Spaulding wrote:
IB your an intelligent football guy. Give me your opinion on yesterday's game.
I think it was a demonstration of the lack of skill on the lines that the Bears are dealing with right now. Previous teams have blitzed quite a bit, which in my mind is exactly the wrong way to go about playing the Bears; why rush 6 when you can rush 4 and get the job done? It worked perfectly, and I give them credit for that. It's a problem that's not going to sort itself out quickly.
Equally, on the other side, it demonstrated what I've said all along this season: the defense the Bears have been playing has been borne of necessity, not strength, and the primary reason they've blitzed as much as they have is because the DEs are garbage. They simply cannot get pressure, and the secondary is getting hung out to dry. Add in the fact that you lost one of your best defensive players for the year, and replaced him with someone who is bad at football, and you have a recipe for disaster.
Everyone seems to think that everything Rick said is ridiculous and without merit because he's biased, and I ultimately disagree with him, but he was right about one thing: the cost for Jay Cutler was huge. You simply do not have the resources to restructure the lines the way you would if you had those 1st round picks. Those resources are now tied up elsewhere. Granted, the elsewhere (QB) is pretty important too. But you now lack very important resources needed to restructure your greatest weakness right now. That will be the struggle going forward.
I think that the game demonstrated that the Bears are no more than a fringe playoff team, at best. At the same time, even good teams throw out occasional clunkers -- the Giants lost games 35-13 and 41-17 in 2007, the Colts lost a meaningful game 44-17 in 2006, etc. -- but it is indicative of something.
At the same time... dear God, people, do you watch the NFL? Do you see some of the abject crap on parade in most cities? Kansas City, Oakland, St. Louis, Washington, Detroit, Tampa Bay, Cleveland, Tennessee, Buffalo -- those teams are unquestionably, without doubt, worse than the Bears, and the talent differential is huge. That's a third of the league! Now you can say that being better than the worst is no big deal, which is true, but all I mean to say is that the Bears are a long way away from that lowest tier of abject crap. They're part of that soft middle that can win most games and lose most as well: Houston, Miami, Green Bay, Baltimore, Atlanta, Arizona, both New York teams, etc. Those teams in that middle section are a lot closer to the teams at the top -- New Orleans (right now), Indianapolis,
maybe New England, etc. -- then they are to the abject crap.
What I'm saying is, everyone breathe and have some
perspective. The fixes from here aren't easy, but the Bears are in the same exact position as about 15 other NFL teams, and are in a hell of a lot better position than another 10. Maybe they're not in that top 6, but then again, who really, honestly expected them to be this year?