I don't think Lovie has adjusted for Urlacher being in there. The dancing in the A gaps was always effective because he could still get depth on his drop. Roach can't. Nothing against Roach if he were Urlacher he would have been starting a while ago.

I have no idea why the Bears continue to feel that they should leave their corners on an island against the best receivers in the NFL. This is the reason why great receivers always seem to have big days against the Bears. While most teams are bracketing and working hard to keep top receivers out of the game the Bears stay in their base formations and leave themselves vulnerable to Megatron, Andre Johnson or Steve Smith going off on them.

Bye week comes at a good time as Hester will have two weeks to recover, Clark & Tinoisamoa can get fully healthy.

I'm also becoming slightly shocked that Lovie seems to be making proper half-time adjustments. The Bears have been terrible @ adjustments on defense since he came in, but they have been great out of the locker room this year. Maybe he is just running lucky.

Oh and how fun is is to not even be surprised by rolling up 48 points.

their defense isn't bad. it's just not as good as it has been in the past, especially against the run. they run a lot of cover two so i don't think they are deliberately leaving their corners 1 on 1 all that often. more likely that the help isn't getting there from over the top and that could be for a number of reasons. maybe the safeties are shading the middle more w/urlacher out, maybe they are cheating upfield some to stop the run, maybe they are just not that good. that being said i don't think much of the bears corners.


no adjustments for opposition yet, but fo's metrics rate their d as above average against #1 receivers(12th), very bad against #2 wr (26th), good against 3rd/4th/etc wr (4th), good against te (7th), below average against rb (19th)


the #1/2 wr splits don't say a great deal b/c most wr move around a lot, but the bears dbs look to be struggling big time on one side of the field

Tar, I'm not talking about when they are in cover two, but when they blitz and leave a single safety in the middle. Instead of shading him towards the great receivers side they leave him in the middle or down against the underneath receiver.

I'm not sure why DVOA has the Bears so low against the run. They have been pretty effective so far this year. I wonder if that will work itself out.

The Bears pass defense will always be poor against the running back and "second receivers" the backside receiver. This has to do with the weak side backer not being responsible for coverage in most base sets, so quick slants are often open to that side and west coast teams use that very effectively against the Bears D.

Their theory against running backs has always been let them catch it and let their linebackers pursue.

All in all the defense does not need to be dominant, just effective. With the linebacking core injured and the secondary pretty young they just need to play hard, get some turnovers and keep the other team under 21 points.

leaving the safety high/middle in blitz packages is pretty standard. the blitz should force a quick throw, so unless he knows the hot route he needs to be in a position to rotate to any part of the field. shading/bracketing the #1 in that case means there is at least one person in man w/no help over the top and few teams have the coverage personnel to be comfortable w/that situation


re rush d-: dvoa likes the bears' d- line, but not the linebackers. the line is ranked 3rd in adjusted line yards and also has a high stuff rating ( ≤ 0 yards), but the bears are ranked 26th in 10+ yd runs. they also have a low ranking in short yardage situations. basically it sounds like the d-line gets penetration most of the time, but when the rb gets through the linebackers aren't pursuing well enough. that's not a big surprise given the injuries and they are projected to finish 3rd in overall defense

I never get DVOA early in the season. Things make very little sense and often suprise me. I know because some of it is predictive, but I can never figure out how it will move early.

Later in the season I'll watch a game and can almost predict how much it will move. Maybe they are just training me every year.

pretty in-depth knowledge being dropped itt. I like it.

Tear 'em up Jay. Tear those m*****f*****s up!

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports...,3649519.story

2 more years of Jay. After less that half of a season I am pretty excited. Just keep him around long enough and we can luckbox our way into the superbowl again imo.

We need a line first. And a new OC.

But yeah. I'm happy. It's cool he didn't greed it up, too.

Excellent move to lock him up. Now let's get him an o-line please.

I'm not going to go on my free Beekman rant this week. But please, Matt Forte begs you Lovie.

I think it is time that they start to look into who is going to replace Kreutz. He put in a lot of good years, but he is slipping. I don't know if it's better to go draft or veteran there.

I think Williams will take over the LT position at some point. Then find a solid RT and the line could be improved ten fold in a year with Beekman @ LG, up and coming center and with Garza staying @ RG.

ya they need OL help pretty bad.

it was clear when they signed Pace that it was a stop-gap measure

Someone needs firing for this s***storm. Multiple players need demoting.

And I'm ****ing sick of a Head Coach with no fire. It's fine if you're team is self-motivators. Almost none of them are. Lovie acting like an extra from Dawn of the Dead is sickening. We replace Dick "Zombie" Jauron with another sleepwalker. Let's have some Chicago fire FFS. Cowher would chew these f***ers to pieces.

Briggs is the only player who can hold his head up this week, because of his early play.

Bengals, 7 possessions, 6 TD's 1 FG. Are you freaking kidding me. 25 years a Bears fan. Worst performance I've ever been privy to.

I want m*****f***ers behedding for this performance.

This was a painful day.

This team is better than 3-3, but now I don't know by how much.

I was at the game. literally one of the worst days of my life.

there's a lot of teams between them and the playoffs, and the loss to atlanta hurts. i guess we'll see this sunday... i'm definitely glad they signed cutler, but they give up too many big plays, because they don't always all run to the ball, which is integral to the cover-2 (along with good/gang tackling). i don't know if it's a personnel issue or a coaching issue. marinelli has improved the effort of the d-line, but they really miss urlacher in the middle, that position makes it go. teams are throwing balls into the deep hole that urlacher never would have allowed... whatever else you might think of him, he's 6-4 with speed.

if we can improve the o-line (too bad we're getting average orlando pace and not turn-back-the-clock orlando), next year might be the year.

Time to run the mo****in' table...and it continues at home to an overrated Cardinals team imo.

I hope Boldin can't go or is just gimping around the field. The Cardinals kill the Bears with those short passes to him.

Will be interested to see if the run game continues to heat up with Beekman in there. I've been crying all year about it, hope it works.

Go Cards!

Hoping Adewale Ogunleye doesn't kill Warner. I actually think that will be the key to the game.

i hate that Lovie Smith plays the cover 2, i hate that he loves his scheme so much that he thinks that he can plug in anybody in the scheme and it'll work. i hate that jerry angelo and the bears front office sucks at drafting. i hate that the entire nfl knows how to beat the cover 2 and that lovie smith hasn't been fired. i hate that the bears are just ****in terrible in almost all aspects of the game besides special teams but we get so much ****in practice at it because we give up so many damn pts.

This is my first Bears season not living in Chicago, and I am pretty happy about that.

Also I started Greg Olsen in fantasy today, so that rocked.

you got screwed out of a completion as well

Olsen's offensive PI was fairly weak sauce

This is the first day I've wanted Lovie gone, and not just moRon Turner.

Gave him the benefit of the doubt once, against Cincy. But you ain't fooling me twice.

I want you to go and take your Cover 2 with you. Ditch all the coaching staff.

Get Cowher, Shanahan, or somebody else who has won a Superbowl.

Two weeks of three with the opponent scoring TD's on it's first four drives. Are you ****ing kidding me? I don't think I've seen the Bears do that once in 25 years.

The house needs rebuilding before it falls down on everyone's heads.