GOING OFF ON THE BEARS
It’s time for an NFL quiz. Your defense faces 3rd & 4. Do you play your cornerbacks: A) 6-8 yards off the ball or B) up on the line and jam the receivers on the snap.
Hmmm…nope, it’s not a trick question. And while I’m not a football coach, I’d bet my first born that the answer is B. The Bears, however, do not see it that way.
They have big, physical corners in Vasher and Tillman. I’m pretty sure they were drafted to hit receivers before they get into their routes to give the D-Line more time to pass rush. They were also drafted because they were very good against the run.
But now it seems the Bears have nullified their best qualities, as neither are allowed to challenge any receivers. Instead they let faster receivers catch the ball in front of them and allow them to go crazy for yards after the catch. The Bears defense is bend but don’t break but we break anyway.
Most disturbing is the continued practice of not changing a darn thing. It’s fairly evident that when Dan Orlovsky, Kerry Collins, Brian Griese, Matt Ryan and Gus Frerotte dominate your defense, you might want to make some scheme adjustments. The league–and probably my 6-year-old son–has figured out where the soft spots are in the Bears Whatever-2 and they are getting killed. The talent, while it may not be what it was a few years ago, is still there. There is no way they should be getting beat so badly.
Moving on to another problem with coaching: Lovie Smith’s time management. Smith and co. defended the call to have Orton throw 2nd & 8 from the Chicago 9-yard line late in the first half. I thought that throwing it was OK, but then when it was incomplete on 2nd, they chose to run on 3rd. Ugh. You have to go for it again there! The Pack then used its last timeout with :49 left following the 3rd down run. Mason Crosby hit a 53-yard FG.
“[We were] trying to score points,” Smith said. “That’s normally what you do when you’re trying to move the ball there. We wanted to take a shot. One of the passes we thought we’d have something and it didn’t work that way.” So why not try another pass there on 3rd down knowing they have a timeout left anyway? Because when they didn’t convert on 2nd down they all pooped themselves, that’s why. Either you are going for it there or you’re not. Can’t have it both ways. Terrible calls.
Even more disturbing was the decision to play Orton deep into the 4th quarter when the game was totally over. How moronic was that? It’s a fair question to ask: would this team have a better record with a different coaching staff?
[tags]Chicago Bears, Lovie Smith, Bob Babich, Charles Tillman, NFL, Green Bay Packers[/tags]
