How much of this is precipitate from Urlacher's injury?

people jump on coaches/schemes too much. players matter more than most of the time. there is nothing wrong w/playing cover 2 a lot, it's simply unfortunate for the bears that they lost urlacher for the season and that they also had two starters injured in the secondary for today's game. tommie harris getting ejected didn't help matters

I will agree that people are too quick to blame coaches in most scenarios. This is not one of them. Lovie is freaking TERRIBLE.

there is nothing he could have done to deal w/the injuries imo

edit: i mean, i just see you guys complaining about the cover 2, but it's not like another system is going to make this particular set of players better. in fact they would likely be worse b/c the bears don't have the corners to play a lot of snaps out of the cover 2. you want tillman or bowman having to defend 1/3 of the field, or in man frequently?

Urlacher isn't the player he was. We shouldn't be missing him this badly.

I mean two games of three surrending 4 touchdowns in the first four drives. I don't care if Pee Wee Herman is your MLB. That is disgraceful. That shouldn't happen ONCE in a year, to ANY professional team. Even the Detroit Lions.

Afalava was injured most of the game, but Tillman certainly wasn't. The great Kevin Payne, sold to us as a starter in pre-season, so if he can't cover for a 6th round rookie there's something seriously up.

There's a lot wrong with this team.

Currently the top 3 (pick your order).
1. The coaches. Turner's perennial ineptness (now he doesn't have the "no QB!" excuse he's gone). Lovie's outdated Cover 2. Move with the times man. It worked in the 90's, it doesn't work now. The Bears had to ditch the 46 Defense when they didn't have All-World personnel too. There's only two teams running it. It's been found out. Passing teams with a good QB eat it alive.
2. The players. So much dead money in Tommie Harris and Nathan Vasher (and "upgrades" Omiyale and Pace). Where's the freaking pass rush? Where's the run blocking? When your supposed weakest unit (WR) is probably your best you are in deep doodoo.
3. Smith. "The motivator". He couldn't motivate John Holmes in a ti**yf**k competition.
The ship's going down with Mr. Stoic staring out at the seas, unable to see the iceberg right in front of him. Guess what Lovie? These players aren't self-motivating. They need chewing to bits Cowher-style or you're done. I'm not buying your bulls*** any more. And, more importantly, neither are they.

I've never been as f***ed off with this team as I was against Cincinatti. Now that is tempered by resignation, and looking for the life boats.

Let the ship go down and lets salvage as many worthwhile players as we can before it takes all of them.

urlacher may not be the dominant player he used to be, but hes still a well above average mlb and your defensive scheme was entirely built around him. whoever your replacement mlb is does not allow you to do all the same things

and then harris goes and gets himself thrown out. ya the defense had no chance in this game

There is also the cluster **** of trying to get defensive calls in. I know Urlacher was more fluid at it but the coaching staff has to adjust to him not being in there. You can't have the LB core trying to get lined up when the ball is snapped 10-12 times a game. It's just unacceptable.

I'm also still fuming over their inability to bracket the lone WR on a team. I know Larry Fitz is great, but there is no reason why the Cardinals have Hester bracketed, but for some reason Tillman is chasing Fitzgerald across the field.

Rivera was always able to balance Lovie with both temperament and with aggressiveness. Since he has left there is only the good cop, no bad cop and the players have not responded at all.

With two years and about $10 million left on Lovie's contract I can't imagine the Bears are going to be making a change anytime soon. They won't eat that kind of money. Also Angelo's contract runs until 2013 and guys like Shanahan and Cowher are going to want personnel control and Angelo is not going to give that up.

Maybe they will finally give up on Turner, but I don't think Lovie's decision making on coaches is even close to good. There is just going to be torture for the next few years.

CUTLAHHHHHH!

el oh el

Cutler has definitely upped the excitement level of Bears' games.
Honestly, if they can add a big time WR, he would look really good.

In a 10-6 game we pass it 52 times and run it 20. There's something wrong there. And it's not just our run game.

When either the Defense or Offense has to utterly suck it's not just the players.

Coaching staff needs gutting.

You said it brother. This is just ****ing painful.

Watching the sidelines tonight just made me pray for Samurai to somehow replace Lovie one day.

uhmmm... the run game wasn't working at all

my god do we suck

does cutler have a night-vision problem or something? 4 picks in the opener, 5 more tonight. what happened to matt forte's burst? i swear he was quicker and faster last year. ron turner has sucked for years, and while i'm reluctant to turn on lovie, i've got to agree with the posters above, enough is enough, they simply aren't getting it done, and it's his responsibility.

there was an interesting article on espn by kevin seifert detailing the downfall of the bears defense... they've spent an awful lot of early round picks on that side of the ball. i think we needed some o-linemen instead.

season over.

i'm almost willing to bet (and seriously probably would, with odds) that we will now rip off a 5-game winning streak, ensuring that we pick in the mid-teens again instead of 7th.

thought the playcalling was fine. they were wasting downs by running. you guys should just tank and get a high pick to take an o-lineman

I thought Denver got this pick too? (And traded it to Seattle)

denver traded theirs

hmm, nm thought it was 2 firsts for a sec..

interesting first post.

Yeah it's Denvers 1st. Seattle got Denvers orginal 1st in trade.
We don't even have a 2nd now, thanks to Jerry recently trading it for Gaines "close to official bust" Adams. This is starting to look like another **** up, for Angelo's sake he better hope this kid is ready to play next year.

Yeah, the running game wasn't working (when has it this season? Detroit). But when you lose by 4 points with that pass-run balance, and 5 picks, like we had you don't need to be moving big chunks. You just need to be doing bits so they aren't all over the pass and so you aren't owning yourself in the field position, IE turnover, battle.

I like the HB screens. We should use them more often. And I'm sick of the old "run it up the middle into the pile of linemen in your own backfield" call.
Turner needs to call more outside runs.
Forte needs to look for cutback lanes more, and run off the edge of the pile instead of into it (and the non-existent hole).

There's a lot of problems with this team. The biggest is the coaching staff.

When did we move the ball best last night? On the last drive, right? IE. When we're in hurry up Offense, with Jay no doubt making the calls, and Turner unable to **** things up.

I figure Jay rebounds big. He has a history of doing so.

Which makes me really worried that it'll therefore be the Defenses job to play like High Schoolers, and get rolled over.

Man, it's hard being a Bears fan this year. You wait 60 years for a QB, and this is what happens. :/

This is pretty spot on. Turner does a horrible job balancing plays and adjusting as a play caller. His contract expires this year. I can't see him being back.

They also looked great with the no-huddle on the drive that ended with the first pick.

I'm still giving little blame to Forte for the running game. Plays that exacerbate the o-lines problems instead of hiding them. The poor blocking and predictability of the runs is much more to blame.

I think Williams needs to be moved over to the left side soon. Just for a full evaluation on if he is the LT of the future or if they need a full line blow-up.

It's tough for any QB to throw on a defense that knows they are throwing just about every down without pass protection or receivers that finish routes.

Two of the picks weren't even Cutler's fault, though the last one was just a terrible, terrible throw.

That being said, I'd like to see Cutler looking better overall, but I can't help but think with a decent O line and consistent defense we'd have 2-3 more wins right now.

Lovie should've been fired after totally botching that Falcons game last year. The delay of game on the FG was inexcusable and there are many other examples of poor game management from Lovie.

His style was fine when it was amping up players there were effective, but he just seems relatively useless to our team at this point and I support him leaving, just as I've supported Vinny Del Negro leaving the Bulls for the last 87 games.

Lovie Smith should be fired just for saying the Bears are a running football team .......

lol, remember when we were predicting 13-3 in the preseason?

Going deep to Knox on 3rd and 5 seemed so unnecessary...just keep the ****ing drive alive, ugh.

This team is so ****ing gutting to watch. It just gives me a dull pain in the stomach now. There's just this tragic inevitability about them. You are near sure they just will not do enough to win.

I mean how the **** do you get the ball on your final drive down by more than a Field Goal when you have a +3 Turnover Differential. Seriously, how do you do that. As the crew said teams are 19-0 this year with a +3 TO stat.

I'm sick of our Offense.
I'm sick of the line.
I'm sick of Forte. The first time I've seen him do anything in games is after Bell breaks off a 70-yarder with his first carry. Coinkydink?
I'm finally sick of Cutler playing with the emotional and mental stability of an 8-year-old when he's on Prime-Time.

I'm sick to the ****ing teeth of Ron Turner. This Offense, Cutler, and this team, will go nowhere with that c*** in charge.