jersey cubs fan

Not since 2006. Stop living in the past. That plan worked when the defense was elite, but it's nowhere close to elite this year, and only Lovie apparantly couldn't see that truth. I get it, you hate Smith and you hate the defense. I disagree. We saw defense and special teams win several games this season. We saw it two weeks ago. This defense wasn't elite, but defenses tend to rise and fall quickly year-to-year. A good draft and it'll be elite again. A bad draft and your hatred of Smith will be a little more justified because we won't be coming off a winning season. I don't hate Smith. I hate the complacency. And I laugh at that idiotic last line. 9-7, oh boy, winning season don't make changes you can't expect anything better. This defense was crap this year. They were crap last year as well and Lovie played games down the stretch as if they were something more than they were. If it wasn't for very cold conditions making it tough for those pass happy teams in the 2 previous games, the results would have looked a lot more like yesterday, when a bad defense was exposed for the umpteenth time. It's either replace all the coaches and keep Smith, or replace him so you can get a total overhaul. This team needs to be good enough to win despite Lovie's poor game day coaching. Because they will never win based on his "savvy" moves on Sundays.

People pretending there's nobody out there who can replace Lovie, or be as good as Lovie, aren't paying attention to the league. The Bears are routinely outcoached on Sundays. And the well run teams find quality coaches to replace the old regime fairly constantly. Look at Harbaugh in Baltimore, Sparano in Miami and Smith in Atlanta. You're telling me you can't find a quality coach on the Giants, Panthers, Titans, Colts or Steelers staff? Look at Tomlin in Pittsburgh. Why can't the Bears find a coach who gets the most out of his team and actually gets them to the playoffs constantly. The Steelers don't have a single elite talent on their offense and they only have a couple of truly great defensive players, but year-in and year-out that team plays great football and wins. The Bears are .500 the last two years. You're telling me they can't find a coach that can make them better than that? This isn't baseball, where it's pitcher vs hitter with quantifiable results. Coaching matters in football and the Bears aren't getting any coaching. They are filled with Lovie and a bunch of college coaches and nobody but Toub has come close to looking like potentially one of the best at their job in the NFL. If Lovie wants to replace all his coaches, fine, keep him. But if he insists on sticking with the teachers he brought in, and refuses to make the necessary changes, then he needs to be replaced because he brings absolutely nothing to the table on Sundays.

Not since 2006. Stop living in the past. That plan worked when the defense was elite, but it's nowhere close to elite this year, and only Lovie apparantly couldn't see that truth.

I dunno...it gave them some excitement to start the year...maybe the low at the end is even lower...but at least they had some kind of high to start the year off with. I remember Mike Greenberg hardly being able to contain his excitement. That fall was so predictable it was almost less fun to watch, but not quite. Favre isn't a good QB. He gives games away repeatedly. I missed him in GB this year because even if the Packers outplayed Chicago in recent years, you could count on Brett throwing the ball to Urlacher or Briggs and giving the Bears hope. He did that crap all year, and because Mangini didn't accept it, Brett cried.

Lovie got all kinds of perks out of the 2006 season, including far too much decision making power for both coaches and personel. Angelo needs to completely take away that control, but the problem is once that happens in the NFL, the coach rarely stays on much longer. Odds are, if Angelo tries to force chances, it's going to cause friction with the very stubborn Smith, and next year could easily be a disastrous end of each of their tenures in Chicago.

Firing Lovie, I think, is similar to SD firing Marty Schottenheimer. Sure, there are coaches out there who might be better, but the chances of landing one are so low that you're likely going to end up downgrading. You could well end up with Norv Turner part 2. Like you said, the only coach who is a sure thing improvement over Lovie is Marty, but will he come out of retirement and is he a very big upgrade? Ummmm, no. SD was a very good team that supposedly couldn't get over the hump. The Bears aren't even near the hump. It's much more like the Jets firing Mangini. The team outperformed in his first year, raising expectations, but they have disappointed of late.

If he was willing and/or able to hire quality offensive and defensive coordinators, he'd be fine. But he's a gameday idiot and he has bad coordinators. Lovie can't make a decision to save his life. This team routinely wastes precious seconds trying to figure out what they are going to do, call all sorts of unnecessary timeouts and punts in enemy territory every game. This team was playing from behind for a playoff berth and Lovie played these games like a 12 win team just trying to coast into the playoffs. He does "get the most" out of the players, but then he sabotages those efforts with stupid decisions, including letting Babich and Turner repeatedly muck up winnable games.

You gotta love Favre coming out of retirement just to get a coach fired and further depress an already desperate fan base.

I don't think it's sad. It's not like they are on pace to just be pretty good, they are on pace for a 116 point season. And with the changes to they way the league awards points, you are going to see these "best team season ever" records being broken fairly regularly.

The mediocrity is settling in. This team is entering Wanny territory and barring a very impressive offseason, we're probably looking at a 10 loss team next year. The defensive dominance is gone, the best players on that squad are older and not nearly what they once were. The weak spots are glaringly weak. For a unit that is all about not giving up the long ball, this team has repeatedly been beaten by blown coverages. What I want most to happen is a shakeup of the coaching staff. Lovie is a coward on game day, continually punting on opponent's side of the field, playing a field position game with a team that can't prevent 90 yard drives. I'd like to see Lovie gone, as he's nothing more than a motivational speaker for the players now. But I don't think that will happen, so hopefully they clear out the staff on both sides of the ball. They need actual professional football coaches, and not these "teachers" coming out of the college ranks. They need a legit offensive guru, both to get the most out of this offensive unit and help find and develop a QB. Pretty much everybody on the offense is just good enough to play, but absolutely none of them are good enough to make their teammates better. The line might be okay if the QB and receivers were better, the receivers might be okay with a great QB, the QB might be okay if the receivers could impact the game more themselves. Angelo needs to have his best draft yet, making up for the many misses of the past few years. No more hidden project players. They will need as many as three new starters out of this draft to upgrade the talent to the level it needs to be in order to return to contender status.

I don't think it would be a hard sell at all. Teams fire coordinators of disappointing units all the time, and they hire former head coaches to fill those roles on a fairly regular basis.

the rest of the team isn't good enough to win now with the offensive line they have.

O-Line please I'd like some O-Line depth to eventually replace some of our older guys, but a line of: Williams, Beekman, Kreutz, Garza, and Tait should do for next year. Having an OLine that "should do" should not be good enough for us. The Bears offensive talent isn't good enough for an okay line. With their weak talent, and no chance of significant improvement in the offseason, the only realistic way they can be very good next year is with a really good line. Really good lines can turn mediocre teams into division winners. That is the only way this core Bears group will ever win during the Lovie/Angelo era. There is no magic receiver or QB on the market or in the draft to fix their problems.

O-Line please Please. Chris Williams is moving in next year. St. Clair to left guard. The offensive line was not the problem this year. The Bears need receivers and one Pro-Bowl lineman. I thought that man was Tommie Harris. When he commands double-teams, this is a different defense. Brown and Adewale don't make plays when they get double teams. Urlacher is also freed up. The corners aren't hung out to dry. Where was Urlacher all season after crying for an extension? Jerry shouldn't have budged. Chris williams is no sure thing and JSC to left guard isn't exactly a good thing. The offensive line was definitely part of the problem this year. No sustained drives and Orton had 3 or less seconds to throw every pass.

Nope, that ship has sailed. They are several players away from an elite defense. Back to back seasons of mediocrity (or worse) isn't a fluke.

Hey Lovie, why don't you punt again, you coward. He might get these guys to try, but this is the most poorly coached team in the NFL from an execution standpoint. Just a bunch of idiots.

The Pedro deal wasn't really bad at all when he was signed. He was still 33 and really good. He was ridiculously good in his first year with the Mets and then the injuries started. You couldn't really have predicted that his body would have broken down that much that quickly. you couldn't? he had physical problems (some minor, some major) pretty much every year since 2000 and he's weighs like 120 lbs but throws mid-90s. that doesn't really scream "long career" like a guy with a clemens/schilling body. he's the greatest pitcher of our generation but only got 4 years, $50M... that should tell you something about how much his durability concerned teams. Seriously, you could predict it, and many teams did. It was reported that the Mets more or less assumed he would miss much of the time to injury, but were so desperate for top notch pitching that they were willing to pay him for 2-3 years of no pitching for 2-3 years of his pitching.

Lighten up Francis. I was commenting on the Vikings not being anything special. They aren't a head and shoulders better team than the Bears.

http://chicagocubsonline.com/archives/2008/12/rumorsnews1224.php#more I didn't think of it as tipping your cap as much as I thought of it as the Padres trying to use the media to their advantage to squeeze as much out as possible. I still would not be surprised to see this happen down the road. Peavy holds all the cards, and we do know he really likes the Cubs. I don't think it's tipping your cap either because that phrase makes no sense in this situation. They tipped their hand.

A big part of the Packers pissing away their field goal chances was the best kick blocking unit in the league was on the other side. I'm not saying Gould sucks, I'm saying his accuracy is greatly helped by the fact that he never attempts long kicks. I'd rather see the Bears treat that as 4 down territory, without fullback dives, than eschew 50 yard field goals for an extra 25 yards of field position.

And that is primarily because he never tries the harder kicks, which would lower his percentage as they lower everybody else's. I have trouble believing that's "primarily" the reason he's got one of the best FG%s in history despite kicking in one of the worst fields for FG%. Fine, replace primarily with, "in large part". Never having to attend the tough ones really helps keep his percentage high.

Garza would disagree with you here. Kreutz is right around the corner. At some point, quite possibly next year, he's going to be significantly worse than his cap number demands.

And that is primarily because he never tries the harder kicks, which would lower his percentage as they lower everybody else's.

He doesn't miss because he doesn't try long ones. He's not all that impressive. He's 8/11 from 40-49 this year, but so what, others are just as good or better from that distance. I think it hurts the Bears that the 35 yard line is not scoring territory for them. Whether or not his misses are blocks is meaningless. He does miss from inside 49 and never attempts anything longer, so that props up his percentage.

And the Cowboys and the Panthers and the Vikings. Cowboys? They don't impress me. The Bears outplayed the Panthers in Carolina (albeit with no Smith) and they are very much equal with the Vikings. The Panthers are a better team now. The Bears are a worse team. The Vikings have more talent in every facet of the game except kick returning. I'll give you Carolina, not Minnesota. Their "superb talent" is vastly overrated. They've got a couple fat guys on the DLine and Peterson. Their QBs are nothing, their receivers are unimpressive, the rest of their D hasn't exactly shut down the league. They allowed 48 points to the freaking Bears. They've played the same teams as the Bears and have the same record. They do not outclass the Bears.