also, man, this game was really a no-win situation for the bears if they didn't cruise to a 34-17 type victory, which i think just about everyone thinks they should have. i was in transit during that 4th-n-2 in the redzone early, but by the end of the 3rd quarter into the beginning of the 4th quarter, man.... they needed to score some damn points right there. that was the time when they had the drive that went beyond midfield and was right on the cusp of robbie territory (who btw tied an NFL record with his 12th consecutive make of a 50+ yd FG) before that dumbass intentional grounding penalty.... and then the next drive was much of the same, cross midfield and get into a 3rd-n-4 situation and you end up shocking the world going for earl bennett @ the 22yd line.
typically i applaud a brazen display of tresticles (who can forget against the vikes in week 2 when he called plays with the confidence to win the game even tho he was in a situation where he'd need a TD) still, man, remember the lessons from last year's seattle game when they had a 3rd-n-1 stopped short, lovie takes a timeout... sees the replay that isnt going to get overturned, decides to challenge it, loses and gets charged another TO, and then goes for it on 4th and 1, where they get stuffed... i forget the final score, and IIRC seattle even went and put some icing ont he cake points after they got ahead late/ish int eh 4th..... and in the end, the bears' chances of winning the game are infinitely greater if LOVIE JUST TOOK THE GODDAMN POINTS.
but i started this post saying it was a no-win situation for the bears excepting a ~34-17ish type cruise to victory. the giants came into this game 0-5, and indeed they deserved that. cheesecake seems to have checked out of this season, and their only saving grace is that if washington can beat dallas this sunday then methinks dallas/philly/washington would all be 3-3 or 2-4, and if the eagles and cowboys lose then i'm pretty sure all three of them would be 2-4 and the giants would only be 2 games out of first place @ 0-6, with a bunch of division games yet to go. eli has won two superbowls with a good handful or two of these guys for a reason.... there's quality there, but it's damn near legendarily inconsistent quality. much like we had good rex and bad rex and now have good jay and bad jay, they've also got "you can't spell 'elite' without 'eli' " and the venerable nickname to end all nicknames, cheesecake.
by and large we got cheesecake tonight. and we shouldn't have even been in the position to get cheesecaked late, as putting up 3pts late 3rd / early 4th makes it a 2poss game and as fate would have it, the bears would very likely have relatively coasted to victory (granted i figure if they're up 2poss with cheesecake getting the ball with circa 4-5mins left the bears DEF prolly gives up another TD, meaning it'd come down to an onside kick or even some sort of INT on that drive or a potential GW drive late)
AHEM. so yeah, tl;dr = this giants team is bad, but it's still got some pieces that have "the heart of a champion" and all that, and they're quite capable of showing up and playing quality football despite their record (look at the steelers game... they're 0-5 already, but even with all of that bad if you don't batter captain greydick to death and give him time to hit his receivers they're still a quality playoff/ish team at their core.... much like the giants. so to use a cliche i could have gone all lee corso and said that tonight's ballgame would be "closer than the experts predict" and i figured there'd be a fight for the game at some point in the 2nd half, just not as late as it ended up being.
so yeah, this defense needs to have some long hard looks in the mirror and blah blah blah blah. also, with peanut's deal up i'd offer him something like 3/20 (evne better if ~8-10 of the 20 is payable in bonuses in teh first couple'a years that don't hit the cap that hard) cuz like, man, i love jennings for what he is.... but he is a ballhawk because he often has great position right there in front of the receiver. he's the norse god of the underthrow, and on my ideal defense he's a nickelback.... as i've said in another thread i'd go get a bonafide #1 lockdown/coverage CB if there's anyone with potential for the bears in the ~20s, cuz even if you get a promising young passrusher and add him to a line with 2 guys coming back from ACLs and peppers leaving, shit, you're going to need people to cover. jennings is brilliant to have around for all of teh INTs, but i'd still trade a good handful of those for more astute pass coverage 95% of the time, otherwise you're going to continue on down the path you're on with this defense: turnovers or turnstiles(TM pending)
i'm glad the bears got out of this with a win to sit at 4-2. next week we've got ANOTHER team that's better than their record indicates, or at least i think they are.... and if you're able to go to DC and get to 5-2 before the bye week, shit, you know the lions want to tap out in a few weeks and throw their hands up like "MEGATRON GOT HURT! WHAT CAN WE DO?!" and then they run the risk of the annual reggie bush injury parade (even tho he was quite good about that last season, having a season akin to RvP's last year @ arsenal (excepting the whole leading the league in scoring aspect) b4 going off to get paid. the packers are gonna be around, but as always they're an aaron rodgers problem away from being a 3-13 type team. not to mention i dont believe in their defense/running-game so there's a chance that if you get 30+pts on them you never know what can happen. especially with the chance that this team grows to realize that this is the swan song for the remnants of the vaunted lovie-2 from 2004-2013 and perhaps some new blood gets in there and surprises... i don't think anyone's really getting too coached up over here, for example when i heard the bears broadcast mention the bears DB coach my gut reaction was "whoa, they have one of those? what does he do? remind them to keep the game competitive by allowing guys to have a 5yd buffer zone around them ~15-20 yds down in the middle of the field?)
so yeah, basically, if it's not totally apparent to the team that they'll only go as far as their offense takes them, they best figure it out soon. (the bye week should give tresty a chance to try and optimize his playcalling to consume as much clock as possible, i mean, dare i say that there should be a dash or a even a "smidge" of game management going on? btw saying game manager makes me giggle like growing up saying CAPTAIN N: THE GAY MASTER. it'd be apropos to call cutler a GAY MANAGER when he plays the gaints cuz the 2010 game was a str8up game of "smear the queer" and ummm.... yeah. jay was evidently queer, but i'll leave it to ike for any official proclamations of cutleresque queerdom/pussyness/etc
and ummm yeah. those are my thoughts.... idk why i write them sometimes as they kind of stick out like a sore thumb here given the proclivities of the conversational paradigm of the CSFMB, but hey,
it's not like i've got a bears blog to collect all of these brain droppings. carpe diem? c'est la vie. sini-san no chinko wa OOOOOOOOOOOKKKKIIIIIIIIIII desu. seriously, triple emphasis on OOOOOKKKKKIIIIIII desu desu desu.
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Curious Hair wrote:
Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?