jersey cubs fan

http://www.nypost.com/seven/12302008/img/back123008.jpg

yeah, he wants to be a Cub, but the Cubs apparently have shown little interest How on Earth did you come to that conclusion on the basis of the blurb you quoted? Honestly, man.... I'm guessing he didn't base every word he wrote in that post on that single source of information.

One year deal, and I have big doubts he'll be any good next year.

Isn't it more or less a foregone conclusion that Lovie Smith = Cover 2? The Bears don't always play cover 2. I'm still holding out hope that they replace the defensive staff, and that the scheme continues to evolve. Stagnation should not be an option.

The Bears sure haven't done a good job finding them. It's not hard to find corners, but it will be hard to find a corner better than Tillman, which would be necessary before moving him.

Tillman would be in the middle of a lot more plays as a safety to help create turnovers, which he has always done really well. What do you guys think? Interesting idea and one I like mainly because I think Tillman is greatly overrated as a cornerback. His cover skills just arent very good. It will be hard to find another corner, but if they can, I'd be all for it. Depends on the scheme though.

I haven't been able to find it online, but the cover of the NY Post cracked me up this morning: Woody For Brett It's got a picture of the owner, Woody Johnson, and Brett Favre inside a cartoon heart.

It was there for the first 1.5 - 2.0 seconds of nearly every pass play, but that's about it. Orton made bad decisions and throws, I'm not claiming otherwise. He was never as bad as Grossman was at his worst, but he threw some doozies nonetheless. Those problems were exacerbated by the line, and they could see significant improvment in the passing game with better protection.

Part of the problem is management has always fed the fan's desire to be a defense first type team. Pass happy = pansy football to some. But this isn't going to change until they bring in a guy who can develop a QB. Their most "brilliant" offensive mind since I was born was Ditka. Ron Turner has had 3 big time jobs, twice as Bears OC and once as Illinois HC. He's never once developed a legit QB. They need to bring in a guy who has done it before, or find a guy who can legitimately do it now. And they need more coaches with NFL experience. Lovie's first group of coaches was almost exclusively from the college ranks, with Rivera one of the few exceptions.

I think it's clearly an issue, but part of the reason is he has no time to look through his reads.

Huh? 2 years in a row, big deal.

have you paid attention to the way the nfl works? nobody loses 5-10 years in a row unless they are completely dysfunctional in the front office (cardinals, raiders). hell even the raiders were in a super bowl not that long ago. people were saying the falcons were going to be a disaster for years after their star qb ended up in jail and their head coach ran out on them, and they're back in the playoffs a year later. Teams with at least 5 consecutive losing seasons since 2000: Lions 49ers Cardinals Raiders Texans Buffalo could be added to this list next year. Cincinnati had was in the middle fo a 5 season losing streak when 2000's started. This list gets much larger if I either: Cut the criteria down to 4 consecutive seasons, or Count 8-8 seasons So it's rare, but 5-6 losing seasons in a row is gonna be on the long side. I don't think above 6 is probably realistic. Plus, we're talking about the Jets, one of the worst run franchises in the NFL for decades. They have as many 10 loss seasons as 10 win seasons this decade, and spent almost the entire 90's under .500. If anybody can sustain losing, it's the Jets. The NFL is set up so it's possible for teams to recover quickly, and difficult to sustain success. But just as Philly, Indy, New England and Pittsburgh have found ways to generally outperform the norm over an extended period, there are plenty of teams that have underformed and failed to win for extended periods.

It's possible. I think he's got a better arm than pennington, for one, but he's got to get use to his limitations. I don't think he ever had a receiver like Hester before, and learning to lead that type of speed can be difficult for all but the very best QB talents. I think Orton tried to do too much late in the season. For what I assume were physical reasons, Forte missed extended sequences in several recent games. And when Forte was out, the running game was putrid. He never had time to sit and look through his reads, so it was just a matter of dropping back throwing to your best early option and hoping for the best.

So glad I have some sports team to enjoy after the Bears mediocrity and during the incredibly boring Cubs offseason.

He also dealt with some horrible drops by Booker and Davis, and in that Caroline game, Olsen more or less lost the game on his own. As you said, he is servicable. He's not a franchise QB. But he's going to be as reliable as most veterans out there. He's about 30 games into his pro career, and has done about as well as Drew Brees did in his first couple years worth of games. I don't see him ever doing as well as Brees, but if he played in a dome or southern california, who knows? I'd stick with Orton for now, draft a QB in the top 4 rounds, and look for young waiver wire types. It would be nice if these QBs had a better coach to develop them, somebody who has actually developed an NFL QB at one point in his career.

Ideally, yes, teams could and should fix their lines by signing FA (and not 34-36 year olds) every couple years, and maybe taking a mid round guard here and there. But the Bears ignored their line for far too long to be that patient. We don't even know if Williams is going to work out. At this point, is there any reason to assume he'll be better than Robert Gallery was for Oakland? He couldn't beat out JSC even late in the season? Sure, this staff is generally overly patient with incumbents, but Williams' best attribute was that he was supposed to be the closest to starter caliber of the second tier of lineman. He was never the most highly regarded, and he was not thought of as a stud by any stretch. He was going to be a servicable immediate fill-in. But that's what JSC ("turnstile" with the Dolphins) was this year. And it doesn't help when you cut your 7th round project so you can bring back the worthless Fred Miller. That was a bad personel decision prompted by unwise coaching demands.

Pennington had success with his original team, at least as much as he's had so far this year.

Frankly, Tommie pisses me the hell off. He takes a lot of plays/games off. I don't know if he's a lazy person overall, but I think he's a lazy football player a lot of the time. He has his moments without a doubt. This is one of those "perception" things, and completely not proveable, and maybe way off base, but that's the impression I'm getting. Last year and this year, he just seems disinterested. obviously i haven't gotten to see him play much since his OU days, but that was the knock against him when he was here too. I never knew how much of it was just old white guys complaining about a young black guy at a position where effort can be hard to quantify. It seems like there was a lot of that early in his Bears career, but there was a couple year span there where he just got it, and was a monster. Then these last couple years, partly due to injury probably, it's just...meh. A couple of shining moments, but nothing that makes opponents fear lining up against him. Again...completely speculative. I don't even know if effort has anything to do with it, but the injuries have clearly taken him down a notch or three. There's also a fairly strong chance he's mentally unstable.

It's hard to hit the deep pass with a bum ankle that you can get a full push off of. I'll grant you that it's one of Orton's weaknesses, but if you get some other threats out there, then Hester going deep can open up some other WR's for passes. We knew from the start that Orton wasn't a big yardage, bomb it deep guy. That's why Rex got so many chances. But you can still win with that...fix what's around him first. I think Miami is a good way to see how to "fix" things. Fix the line first, and build from there. Pennington is no great QB...but he's able to get the job done because he has solid parts around him. This is the key for me. It doesn't matter who your QB is or what receivers you bring in until you have a good offensive line. An offense with mediocre skill players can still be effective with a great line. The Bears have shown next to no ability to find and develop those skills players so I'd much rather have the line making those guys look good than spend the time and money on finding those guys and not having the line to have them productive. The Bears went several years ignoring the line. Taking Williams last year was not the final solution. It's a 5 position group with needs for at least 2 guys as insurance ready to step in. What they have is not good enough and it's just going to keep getting worse as Kreutz and Tait age.

I think a stud olineman added to this team would make enough of a difference in the running (more and bigger holes) and passing game (more time) to be a huge net improvement to be worth the pick, but in general, I agree with your sentiment. They need to restock this defense with fresh meat.

If missing the playoffs was enough to convince the powers to be to make changes, I would agree. But I don't see it happening, and because of that I would much rather have another meaningful week or two of football to follow than hope the McCaskeys and Philips will make necessary upgrades.

Getting a few more INT doesn't necessarily mean the defense is playing better with that increased playing time. A good defense can shut down a passing game with or without getting picks. Right, and the Bears don't have a good defense. My point with the turnovers argument, though, is that even with (at best) decent talent, Lovie's scheme is placing them near the top in turnovers each year. If the talent were better, the likelihood is this scheme would stop offenses more and not just create turnovers. But turnovers isn't the goal of a football game. Scoring and preventing scores is the goal.

The coaching staff helped produce the best team in the NFC that year. But they were probably 4th or 5th overall that year, and that was 3 years ago, not to mention not even the same staff. That ship has sailed. It was a fleating moment of glory that was unsustainable. How many seasons of mediocrity will it take for you to think the past continues to outweigh the present.

Getting a few more INT doesn't necessarily mean the defense is playing better with that increased playing time. A good defense can shut down a passing game with or without getting picks. The Bears gave up the third most passing yards per game this year, and that was with the benefit of playing in Soldier Field, which hurt the Saints passing game, and probably a couple others. The fact that they got a lot of INT doesn't negate that they gave up a ton of yards, and were bottom half in passing TDs allowed. They were also bottom half in rushing TD allowed. The defense was mediocre. They got turnovers, but that isn't the goal. The goal is preventing scoring. It's like the Cubs leading the league in strikeouts. It's nice, but when you also give up the most walks and HR, odds are you're going to surrender far too many runs.

You wouldn't be wrong. They could change DC and have no improvement, but that doesn't mean a new DC couldn't make a difference. If Lovie hires another college teacher or simply installs a new BFF, we're still looking at the same scheme. That doesn't mean change was wrong, it means the type of change they made was wrong.