rawaction

Especially frustrating considering the amount of money they had available this past offseason. To be fair, Manning only had 1 good year out of 5, and he turned 29 before the season. It was a tough call whether or not to give him a contract til he was 33-34. I was all for letting him walk, because I thought that money would/could be used on getting some OL/WR help, but now you are going to have to pay 29-year old Chris Harris this offseason in lieu of letting Manning go.

Most punt returns in NFL history.

Williams has been wonderful pulling today.

Terrible play by Jennings. Recovered well, but he has contain. No business peaking inside.

Oh and FWIW, that throw by Newton was sick. Rolling to his left, off the wrong foot.

Losing Danieal Manning could be the death of this team. Safety play has been pathetic this year. Wright, Steltz, now Meriweather have made inexcusable mistakes multiple times.

NFC Divisional round all over again.

Either Urlacher or Briggs tipped it. DJ Moore is like Nathan Vasher (or Mike Brown, as someone else said), always at the ready for the opportune pick. Briggs probably forced the pick, but I think both got hands on it.

Oh look, Bears defense found out about the start time.

Maybe it's just me, but I'd always go for it on 4th and 1 at the goalline. Best case, you get 7. Worst case, the team has to go 99 yards on what is supposed to be a good defense.

They broke. Got help from Carolina though. Hold, illegal formation and a slip is the only reason they didn't score 7.

Wow. Lucky break there.

Good thing Carolina is shooting themselves in the foot, cuz we ain't stopping them.

Major Wright another missed tackle

Getting nothing up front defensively so far.

the Bears pass blocking has been pretty middle-of-the-pack so far, surprisingly they've allowed QB pressures on 28 of 179 passing snaps so far; compare that to Atlanta who've allowed 53 pressures in 193 passing snaps. if you want to argue that it's residual effects from last year's abysmal OL play, that's a more understandable possibility Obviously, I'm talking about last year too. But those numbers are misleading. The OL was OK vs. Atlanta. But vs. NO, Cutler got sacked 6 times in 1 1/2 quarters of football (first sack was not until the 3rd quarter). Then he faces GB fresh off that 2nd half and off of last year when the Packers ended his season. Hopefully, he gets some confidence back vs. a Carolina D that should be blockable, but I still fear next time he gets pressure on 2-3 consecutive plays he will get happy feet again and either shutdown (hold onto the ball anticipating the hit) or overthrow like he did last week.

Cutler has been very lackluster. He hasnt been as accurate as he could/should be. But I think 100% of Cutler's problems can be traced back to either the fear of or actually getting hit in the mouth on every play, or the inability of his receivers to create separation consistently. Not saying he would be perfect with the 90s Cowboys OL and the 80s 49ers WRs, but the only time Cutler was protected and had weapons, Cutler threw for 4000 yards.

Arizona isn't that good though and the game is at the Coliseum. Outside of Kalil, that USC o-line is wretched. I thought they had a pretty decent Center?

Yeah, gotta win games like this if you want to contend. Last year the Bears lost to 2 inferior teams in Seattle and Washington, but the Bears were 4-1 going into those games, not 1-2. Lose to Carolina, and I think the Bears have very little chance to beat Detroit on the road, on a Monday Night, in front of what will probably be the loudest crowd in Lions history.

As I said in the other thread, 1-2 record isn't that bad right now. The problem is the Bears have a tendency to lose ugly when they do lose, just like they did last year. But they have shown that clearly how they lose doesn't have any bearing on the rest of the season. Last year they lost giving up 9 sacks in one half, lost throwing 4 INTs, and got blown out at home in "Bear" weather. Still they won much more than they lost, and their "good" games outnumbered the bad ones. Still have 6 games where they are clearly the better team (as things stand now), and 2 homes games on top of that vs. good, but not great teams (Detroit, SD), and a neutral site game that should feature a pro-Bears crowd. This is the perfect game to get this team jumpstarted. You got a young QB, that has been mistake prone, an OL that hasn't run blocked well and given up plenty of pressure. The Bears should get Marion Barber and Chris Harris back. Roy Williams should be a little healthier (if that even matters). Bennett and Carimi get a step closer to coming back. Not that I expect the game to be easy, but I think the Bears can get a couple turnovers and somewhat execute offensively. Hopefully get pretty close to 100% by the Monday nighter in Detroit and the Bears can possibly go on a little streak. October has the makings of a 3-win month and could be a sweep if things go well health-wise and we get Cutler some confidence back.

yea. an NFL game is JUST like a lottery ticket. they should just hand NE the trophy now, there's no point in playing the games. I think you might have missed the point, just a tad.

All-in-all, 1-2 isn't all that bad at this point. Bears had 1 great game, 1 terrible game, and 1 mediocre game. On paper, they still have 6 games that appear as close to gimmes as there are in the NFL (Carolina, Minnesota x 2, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs). After that, the Bears still have home games vs. Detroit, a Chargers team that beat the Chiefs and Vikings by a combined 10 points playing in San Diego, a neutral site game vs. Tampa, and a road game at a dysfunctional Eagles team after our bye week. Be nice to start with 3 in a row in October and take whatever comes from Tampa and Philly. I'll take 4-3 after Week 7 with 2 home games followed by a stretch of 5 of the last 6 where the best team other than GB the Bears face is the Raiders. Problem is, even if the Bears can get to 10 wins, they probably have to take at least 3 of 5 vs. Philly, GB, Detroit and Tampa to even make the playoffs.

Had a pretty big game last year vs. Ohio St. They'll beat Nebraska. They are a better team and at home in a night game.

It's not about winning or losing the game. Even with that PR TD, the Bears still would have been a longshot to win the game. But when you combine that with the clear PI on Woodson when the Bears were coming out of the endzone, and the PI on the 4th down play when Knox was hit on the elbow a split second before the ball got there...the Bears got screwed. Granted, they didn't play well enough to deserve to win, but those plays changed the game. The Woodson non-PI call, was probably done on purpose. He was beat and instead of allowing a 95 yard TD, he threw his body in front of Hester. That turned into a short field for the Packers and put the lead up to 17, and the game was essentially over there. Call that PI correctly and worst case scenario is Bears are down 10 with the Packers getting the ball back after a punt inside the 20. Instead, the defense takes the short field for the 4th time in a row since the start of the 2nd half.

My guess is they probably set up for it quite a bit, but there's not too many punts that it will actually work out perfectly like that. I bet if you go back and look at tape over the last couple of weeks, the Bears did try it but the kicking team was, you know, paying attention. And not being held on the way down the field if the GB guy had turned towards Knox and was being held, that would be one thing. But he was running completely away from the ball towards Hester. Graham has his hand on his shoulder pad running down the field. The GB guy turns away from Knox who has the ball and Graham completely separates from him. Where is the hold? I take back what I said. Best case for the ref, that was barely a hold and the flag should not have been thrown because it had no effect on the player being "held" or the play. Reality: not a hold, not a call that should have been made, and it definitely appeared the flag was thrown after the official figured out the Bears were going to score an easy TD.