The OL was horrendous

[Heinz D.]

2 hours ago, dll2000 said:

You have to figure Nagy didn't think his O line was going to lay an egg like that and miss assignments.   They know the blocking scheme.  But they acted like they didn't if that makes any sense.   

 He also didn't figure MT was going to miss basic reads again and again, but he did.  

He didn't figure his sure handed receivers were going to drop a lot of key passes, but they did.   

Sometimes things are just different when the lights are on.   You think you are ready and your team just isn't.   It's momentum.  Things just snowball and get worse and worse. 

 

Yes...he thought not playing all those folks in the pre-season wouldn't be a big deal.

He was wrong. Spectacularly wrong. 

[soulman]

8 hours ago, abstract_thought said:

The idea that the team was unprepared because they didn't play in preseason is preposterous. Numerous teams kept their starters out for the preseason and had none of the same issues. There were teams that played starters more heavily (e.g. Tampa) and looked sloppy.

Fine, I'm willing to listen to whatever other theories you may have.

You haven't given any other than a "what about others" and even then how do you know other team didn't experience the same issues?

Can you site each team who also held their starters out, how many starters, their positions, and what the results of their openers were?

And in the final analysis what other teams did or did not do and their results would actually have a very low correlation to our team and it's results simply because we lack that knowledge about others but not our own team.

I think it's safe to say it had some impact we just don't know how much but we do know this.

Dress rehearsals are used because they result in better performances which is why entertainers typically use them.  A dress rehearsal in the NFL is a full contact preseason game.  Our starters lacked having any dress rehearsals and **** the bed.....big time.  I'd argue there's far more correlation there than what anyone else experienced.

[WindyCity]

17 hours ago, abstract_thought said:

The idea that the team was unprepared because they didn't play in preseason is preposterous. Numerous teams kept their starters out for the preseason and had none of the same issues. There were teams that played starters more heavily (e.g. Tampa) and looked sloppy.

I was totally on board with Nagy sitting them in the preseason.

But after watching the number of mental busts, communication issues, and general soft play from the OL I cannot argue that preseason reps would not have mattered or helped. That was unprofessional from them and looked like they had never made line calls all together.

 

[G08]

@WindyCityand anyone else versed in OL play... Olin Kreutz said that once a mike point is identified and any shifts are communicated, you are locked into that scheme regardless of what changes post-snap. Is that accurate? If so... isn't that unbelievably stupid? Why can't you identify a zone to be responsible for based on a pre-snap look?

Too many times I saw the Packers rush 3, 4, 5 and we had two guys not blocking anyone. Unacceptable.

[dll2000]

Preseason snaps help for game 1 and 2, but you risk injury which really kills you.

Easy to say we needed preseason, but a lot of teams are without key players because they elected to go with those reps and Nagy felt like team was really damaged by Floyd's hand and Shaheen's foot last year.   Remember Shaheen was looking really good in preseason last year.  Not so much this year.  Each year is different.  Floyd did virtually nothing until his hand healed.  

You have to figure a veteran O line isn't going to mess up that badly without a preseason game, but the position switch at center mattered more than Nagy thought it would.  I can't believe they were fooled that badly again and again when their own D has been doing same stuff all camp.

 

 

 

 

[soulman]

2 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Preseason snaps help for game 1 and 2, but you risk injury which really kills you.

Easy to say we needed preseason, but a lot of teams are without key players because they elected to go with those reps and Nagy felt like team was really damaged by Floyd's hand and Shaheen's foot last year.   Remember Shaheen was looking really good in preseason last year.  Not so much this year.  Each year is different.  Floyd did virtually nothing until his hand healed.  

You have to figure a veteran O line isn't going to mess up that badly without a preseason game, but the position switch at center mattered more than Nagy thought it would.  I can't believe they were fooled that badly again and again when their own D has been doing same stuff all camp.

 

 

 

 

I haven't completely discounted that possibility as having affected some plays but not all game long.

The core problem is Pettine put his heavies over OC and in the A gaps and told them all they had to do was penetrate or clog the middle all game long to keep Nagy from running his inside zone stuff and collapse the pocket whenever possible.  Mitch can often avoid the edge guys but when he sees a couple of DL in his face and can't step up to throw he collapses mentally along with his mechanics.

He missed a whole lot of throws and some very badly.

I realize that it was a different era but what happened to the two a days with full contact that teams could use effectively to simulate actual game conditions?  Gone with a CBA that forces teams to conduct ballet classes simulating real contact.  It's like the difference between an R rated movie and XXX porn our OL got assaulted all game long big time.

So tell me, how much difference can there be between your starters playing like a bunch of under conditioned subs and the better conditioned subs themselves who have been bangin' helmets all preseason long?  IMHO you can be conservative about how much they play without tossing Kumbayah pillows on the ground for them to just watch and get "mental reps".

Mental Reps = are dumbest thing I ever heard of for linemen.

[Epyon]

Gonna be honest here, despite our OL being relatively good in pass blocking last year, quite often I saw Howard struggling to get any run game going because the OL simply wasn't getting it done running even then... Our OL is kind of overrated in general, and we often lack the physicality to work the interior effectively.  This doesn't at all excuse the miscommunications, penalties, unblocked packers, or any of that, but they where also just getting "big brothered" at times by the pack DL... 

 

[abstract_thought]

18 hours ago, Epyon said:

Gonna be honest here, despite our OL being relatively good in pass blocking last year, quite often I saw Howard struggling to get any run game going because the OL simply wasn't getting it done running even then... Our OL is kind of overrated in general, and we often lack the physicality to work the interior effectively.  This doesn't at all excuse the miscommunications, penalties, unblocked packers, or any of that, but they where also just getting "big brothered" at times by the pack DL... 

 

Agree with this. Last year they were the 28th rated OL in Adjusted Line Yards. They're not built to play the run-heavy style of football that many Bears fans are advocating.

[soulman]

On 9/12/2019 at 11:31 AM, abstract_thought said:

Agree with this. Last year they were the 28th rated OL in Adjusted Line Yards. They're not built to play the run-heavy style of football that many Bears fans are advocating.

I'm not sure anyone is advocating a "run heavy" attack, just a balanced attack.

You can't have that when you pass 3x more often than you run in one score game and Nagy should know that by now.

A RB like David Montgomery should do well behind the zone blocking scheme this OL is more than capable of handling.  But you can't only run him a half dozen times per game and expect decent results.  Cohen yes, but Montgomery no.