UMFan83

He's not smart. Seriously. He probably thought he needed to get out of bounds to save time. Even Forrest Gump could figure out "catch the ball and run to the end zone"

I thought so too, but one of their replays on the broadcast as from the Falcons endzone, allowing you to see all the way upfield. When they showed that angle, I specifically looked for players up field and only saw the ones in the above pictures.

I'm obviously obsessed with this play, but since I saw it again replayed, I decided to take a picture of it and post it online. I just can't believe any media organization has even question whether Hester could have scored on this play. I must be missing something obvious I guess. Also, I have seen other angles of this play. The 3 Falcons that are closest to Hester are the only Falcons near him or past him on the field. If the picture was in motion, the Falcon to his left was actually running faster then him (if you could zoom up a few frames, you will see he almost gets equal to Hester, albeit at a bad angle to tackle him). The player to his right is running slower than him (Hester catches up to him with relatively the same distance between them a few frames after this). The player behind him is running slightly slower than Hester and is not an issue. Finally the player on the far right....the only potential doubt I have. He might end up with the angle to catch him, but even if so, it would be 30-40 yards farther down the field than where they are at right now. That's the best case scenario for him...the worst case is Hester proves he's the fastest man on the field and races for a game tying TD. http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/7729/photoowk.jpg Edit: Since I keep talking about what's happening a few frames after, I took a picture as Hester is making his ill-advised cut. I couldn't get one just before but the defenders haven't had time to adjust yet so it's a good look at the progress he's made since the first photo http://img40.imageshack.us/img40/9585/photo2lx.jpg Also, I just saw a replay of the 4th down play at the end and Cutler had Forte open in the flats which would have likely have gotten him a first down. Unfortunately, he didn't make his move until about 1/2 second before Cutler tried to force that pass to Clark.

Troll!

It's not a horrible idea, but I don't think we have the receivers to do it. Some of NOs receivers are big and can go up and get the ball. We cannot.

Incomplete list of things that, if executed properly, would have at least gotten us into OT: -Interception in the red zone -Unable to produce any points in 6 straight plays inside the 12 yard line -Lost fumble at the 1 yard line -Lance Briggs tries to grab a fumble and run it in, instead of just falling on it at Atlanta's 20 yard line and instead whiffs and the Bears don't get the ball -20 yards of penalties on the final set of 4 downs in the game. Instead of first and 10 from the 14, its essentially 1st and 30 from the 44 -Devin Hester cuts towards the sidelines instead of running up the middle of the field, taking away a likely touchdown -Cutler overthrows Hester who is wide open and, if caught is at least going to give the Bears the ball inside the 10 -Cutler has a pass tipped on a slant to Olsen inside the 15, which likely would have been a TD Just think about how many points the Bears left on the field....and we ended up losing by a TD. Kick a FG in one of those red zone possessions, and have Hester take it to the house on the final drive and the Bears win in regulation. Surely a game of missed opportunities.

Kreutz is going nowhere. He should. How old is he now? How long is his contract? How much longer do we have to put up with him? Like Raisin said, he's not going anywhere. He is the undisputed leader of the Bears offense and he is extremely respected by the players and the organization. I'm not saying if he keeps playing bad he could be cut, but it's not likely unless he has a few awful seasons in a row.

no, that's not even a little bit true They can compete with any team in the NFC in any game. that's sort of besides the point. putting up a fair fight is nice for moral victories or whatever, but the Bears really don't have "elite talent". who's even got a shot at the pro bowl, besides Briggs? they aren't outclassing teams and beating themselves like people are suggesting, the reality is they just have an inconsistent QB and merely a decent supporting cast. he's got to force the issue to compensate for the guys around him. Elite teams win the games they are supposed to. They don't say "well if we did this" or "we did some good things but we didn't do them with consistency". Every team in the NFL or at least the upper 2/3 of the league do things well at least from time to time, but the best teams do them with consistency and execute when they need to. The Bears did some good things tonight, but didn't execute when they needed to, and it's now the second loss that you can say that. This isn't baseball where you can say "oh well we'll do it right next time", there are 16 football games in a season, and you don't execute like the Bears did today when they needed to and its the difference between winning the division, or making the playoffs altogether.

I just saw the replay of the Hester catch on that last drive...he was gone. He's the quickest guy on the field and the closest 2 defenders to him were even with Hester when he made the cut.

I've seen him on the field for maybe 10 minutes of total game time this year and basically have loved his play. It blows he can't stay healthy. Agreed. And if he's done for the year, he's done as a Bear so we'll never know how much he could have helped us.

The thing I'm most upset about is Cutler's accuracy. He was underthrowing receivers, he was overthrowing receivers. He had Hester wide open for a TD and he threw the ball 5 feet into the sidelines. He misfired on 4th and game on the pass to Clark (though that was a bit excusable considering the coverage), he completely missed Forte in the flats when he had room to run on the last drive. Thats only a few of the many. He made some good throws but he made some awful ones too.

I'm like 95% sure Pisa is out for the year. We need to trade for or more likely sign an outside linebacker this week. We can't trade for one because we can't burn anymore draft picks, but whatever.

He has absolutely ZERO holes to run through. None. Give him a decent Oline and hes going to be productive, but this Oline is horrendous. I saw a couple of holes he could have cut to, but he was running with his head down. One play in particular I recall, he was stuffed at the line by 3 Bears players blocking 3 Falcons players, and the outside Bears O-line guy had an angle on the Falcons player to keep him pinched on the inside. If Forte makes a cut, he's getting 10 more yards easy, but he just kept his head down and took the 1 yard gain.

no, that's not even a little bit true They can compete with any team in the NFC in any game. I'd say the Saints would blow us out of the water, but we've played them well the last 3 seasons. Though their defense is much improved.

He's afraid of contact. That's exactly my thought regarding that. He wasn't sure he could by the guy, so he takes the cut towards the sidelines. I'm not saying he was purposely trying to run to the sidelines to avoid getting hit, but he didn't want to take the chance of getting creamed in the middle of the field.

At least we didn't lose to the Raiders. Sizing up the wild card contenders (Seattle, GB, Philly, Atlanta) we had a decent day (2 of them lost, 2 won). Right now the Bears are tied with GB and Philly for the Wild Card, and hold the tie breaker over Seattle. Meanwhile we still play both GB and Philly and have the chance to hold both those tiebreakers (with GB we'd need more help). We lose the tiebreaker to Atlanta, and are a game behind them but at least there are 2 WC spots. I know it's way too early to be talking playoff positioning, especially for the Wild Card, but this loss isn't the end of the world. The good thing is no one on the board seems to be taking it that way. I think we all know after tonight that we are a team capable of doing things.

I'm so upset that Hester made that extra cut on that catch and run....I am certain he is gone if he just puts on the jets and no one can convince me otherwise.

Put it this way...the Falcons offense had 2 good drives all game. The Bears offense looked above average....they had maybe 6 good drives all game. I really thought that Matt Ryan was going to pick us apart. Turner had 13 carries for 30 yards I think. Very nice play. The O-line was horrible in the second half but looked decent in the first half (maybe effects of the bye week). That said, when you go 1-4 in the red zone (not talking TDs, I'm talking scoring points), you aren't going to win a lot of games. A lot of this is on coaching and execution. We honestly looked like the better team today, but we lost. Learn your lesson and fix those mistakes for next week.

Oh well...not the end of the world. I would have liked to have that game, but to win that game would be a bonus for most people's projections. Sucks that we could have won it, but we win at Cincinnati next week (I'll be there!) and we'll be right back on track.

We held them to 253 total yards all game, we forced 2 turnovers, we had almost 400 yards of offense (373) and we lost.

2.5 games behind the Vikings in the division.

BTW, another really inaccurate throw by Cutler. He did some good things but for the most part he f'ed up this game for us.

We had 20 yards of penalties on that last set of downs. Can't win with execution like that. We just didn't execute when we needed to. We had the TD several times that drive but we couldn't execute and now we lose the game.

Hahah, wow.... I like 4th and 6 better for some reason.

I'm scared.....I have no idea what play to call here. I think Cutler should roll out.