UMFan83

I don't think we were wrong to have expectations to go 10-7 (which is still entirely possible). It's year 3 of Poles' gut job rebuild. We were doing things like trading 4th round picks for veteran WRs on 1 year deals (though I'm sure part of that was to get a QB friendly WR to help Caleb). There were other win now moves made. I think Poles had 10-7ish expectations going into this year too, he just left some glaring holes on the OL and maybe made the wrong hire at OC> There was always gonna be a ton of wiggle room with regards to expectations this year because it was all dependent on how quickly Caleb could acclimate to the NFL. I'm not going to necessarily assign him blame for losing the last 2 games but he did not look particularly good last week and while much better this week we still left a lot of points on the table. He has yet to lead an offense to 20 points in a game. Not all on him, just saying that his learning curve is going to make a big difference on how the season goes. Yesterday was a nice step forward...very interested to see how it translates next week.

Lions win, so the Bears are in their familiar place of alone in last place of the NFC North

Ugh, I really don’t feel like getting in a battle of wits with Kyle about this tonight but I just want it documented that I do not at all agree with this and I’m not even really talking about the whole Willis/Darnold thing, though it does play into it. Of course the players matter more but out of any of the major sports, football coaches seem to matter much more than the others

It got better as the game went on. I’m not as satisfied as Kyle seems to be but he looked more in command of the offense later in the game and was gaining confidence. That said, I still saw too many inaccurate downfield throws, many that sailed nowhere close to a WR. Saw some staring down his first read. He took advantage of a pass friendly situation with the Bears playing catch up for most of the second half and 44 of his passing yards were on a Hail Mary but he still made the throws so certainly not going to dock him and even if I did he still threw for a significant total. More good than bad for sure but still a lot of room to grow IMO, and I look forward to seeing that growth

Andy Dalton is destroying our shot at getting the 33rd overall pick 😞

Yeah but it would have been his career long. He doesn't have a strong leg. That said, it was 4th and 6 I think. Kind of a no man's land...not a great situation to go for it, not a great situation to punt it, but a low percentage kick attempt. I don't hate the call and my list wasn't necessarily a list of stupid decisions, but of annoying things that occurred in a game the Bears lost by less than a TD.

As I said, there's a decent chance the Colts arent even draining the clock at that point. Having 2 TOs rather than 1 changes (slightly) how you call the game down the stretch. It's not like "wow this dude is a braindead moron" bad but I don't agree that stopping the clock with 5:25 left is the right decision.

They were about to go down 2 scores and they were gonna score no matter what. I'd rather have control of those 2 TOs for longer as it dictates play calling the rest of the way. There was 5:25 left in the game when he called that TO and you know the Bears are virtually certain to need to score twice again. The Colts might not have even been in clock draining mode at that point. If anything they are likely hurrying to the line to sneak before the Bears defense is ready.

So here are a few annoying things today in a game the Bears lost by 5: 1. Caleb INT while the Bears were in scoring range 2. Don't score any points from 1st and goal at the 4, and 4th and goal from the 1.5 3. Hail Mary is caught by Moore 1/2 yard from the end zone as the clock expired 4. Offsides on 4th down when the Colts were punting to give them a 1st down on a drive they eventually scored a TD on 5. Calling a TO after a TD to go down 5 in the 4th because there were confusion about whether to go for 2 (and then not getting the 2 point conversion) 6. Calling a TO when the Colts had the ball on the 1 inch line on 2nd or 3rd down, that was going to score (because the Colts probably werent going to try an option play) to put the Bears down 2 scores and it became clear they would need as many TOs as possible Other ridiculous things I'm missing? Edit: Oh... 7. Knowing your kicker doesnt have the power to kick far but still having him try a 56 yard FG (which went short), and then instead of going for an onside kick, kicking off normally knowing the only way kicking off makes sense is if they don't return it (to give them the extra TO with the 2 minute warning) knowing that Santos doesn't have the leg to kick it out of the end zone (bailed out by the Colts inexplicably taking a knee)

Damn straight we did. We also took a TO when the Colts were stopped at the 1 inch line about to go up 2 scores. Neither TO made sense. We also ran an option play for some reason on 4th and goal from the 2. At least he didnt make any idiotic challenges today.

30 passing TD? No we haven’t.

This is undeniably Poles team now and while in the back of his mind he was probably thinking next year is the year he expects the Bears to contend, he made no secret that he expected this team to be playoff caliber this year. Obviously plenty of time to get into the playoff mix but they really don’t look like a playoff team out there even with Caleb playing better. The offensive line still looks really rough, the coaching staff still seems stupid, running backs have been downgraded since he got here, heck the punter we used one of our 4 picks coming into the draft on hasn’t looked all that good. if Caleb turns into an elite QB all of that looks a better but I’m just wondering if organizationally we are even in a better spot than we were when Poles took over

2.3 YPC is pathetic. If they could run just a little bit it would open up so much. Not even sure how much of it is his fault but so far it’s been a pretty disastrous start for Swift - 37 carries for 68 yards - 1.8 YPC. I’ve never seen numbers this bad from a lead back who has shown success in the NFL before and isn’t at an age where he should be washed up. I suppose there’s a reason he’s on his 3rd team in 3 years but damn. And the Bears made him their top FA priority too

The best thing about football season is that as the life is sucked out of the Bears season, the days continue to get colder, darker and more depressing.

He did some good stuff today. Maybe better about him but worse about the Bears as a whole.

Bears aren’t the only team horribly coached

Missed FG, failing to get 0 points on 1st and goal from the 4, and a Hail Mary that is caught at the 1 are all killer right now

Could have used that XP so that a FG would make it a 1 possession game lol. Also would have given us an extra TO that we’d need to avoid having to onside kick after a score

Caleb always looks so confident when he’s throwing deep and then the pass is never anywhere close lol

I don’t have any regrets either, just pointing out that he’s performing better than he has with the bears which just adds to the feeling of “the bears are a cursed organization”

They should just really kick all the sports teams out of Chicago and reboot them. Almost no success for any of the teams in 7 years and none of them look particularly close to turning that around (just let me rant)

Well that was a bad play

Wasting a TO because they couldn’t decide immediately to go for 2

Finally

Is that an offensive play that the bears thought would work? Every time they get something going to call the most asinine offensive play they loses 4+ yards and kills the drive