BigSlick

Are they seriously going to lose at home to this team theyre looking like they want to

Williams had all day on 2nd down too. No excuse to not find someone for a short gain

I mean here’s the good thing: the Oline isn’t an utter disaster so far. But I they are STILL discombobulated offensively. WHYYY WHY WHY

And uh like 9 yard punt

HOW DO YOU STILL MANAGE TO NOT SCORE ON A DRIVE LIKE THAT

I can think of two factors going into the line being so favorable: the team is much better at home and the Bears are proven bum slayers. In other sports I often think home field advantage is overstated, but in football and particularly with this team, homefield advantage allows the offense to simply function. They can’t communicate effectively, they can’t settle down, when they’re on the road. At least not yet. And the defense feasts on weak QBs. Maye has definitely shown some flashes but he’s a clear step or two behind Caleb and Jayden at this point. My concern, however, is that with Billings gone and our weakness against the run anyway, that may not matter. But the Bears have handled subpar teams quite well, so we shall see.

Hey, at least for like 3 days we were allowed to feel good about the Cubs breaking the curse. So we had that.

I was kinda consoling myself after the Wash loss that at least if the Bears lose that relates to an arcane, silly harbinger that if Wash wins their last home game before an election, the incumbent party was going to win. (But actually, the rule has been broken for a while now, and now 3 out of the last 4 elections have gone the opposite way). regardless, if the Bears manage to lose this game or look like dogshit and eke it out, I will feel confident we live in the Hell Dimension and I'm not allowed to feel good about anything.

To be clear, when I say 'premature', I'm speaking more broadly than the Eberflus regime. Whether or not Eberflus is here next year, I'm mostly optimistic about where the teams going from a talent standpoint (I've mostly liked what Poles has done, though obviously, he also hires the *coaches* as well). If Poles has hit on Caleb, then a whole new world of opportunity opens up. There's obviously interplay between the coaches and Caleb's development, but I'm far from thinking that they're actively bungling things with him, though I do think they are not maximizing his development at this point. Re: Eberflus, I mostly shove 2022 completely in a closet (I can't even recall if I watched that Giants game to be honest), but I do agree that at a certain point if you a blow crapload of 95% likely-to-win games, something about that is your doing. He hasn't impressed me with his coaching mid-game and up until recently, I thought the team was mostly on his side. So yeah, it all adds up, you're right that things have been brewing. But man, are we as Bears fans so reactive and impulsive. Games 1-3 was the sky falling, games 4-6 were (probably) outsized positivity and good vibes, and the last two games are back to armageddon. It's a lot of emotional whiplash.

This is where I'm at. I think 90% of the rancor is the feeling that something, anything must be done to make us feel better about the team. Even if its just revenge. Does it help Caleb Williams to fire Eberflus or Waldron right now? Maybe? I would be convinced of it if the team really has quit and needs a kick in the ass to keep competing through the rest of the season. Alternatively, firing him mid-season could also fully lock in the quit of the team, which we've seen with multiple teams over the years. IMHO, if I was somehow the general manager/president of the Bears and I was empowered to hire and fire no matter what the contract situation was, I'd be of the mind to let the dude keep coaching and see if he can keep the team together. If it falls apart against the Patriots, ok - clearly its time to go. If he keeps the rickety boat going, let's see what he can do in the gauntlet of NFC North games. If, as we may all expect, the team gets waxed going down the stretch, say goodbye and try to find an upgrade with an offensive minded head coach that fits Williams well. That maybe should have been the move in the 2024 offseason, but we're here. Ultimately, I still do think the doomerism from Bears fandom is premature and unnecessary. Even if they just get waxed down the stretch, provided there isn't a devastating injury or total collapse in Caleb's play (and even with his slight dip the last few weeks, I'm still optimistic with his development), the team is on an upward trajectory. 🤷‍♂️

What, exactly, do you think they're doing that's hampering him? I think its worthwhile to be specific. I honestly think that Waldron's been O.K. with giving Caleb gameplans that he should be comfortable with. A lot of what I'm seeing that's not working are breakdowns - protection breakdowns, receivers not getting open or doing scramble drills well, or Caleb missing guys. One big gripe I'll say that I do have with Waldron is him moving away from certain things that are working too soon - a lot of power run will work and then he inexplicably dials up an off-tackle or toss play that just gets blown up for lost yardage. I want my OC to run stuff until they stop it.

Everything with DJ Moore has made me sad this year (aside from the Panthers game). He was such a bad ass last year, in a team that was simply terrible offensively. Like, he immediately jumped into being one of my favorite players just by how hard he fought every down. Now...that energy doesn't seem to be there. Plus, the types of plays they are giving him just don't seem super conducive to his talents. He can do the wide receiver screen thing and fight for extra yards, but I don't think its his best strength. I like him in the open field, I like him fighting for balls one-on-one, I want him in space with the ball (I generally don't love the end around but he was often pretty nifty with it). I could live never seeing another O route in my entire life. Caleb acknowledged in his press conference that something is off with his chemistry with DJ. Hopefully he can find it. The money's spent, the guy's gonna be here for a while, I'd rather he be happy and content. I don't know why we're throwing to a fat, slow Kennan Allen (who bless his heart I know he's trying out there), 10 times a game. This experiment ain't working. Get our Dude the ball.

For Caleb's sake, they can't be allowed to give up. You can't have his season just go completely off the deep end with 9 games to go. Maybe that does necessitate a change at Head Coach now, I don't know. Even if they are entering a buzzsaw and will go 2-7 down the stretch or whatever, they have to play hard, give Caleb a chance to compete and develop.

Poor Jaquan. My brother's been a big fan of his and I was planning on getting him a Brisker jersey for his birthday, but I'm putting that on hold for right now. Woof. What a kick in the nuts. We have been shockingly healthy for the last year and a half until just the past few weeks, when we get debilitating injuries on both sides of the ball. Good lord. When it rains it pours.

And Brisker is out again. I don't know if we can count on Brisker....in any capacity going forward. That's a big loss. I've been able to Cope with most of the Bears distress lately but it would be nice, just to have a nice distraction given everything going on, if they could play well! But the bad news keeps cascading down.

It's absolutely insane that the Panthers have scored first in a game and we haven't. Anyway, here's hoping we have a Car-Jax style game, the offense gets healthy and Caleb's jersey stays relatively clean. Then we get to look down the barrel of a machine gun.

I honestly don't regret parting ways with Darnell Mooney all that much. His last couple years were pretty rough, he wasn't fitting things well and sometimes guys just need a change of scenery. He's also playing with an extremely accurate, veteran QB. I'm not positive it would have been the case with Caleb. I'm happy for his success though. EDIT: Ah! I misunderstood the post, you were pointing out about Keenan Allen's usage and not Mooney. Why are we sure that that's on the coaching and not on Caleb?

So what is our starting Offensive Line at this point? I shudder to think about it.

Poor Khalil. I always liked him, even if he never quite seemed the right fit for any of the offenses we ran. We probably should have dealt him in the offseason if he was gonna get so few looks anyway.

I don't really see the upside to firing Eberflus mid-season. I don't think it'll do anything to improve the play of the team and it's not like there's any coaching prospect that's currently on the team that I think can do a better job. It could, however, make the team crater even more. I think he's gone regardless by the end of the season unless the team pulls something miraculous and goes .500 or better down the stretch (extremely unlikely). Now, if they lose to the Patriots, at-home, next week, then yes. I would fire him midseason, lol.

Oh and also, we're in the unfortunate position where rookie Rome Odunze may be our best receiver. Keenan Allen looks totally washed - besides having some decent hands in the Jags game, he's really done nothing, can get no separation, and now he can't catch. I'm not sure what's going on with Moore - I want to be generous with him because he was so, so good last year in a pretty bad situation, so I don't know if he's gimpy or if they aren't using him correctly or what, but something ain't right with him. (I hope it's not his attitude, I really do). Where's Kmet? Everett appears to be a total waste. Did Tyler Scott get sent to the phantom zone? What looked like a real position group of strength is not quite that.

There's a lot of bad here, and I think Eberflus signed his own death warrant yesterday. The most damning thing isn't any individual decision here or there but that the team very obviously quit when things got tough and you just can't have that. I do want to manage the temperature though, because football is an emotional game of huge swings in momentum that can change on completely unpredictable things like the bouncing of balls or the throwing of flags. I don't think the team was so overmatched or so outcoached that something like, say, the refs throwing one of any possible flags when the Bears were throwing into the end zone and our receivers were being mugged, or the, frankly, inexcusable 'Leverage' penalty they called on us, would have us seeing a completely different game. Caleb wasn't great, but he was also moving the ball decently in the first half and was doing that amidst a bunch of drops and poor OLine play. There are some real hinge point moments in this game that, if they went the other way, could have meant a Bears lead, and a very different game. But I want to be clear - the fact the team completely fell apart when some unfortunate things happened is a point against them and the coaching. That the refs turning a fantastic goal line stand into a touchdown is devastating. But that shouldn't mess you up so much that you give up an inexplicable 50 yard touchdown run within the last 30 seconds of a half. The most optimistic of us had playoff dreams in the off-season, but the more sober fans (not necessarily myself!) knew this season was primarily about developing Caleb Williams. It still is. Next week is another opportunity for that. Carry on.

I’m tipping over into the “fire eberflus” camp because there are simply too many inexplicably bad things that happen to his teams that allow them to lose that don’t happen to other teams. Is he responsible for it? Dunno, don’t care. Can’t happen this frequently.

Like seriously that shouldn’t be allowed lmao

Lmaooooooo