D Line
Even assuming Peppers has a good year (not even close to a given) what are you getting from the "other guys"? Tommie Harris is mediocre on his best day. Mark Anderson is still suspect on anything but 3rd and long.

Linebackers
Cletus Urlacher is a HUGE question mark. There is no telling what he'll be with the age and injury. Briggs is still a stud. They dont have a lot of Depth here either.

Secondary
Im slightly optimistic about Bowman. Id like to see Manning become a football player and not just a freak athlete that occasionally makes a big play. Glad to have Chris Harris back, but lets not go nuts. It almost got a little Aaron Rowandish around here when he was resigned.



Overall, it looks average to bad to me.

A lot of things have to go right for this defense to be good.

Now this is gonna sound meatballish, but if the offense can keep the damn D off the field for long stretches they might be ok.

Martz was known for having too many 3-and-outs, even when he had a HOF QB, RB and WRs..

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1926-1931-1934-1942-1944-1946-1964-1967-1982-2006-2011

As you know, the Lovie defense is dead without a pass rush. Will Peppers be enough? He should draw a double team. The key to the whole defense is Harris. If he can disrupt and draw a double team, they should be able to get pressure. That makes a mediocre secondary alot better.

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I agree, if it requires 4 guys to block 2, then we should have a pass rush.

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Team Cutler.

If Tommie is healthy, he and Peppers should make each other better.

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Second City Saint

healthy?

He doesnt have an injury, he has a condition.

2006 Tommie is gone for good.

The biggest improvement this D can make from the last couple of years is to tackle. Turnovers are great and yeah the ball punch causes that, but (Peanut Tillman) what the fuck good does it do if you don't strip the ball, but also miss the tackle allowing the opposing player with the ball to run another 10, 20, 40 yards downfield?

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+55
( http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcnorth/post/_ ... -nfc-north )

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Concerns? That there isn't a ranking higher than #1.

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Tommie Harris even looked gimpy while throwing out the first/second pitch Monday night at The Cell, IMO.

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-"God is great. Beer is good. And People are crazy!"

One of the great mysteries is why the Bears continue to pay Tommie Harris piles & piles of money. He was just payed a $2.5 Million roster bonus in June. He is the typical selfish modern day athlete who has one great year & lands a huge contract, who never again reaches the level of play that got him the contract. Harris is a head case. I gotta believe that he has worn out his welcome in the locker room.
The Bears would have been better off keeping Ogunleye & Brown & releasing Harris.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

The guys has been hurt. When healthy he was one of the best tackles in the game. He's played with the injury the last few years. Nothing about what he has done says selfish other than maybe trying to play when he is injured. The Bears wouldn't have been better with Brown and Ogunleye. Ogunleye is hurt and keeping both means you wouldn't have Peppers.

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Anything above mediocre would be good from Harris. Can he be elite? I dont know, but people keep forgetting there are two tackle positions. Adams played well last year and Harrison show some potential if he keeps the weight off. Izzy at the other end intrigues me, I think he could start and bring Anderson in on pass rushing duties.

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So what have we learned about the Bears Defense after two preseason games?

A few random thoughts:

To my eyes, Tommie Harris hasn't been very impressive. He lacks explosiveness off the snap and looks like "just another guy" on the field. Anthony Adams has been the team's best defensive tackle recently, and it appears things will be no different in the coming season. That ain't good.

Zach Bowman can't be that bad, can he? He looks like he'll need a compass and map to find the receivers he's supposed to be covering. Peanut is still the team's best cornerback.

The overall level of physical play displayed thus far has been very disappointing. Compared to other teams I've watched this preseason--Jets, Giants, Vikings, 49ers, Patriots, Packers--the Bears look soft. And I don't believe they're going to close the "physicality" gap when the regular season arrives. The Bears need Major Wright in the starting lineup. He's one of the few thumpers they have.

The coaching staff still has no idea how to design effective blitzing schemes.

While I'm sure the team will improve over the next month, other teams will, too. The defense is aging, weak and (in many respects) poorly coached. They're going to make this another long year for Bears fans. Julius Peppers will have a positive impact, but he can't be expected to carry a unit with so many glaring weaknesses (defensive tackle, cornerback, safety).

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They are soft. They've been soft for a long time.

But they'll punch the ball out of your hands as you are running away from them while you are not bothering to tackle them. Sometimes.

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You know me like that.

What made Tommie special, his quickness off the ball and exceptional athleticism for his position, is gone forever.

His knees wont allow him to be that guy anymore.

He is precisely "just a guy"




Thats not good considering Peanut would be better at safety. Not throwing in the towel on Bowman yet though.


Im not sure you can make that assessment from watching presason.

I like Major Wright though.



You expected them to?

What did they take a blitzing seminar in the off season?


Thats the stuff 7-9 is made of.

They don't have the personnel to blitz.

It's not in Lovie's system's DNA and when forced to do so due to a lack of pressure, they are bad and expose the defense even more.

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You know me like that.

True
Urlacher and Briggs are bad at blitzing

Not sure if ya wanna bring some exotic blitzes (Copyright Jimmie Johnson's estate) but the two guys who should be good, arent.

But they only play Cover 2--that's what you're referencing as "Lovie's System," correct?--about 30% of the time whereas they've blitzed something like 40% of the time over the past couple seasons. The Cover 2 may be Lovie's System, but he doesn't play that system.

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I'm on record here in posts that I'm sure are long gone that I hate Lovie's system. I think it is ill-suited to finding the special personnel needed to make it great and, at this point, old-hat in the league.

Hell, even Chris Harris said nothing has changed in the 3 years he's been gone.

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You know me like that.

But, the people here are Lovie's people. That's what I'm referencing.

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You know me like that.

But what is his system? He blitzes more than he plays a non-blitzing, straight Cover 2 scheme.

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Isnt that him straying from the plan because theyre getting their asses kicked?

Usually the line is getting 0 pressure so he's forced to blitz.


So, I think in Lovetron's mind, they are still primarily Cover-2

You and I know they should plan for when the line fails to get pressure. Not sure Lovetron thinks that way.

Yes, and they suck at it because he's got Briggs and Urlacher who are fast and can run backwards very well and aren't very good at blitzing.

They blitz because people pick the Cover-2 apart when they aren't getting enough pressure from the front 4 and their backs aren't good enough to cover for as long as they need to when Tommie Harris is getting pancaked and Mark Anderson is getting his spin move stuffed on a regular basis.

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You know me like that.

I dunno, I'd like to see the stats on this but it seemed like the blitzes were better designed and more effective under Rivera. They had similar personnel then. Additionally, I find Lovie's blitz packages very predictable; this has nothing to do with the players on the field.

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I think they were more effective because they were rarer, and because the front four was better at generating pressure on its own. If you need six to block four, that fifth rusher is going to be more effective.

Defense in football is pretty simple. The more players you need to get pressure, the less effective the defense will be. The cover two worked so well in 2005 and 2006 because the front four generated good (but not great) pressure, and you had an all-pro MLB. The corners were also effective at playing the rush, which helps. Once that pressure dissipated, the defense needed to play more "aggresive," and the personnel didn't match that. Plus, aggressiveness is fine, until you get burned repeatedly, then it is really bad. Of course, no one will ever blame the aggressiveness, and the call will probably be for more aggressiveness, not less.

The only D-lineman that regularly commanded double teams last year was Tommy Harris. If Julius Peppers and Tommy Harris require double teams this year, that means six will be needed to block four again, or one of those two will go against a single blocker. That's the plan. Let's see if it works.

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Fire Phil Emery

That similar personel is getting older. There's a definate difference in pressure up front too. Harris was twice the player that season than he has been since, Brown (gone now) was a much better disrupter then. That was Tank's career year.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Exactly right. Yet the Bears still run the easiest country club non contact camp in the NFL, with no tackling to the ground, which is why they get the results that they do in games. You play like you practice.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

I agree to a point. Too soft or too hard of a practice is not good. I always say,if they are going to get injured at least do it when it counts.

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favrefan said:"Chris Coghlan isn't gonna pay your rent, Jimmy."

Easy practices lead to soft play which leads to injuries. The less aggressive you play this game the more prone to injury you are. Most High Schools & Colleges hit harder in practice than the Bears. I went to a Steelers camp at St. Vincents a couple of years ago while traveling in PA on business, & Tomlin had them running the Oklahoma & nut buster drills. He worked their asses off with full contact & tackling to the ground. Spend a day at Bears camp & you will see none of that. Say what you want about fire & passion & all that...but you can't play football passively. For some reason the Bears think you can.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan