five games in and still looking for a quality that defines Trestman as a coach.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Same team. If the defense isn't forcing turnovers and setting the table for the offense the Bears can't win.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

If the Defense is able to get off the field in Detroit and against the Saints, Bears have a much better shot to win both games, even with the 4 turnovers. Each game the D has allowed long sustained scoring drives multiple times. What did the Bengals have, 3 scoring drives of over 80 yards? Can't win doing allowing that unless you take the ball away.

If the D is finally able to stop teams on 3rd down and get off the field, the offense has a chance to put points on the board then. Tough to score points after you given up a TD at the end of the half, just after the offense got on the board no less, then have the offense on the field for only 4 minutes in the 3rd quarter. That was the game right there, and it was on the defense. Saints were 3/3 on 4th downs as well, that is on the defense. The one time late in the game when the D had a chance to step up and make a play, Briggs has his head up his ass and jumps into the neutral zone.

The defense's inability to get off of the field has been the biggest problem for the Bears this year. That is worlds different than it was at almost anytime (except 2007) under Lovie Smith.

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I haven't been paying attention that much to the defense (I've solely been focused on LINE PLAY) but is Mel Tucker running more 4-3 than Cover 2? The blitzing is cool for awhile but the plays in the soft middle by Graham were just puke-inducing.

BTW, what is the over/under on when Mike Smith is fired?

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RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

If the offense can put together a few long drives the defense could rest. If the offense could score points when the game matters the defense could go into attack mode. The Bears haven't had an offense consistently do this in nearly 30 years and the last offense that kind of did it was the Rex Grossman led offense in 2006.

_________________
Be well

GO BEARS!!!

I sense a monstrous contest to see who can lose worst.

Really, when the Jets can come in and beat the both of them in a double header, what does this say?

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Middle Aged Crazy, like Uncle Terry

I have to admit, the are doing better offensively. However, this is ultimately the same team, beating bad teams with no hope against good ones.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

The offense is a withering boner. Get to the 30 or 40 and then piss down your leg. The quick slant looked good last night, but beyond that just pure shit.

The Chicago Tomatocan Beaters!

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RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

Oh come on. IDK Cutlers rating or that other number last night but he was damn near perfect as far as I am concerned.

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Elections have consequences.

I'm not sure about the validity of your first sentence. The offense did nothing against the Saints in the first half--when the game was on the line. While Cutler accumulated some nice stats when the Saints eased up in the second half, he has always been a nice "garbage time" player . Against the Giants, the offense frequently looked competent, but it's important to remember that they were matched up against the worst defense in the league. Let's see what Cutler does against Green Bay before we make any judgments about his--and the offense's--progress. Capers has had his number for quite some time.

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Yeah, against a terrible defense. Amazing.

Cutler has been the embodiment of mediocrity since arriving in Chicago. Unbelievable physical attributes, unbelievably shallow understanding of how to play his position.

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They scored 3pts in the second half. If you take away the defense scoring another TD, the offense lost that game.

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You think he'll ever get it? That he'll ever be better?

I doubt it, but I'd love to see him try to get it somewhere other than in Chicago.

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I did see Cutler look more aware of the coverages and schemes last night as he was calling them out and pointing at the LB's but shouldn't he know this by now? I also saw all the slobbering over Cutler last night from the Thursday night crew commentators and the dais of boobs afterwards.

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RFDC thinks I'm retarded.

Agreed. IIRC they only scored 3 points in the 2nd half. That's awful. If the Bears defense (which is average at best now) doesn't force 3 turnovers and score we are possibly looking at a loss. Eli kept trying to win the game for the Bears.

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Be well

GO BEARS!!!

Agreed, relying on turnovers to win a game is a sign of a weak team.

And that was Lovie's whole philosophy...Takeaways!

Lovie's defenses were solid even ignoring the takeaways though. This is a house of cards.

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Fire Phil Emery

Fuck no they weren't, they couldn't tackle.

Bears ranked by percentage of defensive plays with a broken tackle:

2009: 16th
2010: 12th
2011: 15th
2012: 14th

_________________
The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Better than I thought honestly. That's not impressive though.

Relying on takeaways to win, and coaching players to take the ball away, are two different things. You should not depend on the former to win, but there is nothing wrong at all with the latter, and the bears did that better than anyone under Lovie. He can coach defense, there's no doubt about it.

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Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Rex is still your QB!

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There are only two examples of infinity: The universe and human stupidity and I'm not sure about the universe.

I guess, though on a list of stats I'd use to identify a strong defense, broken tackles wouldn't make the top ten.

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.

Multiple top seven finishes in points allowed ought to do the job, no?

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

Bend, don't break.

They never really beat good teams on either side of the ball. They were faux good.

The point of defense is preventing the other team from scoring, as you know. Bend or break- it doesn't really matter, they prevented scoring for the most part, which is again the point of defense. You can not like or like any coach or whatever, but at some point our arguments have to account for the numbers, no?

_________________
Successful calls:

Kyrie Irving will never win anything as a team's alpha: check
T.rubisky is a bust: check
Ben Simmons is a liability: check
The Fields Cult is dumb: double check

2013 CSFMB ROY

They were something like 14-47 when trailing at the half and was close to 20-40 against teams with winning records. Those are my numbers.

And this is the...defense's fault?

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The Bulls haven't done anything wrong, and they're not going to do anything wrong.