I love Douggie, but here's what he said tonight:

One big reason why the Bears defense has floundered this year is the loss of Ron Rivera. He cited the two Carolina games in 2005. The first game (regular season), he suggests Rivera threw an aggressive package of blitzes at the Panthers, resulting in their destruction and a huge Bears win. Then in the playoff game, Lovie pulled in the reins, and thus they lost.

Now. first of all, how the hell do we know Lovie pulled in the reins? Second, my memory might be a bit fuzzy, but that's not quite how I remember that game going down. In fact, one of the biggest complaints about that playoff game was that the Bears did NOT adjust their defense coming off the regular season game, whereas Carolina DID make adjustments against the Bears.

So, which is it?

In my memory, I recall Carolina blocking a whole lot better in defending Delhomme, and I remember a lot of quick passes to Steve Smith, who was in single coverage all day long against Fred Phillips (or someone with a name similar to that... see, perhaps my memory IS faulty)

I don't know. I say, light up the coaching staff all you want, and you can make some valid points, but last year, the defense went through three distinct phases:

First six games: Pure domination
Next 6-8 games: After losing Mike Brown, just an above-average defense
Remainder of the season: After losing Tommie Harris and Tank Johnson, an average defense - at best - with big problems against the run.

Now, which phase does this year's defense most resemble? 2007: No Mike Brown. No Tank Johnson. Tommie Harris on one leg. Urlacher crippled (allegedly), and mumbly. No Vasher.

So frankly, what was to be expected here?

Obviously, management doesn't escape blame for all of that, as you had to know Brown would go down, Archuleta was a bad pickup, and the additions to the line have not panned out.

Now that I've rambled, I'll restate my point: I don't think Rivera's loss means much. Gotta disagree with Doug on this one.

Questions, comments? I'll hang up and listen.....

I'm going to disagree with you on this one. As I stated in the MJH thread about "Best and Worst". I feel the worst coaching decision for the bears, was adding Buddy Bob Babich as the D-Coordinator for the Bears. Was Ron Rivera necessarily the right guy for the job (in Lovie's eyes)? No. But, if Ron had been here, we wouldn't have seen the countless errors on defense. I believe that when they picked up Babich as the coordinator, the defense definitely didn't respect him as much as they did Rivera. I believe we can see this by the decision to separate Babich from his defensive players by putting him in the booth. Or, if you want to believe the spin, "Putting him in the booth to give him a better view of the field...."

Would Rivera have stopped the bears from losing all the games this season? No...but, he would have put better packages on the field, and definitely brought the games a bit closer in terms of scoring.

The only thing we could have hoped for is Rivera realizing the cover two won't work with his current team, and doing other stuff to maximize what the remaining talent can do.

As for Turner When was the last time we had a good O-line? Pre-Jim Miller, I think. Poor Kordell Stewart brought in so the line didn't have to be so good, and boy that worked out, too. That doesn't mean I absolve Rex or Griese. A rookie Kyle Orton played behind that line, too.

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I believe Steve Smith lit up the Bear defense in the regular seasons win also, like 7 catches for 160 yards or something like that. But because the Bears held Carolina only to three points I think just like 24_guy that the Bears felt that they didn't have to make any changes for the playoff matchup, like namely paying more attention to Smith.

We know what happened the second time the Panthers played the Bears. The defensive line did not pressure Delhomme like they did in the regualr season matchup (I think Carolina left the backs in to help block) and Smith killed the Bears again. The Bears ended up paying for their overconfidence in their cover 2.

Rivera sucks. See here.