not going to be tipped by one of the 2 Lions that were in front of Knox.

 

cutler had split the remaining 2 defenders after peterson, who jumped 5 feet in the air to swipe it. it was placed very well, it's just that another player made an extraordinary play on it.

 

If it was placed really well Knox would have caught it without breaking stride. He had 2 defenders beat, if Cutler place it correctly it would have been a 1 on 1 situation.

 

I'm gonna stop talking about specifics on the play though because I need to look at the replay again. I saw the replay 3-4 times earlier and it looked pretty clear it was underthrown to me.

[UMFan83]

Also, as bad as the o-line was in pass protection, they did a pretty good job blocking on screens today. The screen was a very effective play today.

 

Did manumaleuna play today? I don't remember seeing him.

[Wilson A2000]

His knee/butt was down before his hand came down. Does your thigh count as part of the anatomy neened to be down?

There's a difference between determining in/out of bounds and determining a completed catch. What you're talking about in terms of getting something down matters for the former. Maintaining possession of the ball completely through the play determines the latter.

 

But isn't the play over, if you are in the end zone, and your knee touches and you have possession at that moment?

[Magnetic Curses]

he SPLIT the defenders behind peterson, is was right in the middle, right where knox was.

[UMFan83]

His knee/butt was down before his hand came down. Does your thigh count as part of the anatomy neened to be down?

There's a difference between determining in/out of bounds and determining a completed catch. What you're talking about in terms of getting something down matters for the former. Maintaining possession of the ball completely through the play determines the latter.

 

But isn't the play over, if you are in the end zone, and your knee touches and you have possession at that moment?

 

That's not how it works though. You have to first officially catch the ball and once you've done that you can get a knee down or cross the goal line or whatever. His knee was down but because he was catching the ball while falling, it is not an official catch until the fall is completed.

[Guest]

His knee/butt was down before his hand came down. Does your thigh count as part of the anatomy neened to be down?

There's a difference between determining in/out of bounds and determining a completed catch. What you're talking about in terms of getting something down matters for the former. Maintaining possession of the ball completely through the play determines the latter.

 

But isn't the play over, if you are in the end zone, and your knee touches and you have possession at that moment?

No, because he's not ruled as having possession until the catch is completed. He had established himself in bounds, but had to hold onto the ball completely through contact with the ground to establish possession. If he had held the ball, but rolled out of bounds after coming down with two feet/knees, it still would have been a touchdown.

 

But he didn't hold onto the ball through the complete process of contacting the ground.

[UMFan83]

Oh and BTW, I take back most of my argument about Cutler's performance. For some reason I thought I saw he had 44 attempts today. He only had 35. Statistically, that is a very good game. Still infuriates me when he misses wide open WRs when hes standing in the pocket.

[Guest]

Oh and BTW, I take back most of my argument about Cutler's performance. For some reason I thought I saw he had 44 attempts today. He only had 35. Statistically, that is a very good game. Still infuriates me when he misses wide open WRs when hes standing in the pocket.

Every quarterback is going to miss some throws. He had a very good game with one brain fart. I don't care how well the ball was thrown on the INT, it was a stupid decision to throw into triple coverage. If, in fact, the ball was perfectly thrown as sulley says it makes the decision worse in my mind. If that was a perfectly thrown ball and still got tipped and intercepted (albeit on a nice play by peterman), that means there was basically no margin for error and an ill-advised throw.

[UMFan83]

Lovie says he would make that same call in that scenario any time.

 

I just don't understand that. The Lions had I think 1 first down in the 4-5 possessions since stafford left the game. The chances were that they werent going to do much. A FG hypothetically gives you a great chance to win the game. Lovie is lucky that A) the Bears won and B) the controversial call took almost all the attention of the game. Otherwise, the heat on Lovie is brutal.

 

If a FG ties the game,and a TD takes the lead, I can understand the decision a little more. If it was only the 3rd quarter, I can understand it. But with 9 minutes left in the game, where a FG gives you the lead and a TD also gives you the lead, its a really bad decision IMO

[SpongeWorthy]

I'm going to defend Lovie on that one particular call. I don't mind it that much.

 

I bet the hard numbers say you go for it on 4th down in that situation unless you're talking about the clock really being a factor.

[SpongeWorthy]

Although the numbers say punting from around the opponents 40 on 4th and <5 is a dumb move too.