Thoughts and Observations Week 1

gallagher

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Was it me or was a lot of the pre-snap motion from last year gone? It seemed like the scripted 15 plays of so always had a ton of pre-snap motion...
Well they were getting the play in so late that they didn't have time most of it. That really hurt Trubisky in that he couldn't identify where his first read would be covered and where the second read needed to be.

I don't think Trubisky is done growing, but he looked like a puppy out there too often and that contributed to it.
 

PeppersSweater

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Most glaring difference between the teams (other than QB) to my untrained eye: WR separation. Our crew has good hands, but are seemingly always being shadowed closely. Pack WRs were able to exploit the D scheme and find large gaps.
I’ve been trying to put my finger on why our passing game looks so difficult. Watching on television, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s more of a separation issue vs playcalling vs Mitch’s vision/ball placement. It doesn’t help that the TE position has been unreliable and our #2 receiver is tiny. Considering Gabriel is known as a speedster, I feel like Mitch is regularly having to drop the ball perfectly over a much taller defender into a very small catch window whenever he targets Gabriel. I saw many acrobatic catches from him last year that a 6’+ receiver would make look easy.
 

Milton Waddams

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I’ve been trying to put my finger on why our passing game looks so difficult. Watching on television, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s more of a separation issue vs playcalling vs Mitch’s vision/ball placement. It doesn’t help that the TE position has been unreliable and our #2 receiver is tiny. Considering Gabriel is known as a speedster, I feel like Mitch is regularly having to drop the ball perfectly over a much taller defender into a very small catch window when he targets Gabriel. I saw many acrobatic catches from him last year that a 6’+ receiver would make look easy.

Yeah I don't get Gabriel either. He had a better year than I thought he would last year, but he wasn't special. I don't understand the speed thing though. Dude is supposed to be able to fly, but it seems like every catch he makes the defender is with him step for step. Methinks he's not as fast as advertised.

That was one of my concerns coming into the season - team speed on O. We don't have a guy that can fly like KC does (Freaky Scumbag Hill - who just signed a 3 year, 54 million $ extension a few minutes ago, rookie Mecole Hardman). Their WR speed really creates mismatches. But if Nagy is smart, he should be able to make stuff work for the time being. Nobody outside of KC has a Hill. NE WR's aren't burners, and they get open.
 

Jcollins1977

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Great analysis, I would add that our offensive formations were pretty easily defended with a Nickel D, and pretty easily read. Also I think they had Jackson playing conservative to cover the liability of the other safety position.
 

SugarWalls

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There seemed to be a safety rotation going on and I am dying to know who was on the field for that 47 yard bomb that got the Pack out of the hole early 2Q

Someone blew that one big time, but no idea who.

(Hoping @Adipost has some pretty pics for me this weekend)

For whatever it’s worth on the replay I didn’t spot mack out there.
 

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Things were so bad on Offense, I don't know where to set the blame, so buck has to stop with Nagy, I'll start there. Bad play calling, bad timing getting plays in (2 delay of games almost in a row), going away from plays that were working, not using those plays to set up other plays, 3rd and short bad pass play, 3rd and short bad run play, just awful. All of this, mentioned by Al Michaels and Collinsworth, could possibly been worked out had they played some in preseason. Don't know, but it makes some logical sense, particularly penalties and not getting plays in. Yikes. Oline has to play better, cut the damn penalties out if nothing else, another receiver has to pick it up, Bears can't just rely on 12. Sad night.

Edit: With all of that being said, if that Packer defender didn't inadvertently get his arm on the pass to Davis, that was a TD. Unsure the Bears could have won the game thereafter, but bit of bad luck thrown into the mix didn't help.
 

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Nagy’s game plan from the get go was so bad. If he keeps trotting our backup players in Patterson and Davis, then the offense will continue to struggle mightily. Patterson should not see the field unless it is a gimmick play. What an embarrassment performance as the fans filled up the stadium a lot earlier than I thought, considering it was a Thurs night game. The fans were super loud, loud as ever the first half then completely were out of the game the 2nd half, due to the offense struggles. Must win next week to get this team back on a roll. Keep Montgomery in the game all 3 downs and use Wims and Miller more. Wims was consistently getting open.

Somebody needs to let Nagy know that many people thought M.Trestman was an offensive genius after his first year with us and now he's gonna be the HC of a XFL team.
 

wazzupi

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Some Thoughts

-Matt Nagy was horrendous last night. He got way too cute, did not run the ball, called stupid plays in key situations, and failed to really effectively get the offense in any type of rythem. Super disappointing for the coach of the year to have this performance on the national stage in that environment.

-Mitch Trubisky sucked. He looked as lost as he did at time last season. Staring down 12, over throws and poor mechanics, horrendous decisions, and generally looking incompetent. For 9 months we heard about the progression and the jump. Going to 202, liking where he is at, the growth in the playbook, then the lights came on and he looked like garbage. Whether you think he will bounce back or not I understand both side, but I think it is pretty clear that he is not going to be the top 10 QB that we had hoped for when he was the 2nd pick in the draft. A month ago we were talking about MVP odds and 1 week ago we were talking about extensions.

-Mike Davis looks like a nice solid player. He should not be featured more than David Montgomery.

-David Montgomery touched the ball and really good things happened. Then David Montgomery did not touch the ball anymore. Inexcusable mismanagement of personnel and the running game. This is a trend for Nagy.

-Tarik Cohen 0 carries. The most dangerous part of his game is that you do not know what position he is going to play, but Nagy made him only a receiver and refused to run against 6 DBs. Again, egregious mismanagement of personnel and the running game.

-Allen Robinson is a stud, throw the ball deep to him more and stop being scared.

-Anthony Miller 1 target, not good enough, and shockingly it was overthrown.

-Taylor Gabriel needs to to be involved earlier if you want to keep Robinson from getting double teamed.

-Guy gets new toy, guy over used new toy, new toy does nothing productive, the Cordarelle Patterson story.

-Shaheen, still useless.

-Leno had a rough night with the penalties, for the most part I thought his pass pro was okay outside of the crippling penalties.

-Whitehair had some moments where he looked lost at OG, maybe some preseason reps at the new position would not have hurt. Missing on stunts cannot happen.

-Daniels was bad. Kenny Clark is a good player, but he took Daniels lunch money over and over again.

-I will comment on the right side when I re-watch the game. I was watching the leftside more.



-Khalil Mack is held a ton and still influences the game to a degree that I have not seen an individual player do in my time watching the Bears. Many of the Bears sacks start with a Mack disruption.

-This version of Leonard Floyd is terrifying. He was fast, physical, used his length, and consistently walked back the OTs. I did not see the speed and then dancing we have seen in the past. His bull rush sack on Bakitiahri had me out of my seat.

-Aaron Lynch is fat, but he had a couple of nice rushes and run plays.

-Isaiah Irving is simply holding a jersey up. He is defensively useless.

-Eddie Goldman, grown man. Bilal Nichols, grown man. Akiem Hicks, grown man.

-RRH is a guy I have been high on and wanted to try and extend while we have his ERFA rights. He is too long, strong and quick for many interior players to deal with. His first sack where he long arm bull rushed Lindsley to the ground, drew a holding call and still sacked Rodgers was as disrespectful a pass rush as you will ever see. Consistently overwhelmed the Packers interior. 6'7" is a unique height inside and OGs don't have the length to deal with it.

-Roquan is a monster. His ability to come through the line clean and make the TFL was impressive.

-Trevathan is a nice compliment to Roquan because he can stand up and OG and do some of the physical dirty work that will keep Roquan clean.

-Kyle Fuller plays a little too far off in my world, but he is so good coming hard at the ball or making the tackle. I thought he played really well and the catches he gave up looked like they were mostly in front of him in zone.

-Did not see as much of Eddie Jackson as I would have liked, but I need to go back and watch more of the secondary.
They avoided eddie Jackson. Kyle fuller didn't change the way he played just because they looked like they were going to throw short and fast or it was 2nd and 1 which is good and bad but as a defense thsts this good you kinda want more opportunities and you just have a higher chance of coming out with a 3 and out or turnover vs bad defenses... You live to see another day. Roquan smith turned into the roquan smith I wanted to see last year he grew up. i just hated that pass interference call ;(. Bro that Floyd sack vs the best tackle in all of football had me fucking jumping and rrhs plays too.
 

Zion

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Its honestly not even worth talking about the defense because they're not the problem with the team. The problem is 100% the offense
 

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H
Jackson made some great plays against the run. The entire defense was spectacular last night, including Jackson. The offense masters up points and the defense probably ends up with an 8 to 10 sack performance. Given how bad the offense looked, it is amazing that the Bears defense was able to keep up the performance all night.

Even B.Skrine had some nice plays covering down field. The defense losing Fangio will not be a problem.
 

legendxofxlink

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This defense will be better than last years... Even with Rodgers wanting to throw short, the DLine was in his face immediately with noone open outside of one drive. . . If the offense can start putting points on the board, opposing teams will be forced to throw down field. That's when these men pen their ears back and the turnovers pile up. Leonard Floyd and RRH had me hard as a rock last night.
 

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TL:DR Observations

Offense: Sucks
Defense: Good
 

Pegger

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My thoughts:

Mitch - He was bad. His stat line wasn't the worst, but there were 2-3 dropped picks that were really suspect throws. He did look better in the 4th when the Packers were in a semi-prevent mode. My overreaction comment of the day is that I honestly fear that he's the next Blake Bortles.

RB Rotation - A lot of people wanting more of one guy. Let's be honest and look at good teams that have similar RB structures (I'm thinking the Pats and Eagles). They do a RBBC. When it works aside fantasy football guys everyone is happy. The RBs get less wear and tear and the offense has multiple ways to attack. When it doesn't work everyone will say "we didn't commit to getting a certain RB going". I've heard it numerous times with DeMarco Murray, Ryan Matthews and LaGarrette Blount. Nagy was never committed to getting a certain RB going last year, so let's not expect it this year.

Robinson - Love that guy. He's a better contested catch WR than Jeffery was. Add in that Mitch will go that way often and this should be a fun year.

OL - Not great. I'm didn't watch individual players, but as a unit they weren't good. Many of the good runs were the RB making people miss and along with the 5 sacks there were numerous pressures/hits.

Defensive Front 7 - This is going to be a fun season watching that group dominate. I'm sure Stafford and Cousins pooped their pants a bit last night.

Fuller - Good game. I think we will see a lot of that type of strategy from the DBs as a whole. Give a larger cushion knowing the DL will get home, then break on the ball as soon as you see it coming out. Overall good idea. Let the opposition try to earn everything.

Safety play - I know it's just one game, but Adrian Amos was the best safety on the field yesterday. Savage might have been the second best one, so considering it's a division rival and Amos left Chicago this offseason I'd classify that as 'not awesome'.

Nagy - He was 'too cute', but that's what is said about all offensive minds when it doesn't work. If he was too cute would that make the old John Fox offenses 'too ugly'? At the end of the day whenever it doesn't work the play callers have to take a brunt of the blame.
 

sevvy

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Not trying to make excuses for Trubisky, but if he had played well last night, it would have been IN SPITE of Nagy. That's how bad Nagy was last night.

Here's the truth. Trubisky is what he is now. Forget what he could be, or what he should be. Right now, he's a middling QB that NEEDS HELP so that he doesn't become a BAD QB. So as the offensive guru head coach, YOU FUCKING HELP YOUR QB! You run the ball, you call screens, you call slants, you get him going early with some quick easy throws. But most importantly, you keep Green Bay from just sticking to their game plan all fucking game long. They're just trying to stop Trubisky. So maybe get Montgomery going? You moved up to draft him and then sucked his dick to the media since you got him. Then you hand him the ball 6 fucking times.

Trubisky isn't going to take a game over. But we can win with him if we have a balanced offense. Can he improve from there? Maybe we could find out if coach Visor Dicklicker took his shiny head out of his own ass and gave his offense and his QB some fucking help. He did them NO favors last night. It was pathetic to watch.

Remember Adam Gase with Cutler? That's how we should treat Trubisky. And as he gets more comfortable, give him more and more freedom within the offense. And if he fucks up too much with that extra freedom, you dial it back a bit until you're confident he's ready again.
 

Pegger

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Not trying to make excuses for Trubisky, but if he had played well last night, it would have been IN SPITE of Nagy. That's how bad Nagy was last night.

Here's the truth. Trubisky is what he is now. Forget what he could be, or what he should be. Right now, he's a middling QB that NEEDS HELP so that he doesn't become a BAD QB. So as the offensive guru head coach, YOU FUCKING HELP YOUR QB! You run the ball, you call screens, you call slants, you get him going early with some quick easy throws. But most importantly, you keep Green Bay from just sticking to their game plan all fucking game long. They're just trying to stop Trubisky. So maybe get Montgomery going? You moved up to draft him and then sucked his dick to the media since you got him. Then you hand him the ball 6 fucking times.

Trubisky isn't going to take a game over. But we can win with him if we have a balanced offense. Can he improve from there? Maybe we could find out if coach Visor Dicklicker took his shiny head out of his own ass and gave his offense and his QB some fucking help. He did them NO favors last night. It was pathetic to watch.

Nah man, that's just an excuse for Trubisky's performance.

Nagy wasn't good, so I'm not making any excuses there. The think about Mitch was that he missed throws. Missed them long and didn't pull the trigger on a few others (there was a Robinson sideline miss that Collinsworth pointed out, but there were a few others I saw). Add in that he threw 2-3 balls that should have been picks and he was just off.

Anyway, in this version of the NFL when your QB doesn't execute the gameplan doesn't matter too much. Again, I agree that Nagy didn't help him much, but he still has to work with the play that's called and what the defense gives. Last night he failed.
 

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