Bears at Lions - Week 1

[soulman]

4 hours ago, Epyon said:

The largest concern coming out of that game was basically that we still need to figure out how to trade up for Trevor Lawrence in next year's draft (and the massive draft capital hit that requires),

I will wash and wax your car every weekend next summer if that happens.  🚗💈

[JAF-N72EX]

12 minutes ago, soulman said:

Bro....Wims was wide open.  Once he broke for the corner he had at least a step or two on his guy.  You or I might struggle making a cross body throw moving to our left but he's an NFL starting QB taken #2 overall in the draft and he's on the 1 yard line so it's maybe a 13-15 yard pass in the air.  If he can't make that work easily enough he should be cleaning cleats for Foles.

The one to JG was a lob JG made work but from the backfield angle had a more experienced CB been playing JG it could have been defended.  It worked but IMHO more due to JG's savvy than to the pin point accuracy of the pass.  It definitely helped to have a 6'7"/265lb receiver who could out muscle his defender and box him out.  That's what I saw on the replay.

I'm not dissing Mitch as much as I'm saying giving him high marks for a 1 yard and 2 yard completion into tight coverage is somewhat questionable especially on the pass to Graham.  Go back and watch it.  If the DB had been in position he might even have picked it.  Bottom line is Mitch should be making scoring plays like that every game and hopefully he will.

 I'll address this point more later on but I have gone back and watched the game. I'm waiting for them to release the all-22 (Tuesday or Wednesday) and then I'm gonna show how and why people saying that "Mitch was bad in the first 3 quarters" is absolutely false. 

[dll2000]

7 hours ago, soulman said:

Bro....Wims was wide open.  Once he broke for the corner he had at least a step or two on his guy.  You or I might struggle making a cross body throw moving to our left but he's an NFL starting QB taken #2 overall in the draft and he's on the 1 yard line so it's maybe a 13-15 yard pass in the air.  If he can't make that work easily enough he should be cleaning cleats for Foles.

The one to JG was a lob JG made work but from the backfield angle had a more experienced CB been playing JG it could have been defended.  It worked but IMHO more due to JG's savvy than to the pin point accuracy of the pass.  It definitely helped to have a 6'7"/265lb receiver who could out muscle his defender and box him out.  That's what I saw on the replay.

I'm not dissing Mitch as much as I'm saying giving him high marks for a 1 yard and 2 yard completion into tight coverage is somewhat questionable especially on the pass to Graham.  Go back and watch it.  If the DB had been in position he might even have picked it.  Bottom line is Mitch should be making scoring plays like that every game and hopefully he will.

The throw to Wims was a very good throw.  Very little space to make it.  Was not his first read.  Nice placement.  Led him.  Not sure why you are saying it was easy and wide open.  It was open, but he wasn’t just standing in end zone by himself and lots of things were happening.    

The throw to Miller was a great throw.   People keep talking about it being a 3rd stringer, but the kid was in perfect coverage.  Unfortunately for him perfect coverage doesn’t beat a perfect throw and catch.

The throw to Graham could be downplayed, but people mess those up all the time.

 

[topwop1]

2 hours ago, dll2000 said:

The throw to Wims was a very good throw.  Very little space to make it.  Was not his first read.  Nice placement.  Led him.  Not sure why you are saying it was easy and wide open.  It was open, but he wasn’t just standing in end zone by himself and lots of things were happening.    

The throw to Miller was a great throw.   People keep talking about it being a 3rd stringer, but the kid was in perfect coverage.  Unfortunately for him perfect coverage doesn’t beat a perfect throw and catch.

The throw to Graham could be downplayed, but people mess those up all the time.

 

Great points.

I don't get how people are still trying to discredit Mitch's 4th Q comeback just because he didn't play all that well the first 3 quarters (mind you first game in a shortened off season with no pre-season tune ups) and because it was against some no name DB's we've never heard of.  Last time I checked those TD's to Wims and especially Miller were not easy wide open throws.  Miller was draped in coverage by 'said no name DB' and Mitch put it in only a place where Miller could make a fantastic catch.

Let's give credit to the man.  He showed a lot of moxie to come back and lead the way for the offense.  And remember it's not really how you start, it's how you finish.

 

 

[dll2000]

9 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

 I'll address this point more later on but I have gone back and watched the game. I'm waiting for them to release the all-22 (Tuesday or Wednesday) and then I'm gonna show how and why people saying that "Mitch was bad in the first 3 quarters" is absolutely false. 

Looking forward to it.  

I did that for some games last year.  It is so time consuming to do thoroughly I never got all the way through one. 

But what you find on a very close examination of each play is fascinating.    When you really dig into each player and what they did.     

What you find on a bad play is usually 8-10 guys doing good and 2-3 guys blowing it.  Often not because other guy was simply better or faster/stronger and made a good play (I don't count those), but because of a mistake in assignment or technique.

Better teams have less and less of that.  So that you are not beating yourself.  But the other team has to beat you (which happens - they have scholarship players too like Lovie would say).    Execution is still key to offense (aside from talent).  

Lou Holtz philosophy was team who makes fewest mistakes is one of who wins most often other things being relatively equal.  

I can tell you watching film last year each week had to be heart wrenching for Nagy.   With changes each week next game I could almost hear  (imagine) what was said in coaches meetings and see his brain working on how to fix it.  

Unfortunately his problem was personnel and technique and blowing assignments rather than scheme and he kept trying to fix his problems with schemes.  But he had no other choice because once you are in the season there is little time to fix those things.  You have to have a good foundation from training camp.  

So you have to put Duct tape on the breaking dam as best you can.

 

 

[G08]

15 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

The Wims TD. A right-handed QB rolling to his left and being able to place the ball deep in the corner while on the move is not that simple of a play to make.  

Exactly.

[G08]

1 hour ago, topwop1 said:

Great points.

I don't get how people are still trying to discredit Mitch's 4th Q comeback just because he didn't play all that well the first 3 quarters (mind you first game in a shortened off season with no pre-season tune ups) and because it was against some no name DB's we've never heard of.  Last time I checked those TD's to Wims and especially Miller were not easy wide open throws.  Miller was draped in coverage by 'said no name DB' and Mitch put it in only a place where Miller could make a fantastic catch.

Let's give credit to the man.  He showed a lot of moxie to come back and lead the way for the offense.  And remember it's not really how you start, it's how you finish.

 

 

The Bears had a 0.4% chance at winning entering the 4th quarter, and we did it anyway.

Why people incessantly bag on Trubisky is beyond me. What we accomplished last week was nothing short of highway robbery.

[Pool]

6 hours ago, G08 said:

The Bears had a 0.4% chance at winning entering the 4th quarter, and we did it anyway.

Why people incessantly bag on Trubisky is beyond me. What we accomplished last week was nothing short of highway robbery.

It's because it was against the Lions who are notorious for grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. If this was against a good team it'd be a different story.

[JAF-N72EX]

11 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Looking forward to it.  

I did that for some games last year.  It is so time consuming to do thoroughly I never got all the way through one. 

But what you find on a very close examination of each play is fascinating.    When you really dig into each player and what they did.     

What you find on a bad play is usually 8-10 guys doing good and 2-3 guys blowing it.  Often not because other guy was simply better or faster/stronger and made a good play (I don't count those), but because of a mistake in assignment or technique.

Would you be willing to collab with me in order to split the time in half? Maybe something like one of us does offense and the other does defense? I would even trust you enough to give you access to my account all year long at no charge. The only barrier there would be is that only one of us can be logged in at the same time, but we could work that out somehow for sure. I'm working damn near 24-7 right now and I'm still strictly working from home, so my schedule is pretty flexible. So if you ever needed me to logoff the account so that you can access it, then fine. No problem. We would just need to come up with a way that we can both interact with each other in real-time.  Or maybe even ask a third member on here that would be willing to help with the workload? 

Yes, it's truly amazing what you can find when you can see the whole field, what each player is doing, and start to get a real feel of what each player's assignment was, and what they were doing right and wrong. All-22 is why I pay for it every year. (I think I got screwed this year though lol. Decided to pay quarterly in case they don't finish the season but we'll see though). 

I did breakdowns last year as well. I wanted to posted them here but really couldn't--don't ask.  But like you said, it is VERY time time consuming and extremely hard to keep up with each week because by the time they release the all-22(which still isn't up yet) and you finish week 1, week 2 is already here, and before you know it your behind 3-4 games. Even though each all-22 film is only about 1hr 45m, each game takes 4-5 hours to really dissect--watching each play, over and over, taking meticulous notes, double-checking your work to be sure you didn't miss anything important, and then summarizing it all. 

We used to do extensive breakdowns on this forum and that's part of what made this site so great (the older cats like topwop, AZ, Pool, Supe, Cbears, Mike, etc remember I'm sure). But this aspect somehow got lost somewhere along the lines.

I have alot of good ideas that I've been wanting to do these last few years and would like to finally put it into play and bring some of this back, plus more, but I can't do it on my own. 

For example, here is what I would like to do this year for each player. A simple grading system.
 

Quote

 

Week to week grades

Attempt to grade each player individually, play by play, using the basic format listed below. Including, but not limited to, those players involved in a particular play. If something stands out about a player that is worthy of noting then list them. Even if they may not have been directly involved in the play. This would also give people better insight into Nagy's play-calling as well. 

Great: +3 ==This will not be used too loosely. Reserved only for special plays. Think Watson's magical Houdini like escape artistry TD throw in OT last year. 
Good: +2 ==Exactly what the word means. Good plays but not special. 
Above Average:  +1 == Solid play but not necessarily good. 
Average: 0 == Not a liability but not an impact play either. Could be better or worse. 
Below Average: -1 == Wasn't bad but gotta do better than this.
Bad: -2 ==Exactly what the word means.
Terrible: -3 ==Much like it's counterpart, this will not be used too loosely. Think Marcus Williams poor tackling against the Vikes in the playoffs. 

(A simple to read, yet detailed play-by-play format. )

Quarter:   
Drive #:  
Play #: 
Off Personnel / Play design = 
Shotgun/Under Center = 
# of rushers = 
# of yards gained = | TDs  (Offense)
Yards allowed =  | TDs Allowed =  | Penalties committed = (yards allowed is obviously defense)

Summary: Brief description of the play and why each player was graded 

 

I did this last year for a buddy of mine who is a writer just to offer some insight who I met years ago when we both worked for a certain site that will remain unnamed because F them. And here is a rough draft of it:

DEFENSE 
First drive, 1st Play = 4-2-5 Nickel Cover-2
Offense | 11 Personnel| 2 x 2 |Ace Twins Trips 
Shotgun/Under Center = UC
4 Man rush (Floyd, Lynch, Goldman, Hicks)
Yards allowed = 1 | TDs Allowed = 0 | Penalties commited = 0

Great: 
Good: Goldman, Kwiatkoski, Jackson
Above Average: Hicks
Neutral: Floyd 
Below Average: Callahan
Bad: Lynch 
Terrible: 0

Summary
Both Hicks and Goldman were double-teamed by design off the snap by both -Mcray/Bulaga-Taylor/Lindsey- to open up the B-gap. McCray was supposed to chip Hicks and move onto the 2nd level at the same time Williams hit the gap and pick up Kwiatkoski but got tripped up. This allowed Kwiatkoski to shoot through the A and slow Williams down a little and give Goldman a chance to make a play. Floyd's assignment was to contain the outside. He was one-on-one with Bahktiari but failed to break off the block. He did use his long arms to reach out and grab onto Williams with one-hand however and help Goldman bring him down. Good job by Jackson for sniffing out the play immediatley and shooting the gap as well. If Goldman and Floyd miss that tackle, Jackson would have had the stop anyhow. Lynch got pushed back on the backside by Jimmy friggin Graham and couldn't get any release! It was embarrasing. I hope he sees this in film sessions because he simply cannot let that happen. Callahan is lucky the play was stopped at LOS because he was focusing so much on Cobb, pre-snap, he wasn't even paying attention to the play at all and let Cobb pin him from snap to whistle.
==================================================================================================================================

First drive, 2nd Play =  4-2-5 Nickel Man
Off Personnel = 11
Shotgun/Under Center = Shotgun
4 Man rush (Floyd, Lynch, Goldman, Hicks)
Yards allowed = 11 | TDs Allowed = 0 | Penalties commited = 0

Great: 
Good: Jackson
Above Average: Amos 
Neutral: 
Below Average: Goldman, Floyd, Callahan, Fuller
Bad: Lynch, Kwiatkoski
Terrible:

Summary
This was a terrible chain of events that opens up both the A and B gaps to the right! 
--The A-gap opens up after Goldman lost his one-on-one battle with Taylor.
--The B-gap opens up after Hicks gets double-teamed again, Bulaga takes Lynch out of the play immediately off of the snap and Allison contains Fuller on the outside. 
Williams was Kwiatkoski's assigned player and he looked completely lost here. Instead of hitting the open gap that was right in front of him before Williams could get to outside, he just stood there staring at Williams, waiting for him to choose a lane and by that time it was too late. His indecisiveness absolutely killed us on this play. 
Jackson made a possible TD saving tackle here. Amos showed great effort coming all the way from field side, deep 1/3, to try an make the tackle but he wouldn't have been able too because of the angle he took and his lack of speed. But still, great effort! I see alot of players give up too soon when they are that far away from the play.
==================================================================================

[JAF-N72EX]

13 hours ago, topwop1 said:

Great points.

I don't get how people are still trying to discredit Mitch's 4th Q comeback just because he didn't play all that well the first 3 quarters (mind you first game in a shortened off season with no pre-season tune ups) and because it was against some no name DB's we've never heard of.  Last time I checked those TD's to Wims and especially Miller were not easy wide open throws.  Miller was draped in coverage by 'said no name DB' and Mitch put it in only a place where Miller could make a fantastic catch.

Let's give credit to the man.  He showed a lot of moxie to come back and lead the way for the offense.  And remember it's not really how you start, it's how you finish.

 

 

People are too focused on raw stats and the outcome of the plays and are not recognizing the improvement in his development that he showed. "OMG, he had X amount of in-completions". Without realizing the drops and throwaways during plays while trying to by time. They don't realize that he was staying in the pocket and letting routes to develop instead of bailing too early when not under pressure like he did last year. 

It's all about raw stats....

[WindyCity]

On 9/15/2020 at 12:18 AM, JAF-N72EX said:

 I'll address this point more later on but I have gone back and watched the game. I'm waiting for them to release the all-22 (Tuesday or Wednesday) and then I'm gonna show how and why people saying that "Mitch was bad in the first 3 quarters" is absolutely false. 

Your correct. He wasn’t good, but he wasn’t bad. In fact the offense wasn’t bad, they just missed by inches on a couple of scoring plays.

Considering no preseason and a new scheme I am pretty okay with this being the starting point of the offense.

[WindyCity]

19 hours ago, G08 said:

Exactly.

Let’s not ignore getting off his first read quick enough to get the ball to Wims before he runs out of space.

[dll2000]

8 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

Would you be willing to collab with me in order to split the time in half? Maybe something like one of us does offense and the other does defense? I would even trust you enough to give you access to my account all year long at no charge. The only barrier there would be is that only one of us can be logged in at the same time, but we could work that out somehow for sure. I'm working damn near 24-7 right now and I'm still strictly working from home, so my schedule is pretty flexible. So if you ever needed me to logoff the account so that you can access it, then fine. No problem. We would just need to come up with a way that we can both interact with each other in real-time.  Or maybe even ask a third member on here that would be willing to help with the workload? 

Yes, it's truly amazing what you can find when you can see the whole field, what each player is doing, and start to get a real feel of what each player's assignment was, and what they were doing right and wrong. All-22 is why I pay for it every year. (I think I got screwed this year though lol. Decided to pay quarterly in case they don't finish the season but we'll see though). 

I did breakdowns last year as well. I wanted to posted them here but really couldn't--don't ask.  But like you said, it is VERY time time consuming and extremely hard to keep up with each week because by the time they release the all-22(which still isn't up yet) and you finish week 1, week 2 is already here, and before you know it your behind 3-4 games. Even though each all-22 film is only about 1hr 45m, each game takes 4-5 hours to really dissect--watching each play, over and over, taking meticulous notes, double-checking your work to be sure you didn't miss anything important, and then summarizing it all. 

We used to do extensive breakdowns on this forum and that's part of what made this site so great (the older cats like topwop, AZ, Pool, Supe, Cbears, Mike, etc remember I'm sure). But this aspect somehow got lost somewhere along the lines.

I have alot of good ideas that I've been wanting to do these last few years and would like to finally put it into play and bring some of this back, plus more, but I can't do it on my own. 

For example, here is what I would like to do this year for each player. A simple grading system.
 

I did this last year for a buddy of mine who is a writer just to offer some insight who I met years ago when we both worked for a certain site that will remain unnamed because F them. And here is a rough draft of it:

DEFENSE 
First drive, 1st Play = 4-2-5 Nickel Cover-2
Offense | 11 Personnel| 2 x 2 |Ace Twins Trips 
Shotgun/Under Center = UC
4 Man rush (Floyd, Lynch, Goldman, Hicks)
Yards allowed = 1 | TDs Allowed = 0 | Penalties commited = 0

Great: 
Good: Goldman, Kwiatkoski, Jackson
Above Average: Hicks
Neutral: Floyd 
Below Average: Callahan
Bad: Lynch 
Terrible: 0

Summary
Both Hicks and Goldman were double-teamed by design off the snap by both -Mcray/Bulaga-Taylor/Lindsey- to open up the B-gap. McCray was supposed to chip Hicks and move onto the 2nd level at the same time Williams hit the gap and pick up Kwiatkoski but got tripped up. This allowed Kwiatkoski to shoot through the A and slow Williams down a little and give Goldman a chance to make a play. Floyd's assignment was to contain the outside. He was one-on-one with Bahktiari but failed to break off the block. He did use his long arms to reach out and grab onto Williams with one-hand however and help Goldman bring him down. Good job by Jackson for sniffing out the play immediatley and shooting the gap as well. If Goldman and Floyd miss that tackle, Jackson would have had the stop anyhow. Lynch got pushed back on the backside by Jimmy friggin Graham and couldn't get any release! It was embarrasing. I hope he sees this in film sessions because he simply cannot let that happen. Callahan is lucky the play was stopped at LOS because he was focusing so much on Cobb, pre-snap, he wasn't even paying attention to the play at all and let Cobb pin him from snap to whistle.
==================================================================================================================================

First drive, 2nd Play =  4-2-5 Nickel Man
Off Personnel = 11
Shotgun/Under Center = Shotgun
4 Man rush (Floyd, Lynch, Goldman, Hicks)
Yards allowed = 11 | TDs Allowed = 0 | Penalties commited = 0

Great: 
Good: Jackson
Above Average: Amos 
Neutral: 
Below Average: Goldman, Floyd, Callahan, Fuller
Bad: Lynch, Kwiatkoski
Terrible:

Summary
This was a terrible chain of events that opens up both the A and B gaps to the right! 
--The A-gap opens up after Goldman lost his one-on-one battle with Taylor.
--The B-gap opens up after Hicks gets double-teamed again, Bulaga takes Lynch out of the play immediately off of the snap and Allison contains Fuller on the outside. 
Williams was Kwiatkoski's assigned player and he looked completely lost here. Instead of hitting the open gap that was right in front of him before Williams could get to outside, he just stood there staring at Williams, waiting for him to choose a lane and by that time it was too late. His indecisiveness absolutely killed us on this play. 
Jackson made a possible TD saving tackle here. Amos showed great effort coming all the way from field side, deep 1/3, to try an make the tackle but he wouldn't have been able too because of the angle he took and his lack of speed. But still, great effort! I see alot of players give up too soon when they are that far away from the play.
==================================================================================

Thank you for the trust.   I broke down and bought gamepass last week because I have no other reliable way to watch games.  So you wouldn’t have to split anything with me.  

I don’t think I can commit to anything at moment though.  I am too busy right now.  I have badly wanted to do a podcast for a couple of years.   I just don’t want to do it by myself.  I am better cracking jokes with someone else rather than just speaking alone.

But right now I don’t know that I can pull it off with everything I have going on.  I’ll think about it and get back to you.  

 

[dll2000]

6 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

Thank you for the trust.   I broke down and bought gamepass last week because I have no other reliable way to watch games.  So you wouldn’t have to split anything with me.  

I don’t think I can commit to anything at moment though.  I am too busy right now.  I have badly wanted to do a podcast for a couple of years.   I just don’t want to do it by myself.  I am better cracking jokes with someone else rather than just speaking alone.

But right now I don’t know that I can pull it off with everything I have going on.  I’ll think about it and get back to you.  

 

And to do all that work for the few people who come here to read our little forum to see, as great as they are, doesn’t seem worth it.  

If I put that much work into something I would want it on YouTube or something for a wider audience.  

[WindyCity]

Offense

 

-Nagy deserves credit. He changed the offense. Mitch was under centre way more, more 12 and 13 personnel, way more play action, and more commitment to the run. This is an offense that can work with this talent level.

 

-Mitch was better. Was he night and day different, no, but he was better. He was better in the pocket, his air yards per attempt was 5th highest in the NFL, he made some dumb plays, but he made more big plays and his misses weren't brutal they were on the WRs. If this is the extend of the improvement then it is not good enough, but if this is the first week of more improvement from this level than we may be working with something.

 

-Allen Robinson is really good and we should probably pay him.

 

-Anthony Miller only playing 50% of snaps is weird and he barely plays in run downs. I am not sure what is going on with him because when he is on he can cook, but he is held back so often by other things.

 

-Color me intrigued by Darnell Mooney. The speed was obvious, even for a rookie he was getting a ton of respect from DBs. 

 

-Cole Kmet was not part of the passing game, but he was solid in his blocking assignments and I am very interested to see what he looks like when he becomes more a part of the passing game.

 

-Jimmy Graham needs to catch those passes and while I know his athletic ability has faded, he needs to be more dynamic. His blocking was fine for what he was asked to do, which was the Trey Burton get in the way blocks. Not a complete TE but better than what we have had.

 

-Demetrius Harris is a monster as a blocker, the effort alone is fun to watch as he flat out attacks people. Missing him on the TD sucks as he earned that TD catch.

 

-I thought Nagy used Patterson really well. He was given the ball in a couple of different looks and about 50% of the time he was on the field. The 4th down stretch run with him was a nice call as at 240 he is a load for a DB to TFL and he has the speed to get the edge.

 

-I felt Cohen was also used well. He got a couple power carries, he was on the field about 50/50 run and pass. 

 

-Leno was very meh and spent too much time on the ground in the run game.

-Daniels, looked very good.

-Whitehair was back to the second level quickly which was awesome to see.

-Ifedi, better than I was expecting. The physicality in the run  game is obvious and the pass game misses weren't that bad.

-Massie, he was solid. Not being matched up against a real pass rusher helped.