Nardi wrote:
The Doctor Of Style wrote:
Peter Puck wrote:
The Doctor Of Style wrote:
Peter Puck wrote:
The Doctor Of Style wrote:
More evidence of "Generational Caleb's" bumslaying tendencies.
2024 1st Quarter First Downs for the Bears Offense :25
2024 4th Quarter First Downs for the Bears Offense: 59
But hey just don't ever suggest that he is producing "Empty Stats"
This tells me the scripted plays (when they finally started) organized by the (truly) offensive coordinators were really bad.
Caleb can only be productive when the defense is playing "soft zone" coverage. That much has been apparent since the preseason.
But the whole offense was terrible in the first quarter. Can blame him for some things, obviously, but not all of the things that consistently went wrong in the first quarter.
The only time Caleb isn't terrible is when the defense of the opposing team stops competing. Which is the problem. It was the same problem that he had in college. Against NFL caliber players he mostly played like dogshit. And the numbers back that up. He's a bumslayer. Very few athletes in sports (if any) have ever gotten props for that. Nor should they
The #1 pick gets
a lot of rope and creates some inherent bias. That's really all there is to it. The best you're ever going to get is "he's played poorly.....AT TIMES." Normally, I would 100% agree rookie years don't mean a whole lot but the thing that keeps nipping at me like an ankle biting mutt, is 3 other rookies that have played better. Two rookies are inexplicably in the playoffs after Vegas had them at 6.5 and 5.5 wins.
Bears were 13th in pts allowed with 4 playoff teams behind them so the defense was good enough. One of them was a rookie's team.
Enough evidence for concern? I think so. Bring in Ben Johnson. Please. It HAS to be him.
The Bears were 27th in yards allowed. They gave up those yards on the 6th least amount of plays, and as a result were 2nd-worst in the league in yards/play.
Yards allowed = drives
Yards per play = sustained drives
Sustained drives = burned game clock
Teams ran on the Bears more than 50% of the time in the 4th quarter when the league average is under 50%. In the 2nd half teams ran 49% of the time while the league average was 43%. They were burning clock because they knew they could get first downs nearly at will.
It's like everyone here needs an explainer on the pitfallls of "bend, don't break". Limiting touchdowns is important, but it means a whole hell of a lot less if you are helpless to stop the opposing offense between the 20's.