BigbadB

Colts offense scored 23 against Houston, but two of those td's were deep passes where the receiver beat the DB's. Richardson only completed 9 passes in that game vs. Houston, and take away the 115 yards on those two deep pass plays, and they had less than 100 on the other 7 passes, which includes some garbage time yardage. Richardson ran for more yards than Taylor. Richardson is still technically a rookie QB since he missed so much time last year, so he's likely still going through his own growing pains still. Houston ran the ball 40 times on Indy at a 5.3 clip, Mixon with 30 of those carries. 8 different receivers caught passes, and even though they ran 40 times, they still threw 42 passes, so Houston mixed plays pretty well. Taylor ran the ball well, but only had 12 carries for the game. Green Bay ran the ball 53 times at a 4.9 clip. Indy had no answer for the run, and the holes were huge. Indy hasn't had more than 20 minutes in TOP yet this year. Indy should have Josh Downs back against the Bears. That makes their receiver room a bit stronger, but certainly not as strong as Collins, Diggs and Dell. As important as it will be to get the run game working in this one, the Bears should be able to move the chains on this Indy defense through the air, also. After losing Buckner to injury and watching Houston game tape, I'd expect Indy to stack the box and bring pressure to stop the run and force Williams to throw more. As much as I want to see the run game produce, I also feel like this will be a good game to let Williams expose blitz packages with better play calling.

I felt like that was at least a 2 or 3 week injury for such a big guy.

This is more week 3 nonsense, but I peeked at the schedule this week. I'm happy to see a better split of games at noon and 3pm instead of 10-3, but why have two games on Monday that compete at the same time? That seems rather strange. Also, looking at the names of the stadiums on the schedule for week 3, I would fail a test to name where these stadiums are. Lucas Oil and Allegient and possibly SoFi are the only ones I think I'd get right.

Texans recognized early that the blitz was sabotaging the Bears offense and they relied on it early and often. Ryans probably runs less blitzes than Eberflus, but when you find a magic potion that the other team can't figure out, you keep using it. I'm guessing Waldron knew that the Texans didn't blitz much, so didn't practice plays to beat the blitz. And that might be a flaw in daily practices. Bears don't blitz all that much, but every team in the league is now going to be implementing blitz packages against this Bears team until they find a way to beat it. There are plays to burn a blitz, but it didn't seem like any of the play calls were designed to do that at all. I realize Caleb isn't likely ready to recognize the blitz or stunts that defenses are throwing at him, but if this OC doesn't figure out ways to bail out the QB, it's going to be a long season. A lot of Caldron's plays look a bit too similar to Getsy's screen plays that blow up before they ever get a chance to even start. Rather than sweep right or sweep left, maybe try right over the line 5-10 yards with crossing routes. That's probably where it hurt most not having Allen, but someone on this WR crew needs to be able to beat their defender off the line and be open in the middle of the defense when they are blitzing. Hit that guy in stride and you are looking at big gainers. The offense was pretty vanilla for good reason, but where the defense made adjustments for the better at the half, the offense went into a complete shell, forcing long 2nd and 3rd downs on every series. There was even a running play on first down from deep in their own side of the field when they needed two scores and only about 6 minutes left in the game and only one time out.

Would Payton have been in the same situation in this era than he was in the '70's as far as scholarships, training, coaching, etc....

Imagine how bad Damar Hamlin feels about it, even though it was a clean tackle.

LA Rams put both their starting LT and LG on injured reserve. That should make Stafford a more easy target when the Bears play them.

Kmet didn't get many snaps in that game, and he was pretty upset about it. I wasn't much of a fan of having Carter and Jones both active and Tyler Scott inactive. With Odunze possibly out this week, this would be a great week to sit Jones as further punishment for muffing that kick so badly. Indy beat Houston's secondary deep a few times, and in a game we may have to throw more if the defense can't hold Houston's offense, I'd like to see what Scott's development in year 2 looks like. I want more competency at WR than Jones or Carter as 4th WR's. Houston is going to look at game tape and see how well the Bears special teams unit got excellent field position all day and make sure they kick out of the end zone, so I'd expect the return game to take a hit this week in Houston.

Indy couldn't stop Mixon, which is probably the difference in the TOP being that much different. 30 carries for 160 yards. The Bears did a pretty good job containing Pollard outside of the one series they scored their first td. Pollard had 47 yards on 3 carries on that drive, leaving him with 13 carries for 35 yards for the rest of the game. Houston will be much tougher to stop in general since they are a much more balanced and talented offense, but I'm not sure Indy is a better team than the Bears on either side of the ball, and that's including Caleb going through his growing pains.

That quote I saw was that he was blocking on a Velus Jones screen play, and Jones and his defender both rolled up from behind Rome.

And that explains why I didn't see Rome in there in the 4th quarter.

Isn't an inactive QB still available as an emergency replacement if both QB's get hurt? I thought that was one of the new rules.

Carter was in on some of the plays Keenan was in. Keenan was in the slot and Carter was lined up outside on the same side as DJ. Wasn't really paying attention to Velus, but now wondering if Rome was the one who was doing most of the sitting in that fourth quarter.

I just finished rewatching the game. He was actually in for their very next offensive play, which was oddly the 2 point conversion. I then saw him lined up in about half of the offensive plays they ran in the 4th quarter, but the Bears were pretty much just playing kill the clock at that point.

Speaking of Keenan, did he ever come back after he limped off the field on the touchdown attempt in the 4th quarter?

I was skeptical when Caleb was saying he never gets nervous. He looked nervous out there, which should be expected. While he was practicing weekly with the Bears strong D, they had to play a bit soft and not attack the star QB. He played very little in preseason. And then Tennessee found some weaknesses on the OLine and exploited them. I was most disappointed with the OLine. I saw several TE's run routes without hitting anyone and sure enough, the guy they were covered up with pre-snap was the guy making Caleb run for his life. I saw Blasingame miss blocks. I get it, it's going to happen because the other team has play makers, too. But, jeez..... The overthrows seemed more like a guy feeling overwhelmed in the best league for football players in the world and his big eyes when he saw an open receiver weren't communicating with his overzealous arm. I wanted to see some first down passes, which the OC seemed to be shying away from. The times they did try to throw on first down, the OLine was issuing free passes to the DLine. So frustrating. Caleb was bad today, but he didn't have turnovers, the team won with bad offensive play, so there is some confidence builders in there leading up to a game they will have a tough time winning. This one will be a good test, because Houston is a playoff caliber team and the OC has a lot of bad film to show to improve things in week 2.

Seasons like the last two makes me believe the season is about 100 games too long. It's amazing how quickly a season can flash by you when a team is playing good. It's painful to see them playing so badly and then realize there are still 5 months left of the season. Congratulations to Original Ivy Walls for reaching Old Timey Member status with only 3 posts, with the 3rd one being today. My hats off to anyone who can still be watching games at this point. Let down after let down early in the season just makes me find other things to distract my day. I still peek in on scores and watch how the young future talent is doing, but I just can't sit down and watch "the Professor" take the hill in a game I'm pretty sure I already have an idea of the outcome. He's a Cub HOFer in my book, but that he is still getting starts on a major league team is not good. 20 starts with a 6.60 ERA, YUCK! Then we are looking at not having a single player reach 100 RBI this year, and the potential of no one else making it to 75. YUCK! I'm not the slightest bit interested in sitting down to a Cub game right now, and yet here I am trying to figure out how to get Marquee Network on my tv's for next year now that I no longer have DirecTV. I always start the year excited, and by midseason, I'm "Meh". It's quite possible that 2016 made it harder for me to watch baseball, because I now know what it feels like to win it all, and now that we have done that, less than playoff caliber play turns me right off now.

There isn't a chance Pitt trades him to GB. Fields is starting for Pitt today. Many sportswriters in Pitt feel Fields should have been starting anyway. It's not that Fields played well, but Wilson did next to nothing in preseason. With that said, I'd be surprised if Love misses less than 6 games.

If those are my options, I'm going with White. And that's based on who I think will get more reps more than anything else. Volume means a lot to me. More chances to score points or bust a tackle. That's also ignoring that the Chargers defensive unit is ranked as a bottom 5-10 team while Dallas is top 5. ESPN Fantasy projections has White getting about 13 points this week and Ford 11. I don't own either guy, so that's the best I can offer on them.

Yep. Bring in Derrick Henry as a decoy and let Lamar ad lib his way into the endzone, either by run or pass. Did Lamar ever NOT get 2 yards on a running play last night? Granted, it's different on the goal line, but his ability to run or pass while also having a 250 lb RB in his backfield makes their offense pretty unpredictable. Andrews was a forgotten man out there, also. Possibly still healing from his late season injury. Just a fun game all around. Xavier Worthy looks like a serious weapon for Mahomes.

News just popped up last night that D'Andre Hopkins is trying to play through an MCL tear. He injured it July 31 and was expected to be out 4-6 weeks.

I was with DirecTV until this past Monday. They had Marquee. Now I have Starlink/You Tube TV. I get NBC Sports Chicago, but not Bally's or Marquee. Don't care about the Cardinals, but would definitely like to be able to put a Cubs game on whenever I want. I googled Fire Stick and Marquee app and it appears you can get Marquee that way. I'll probably just do that and maybe cancel Hulu/Apple during the Summer months next year to balance out my monthly spending.

My prediction is 12 wins. A split with Det and GB, losses to Hou and San Fran and then one more loss among the following games: Indy/Jax/Sea/LAR. Not because any of those teams are better than the Bears, IMO, but because it's tough to win every winnable game.

Don't they blackout games when you are within the market? I'm still fairly new to being back in the Illinois area, so I don't quite understand the blackout rules.

I have about 3 Amazon Fire Sticks laying around the house. Does the Fire Stick have the Marquee app? I already feel pretty dirty having Starlink. I despise Elon.