Playoffs? Playoffs!?

[Superman(DH23)]

7 minutes ago, JAF-N72EX said:

It's not as if Nagy is the ONLY reason Mitch has failed. Mitch has failed because of Mitch. 

You gotta separate Nagys faults and Mitch's.  I've briefly talked about this in another thread recently with Suga. 

Mitch gets his own blame, but failed isnt really accurate.  He is basically the Bears most efficient passer ever.  He is 24-12 under Nagy.  He is 2:1 TD:INT passer.  That's not failure.  

[JAF-N72EX]

13 minutes ago, Superman(DH23) said:

Mitch gets his own blame, but failed isnt really accurate.  He is basically the Bears most efficient passer ever.  He is 24-12 under Nagy.  He is 2:1 TD:INT passer.  That's not failure.  

I gotta go for now but I'll get more into this tomorrow. 

[dll2000]

There is a lot of rewriting of history in this thread. MT was garbage for many games in 2018, nearly all of 2019 and for majority of beginning of this year.   Benching him in Atlanta game was 100% correct decision.  He was playing awful against what was at time as bad as an NFL defense gets.  

You had to give Foles some time after you made change as he hadn’t practiced.  You can say they stayed too long with him.  

Credit where credit is due.  Mitch is playing really good right now.  But let’s not pretend like he has been good all along.   I would note he is still missing some big throws and making some boneheaded plays, just rest of offense is playing much better. 

It makes a big difference when Mooney is open nearly every play, running game is working and he doesn’t have a free runner in his face every other play.  

[Nads786]

I think a huge point we have to consider is execution. Has execution improved becuase of the emergence of new talent (i.e Mustipher) or because talent is able to be expressed fully because the system is easier?

I think it’s the former rather than the latter. We tried this style of offense in the first three games and had quite a lot of success.

it began to fail after James Daniel went down and we could no longer run the ball.

I feel like we have “McVayed” Mitch, much like Mike Shannahan did for Cutler.

Mitch looks comfortable out there for the first time in a long time. It’s all contingent on getting a run game going. If teams can shut down our run our offense is helpless.

[Superman(DH23)]

10 minutes ago, Nads786 said:

I think a huge point we have to consider is execution. Has execution improved becuase of the emergence of new talent (i.e Mustipher) or because talent is able to be expressed fully because the system is easier?

I think it’s the former rather than the latter. We tried this style of offense in the first three games and had quite a lot of success.

it began to fail after James Daniel went down and we could no longer run the ball.

I feel like we have “McVayed” Mitch, much like Mike Shannahan did for Cutler.

Mitch looks comfortable out there for the first time in a long time. It’s all contingent on getting a run game going. If teams can shut down our run our offense is helpless.

You just described how offense/defense works in the NFL.  If you cant run the ball, you lose.  Outside of the chiefs, tell me which other playoff team doesnt need the run to win?  GBs system starts with the run, if you want to beat them, you have to stop the run.  Same with Seattle, NO, and LA.  That's why it was mind numbing why the Bears just didnt try to run the football for so long.  Matt Bowen broke this down pretty well saying "everyone is doing it" when asked about the Bears simplifying the offense.  That's what scheme is.  Its trying to simplify things for the guys on the field to put them in the best position to succeed.

[dll2000]

Well.  

You have to beat Packers to get in playoffs.  Packers are hottest team in league and also seem to have benefit of every major call going their way.

Tough one.

All the good vibes of last few weeks going to be short lived if they get blown out.  Going to be fire everyone and burn it all down again.

 

[G08]

14 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

FWIW I'm not sure anyone's beating the Packers unless it's the Chiefs. They are clicking like very few teams ever do.

Yep. They look scary freaking good.

[G08]

3 hours ago, Superman(DH23) said:

You just described how offense/defense works in the NFL.  If you cant run the ball, you lose.  Outside of the chiefs, tell me which other playoff team doesnt need the run to win?  GBs system starts with the run, if you want to beat them, you have to stop the run.  Same with Seattle, NO, and LA.  That's why it was mind numbing why the Bears just didnt try to run the football for so long.  Matt Bowen broke this down pretty well saying "everyone is doing it" when asked about the Bears simplifying the offense.  That's what scheme is.  Its trying to simplify things for the guys on the field to put them in the best position to succeed.

While making sure to add enough wrinkles to keep defenses on their heels. There's a LOT that the 2019 49ers did which was simple and highly effective. I hope we reach into that bag of plays for next week's game.

Man... why does it always have to be the Packers. Ugh.

[dll2000]

3 hours ago, Superman(DH23) said:

You just described how offense/defense works in the NFL.  If you cant run the ball, you lose.  Outside of the chiefs, tell me which other playoff team doesnt need the run to win?  GBs system starts with the run, if you want to beat them, you have to stop the run.  Same with Seattle, NO, and LA.  That's why it was mind numbing why the Bears just didnt try to run the football for so long.  Matt Bowen broke this down pretty well saying "everyone is doing it" when asked about the Bears simplifying the offense.  That's what scheme is.  Its trying to simplify things for the guys on the field to put them in the best position to succeed.

That's not true. 

Its just ebb and flow of defense and offense.  Offenses went finesse and spread and defense's lightened up and got smaller/faster in response.   Then some teams went heavy and power running to take advantage of light defenses and now things are trending back in that direction.   

On and on ... cat and mouse.  FB and big TE is now back, etc.

The whole West coast trend was about making LBs cover faster RBs and use the pass as a long handoff.   Spread offenses just took mismatches a step further by getting rid of FB.   Then again another step further in running QB enough to keep teams honest ala College FB when Chip Kelly came in.

Belichick was able to run a hybrid system when he had Gronk and Hernandez.   That was creative and that brought TE back which was being fazed out nearly as much as FB was and also showed people value of quickly switching to power football against a light defense.

Only thing you 'need' is to have is a controlled attack that can move sticks and explosive capability to keep defense's honest.  How you arrive at that is contingent on what defense is doing and/or able to do to you.

 

 

 

 

[dll2000]

Just now, dll2000 said:

That's not true. 

Its just ebb and flow of defense and offense.  Offenses went finesse and spread and defense's lightened up and got smaller/faster in response.   Then some teams went heavy and power running to take advantage of light defenses and now things are trending back in that direction.   

On and on ... cat and mouse.  FB and big TE is now back, etc.

The whole West coast trend was about making LBs cover faster RBs and use the pass as a long handoff.   Spread offenses just took mismatches a step further by getting rid of FB.   Then again another step further in running QB enough to keep teams honest ala College FB when Chip Kelly came in.

Belichick was able to run a hybrid system when he had Gronk and Hernandez.   That was creative and that brought TE back which was being fazed out nearly as much as FB was and also showed people value of quickly switching to power football against a light defense.

Only thing you 'need' is to have is a controlled attack that can move sticks and explosive capability to keep defense's honest.  How you arrive at that is contingent on what defense is doing and/or able to do to you.

 

 

 

 

That's other part of MT/Nagy offensive explosion that will come to an abrupt halt unless he can diversify.  MT excels at roll outs.  1) Because he is athletic and 2) because it simplifies reads to 1/2 the field.  

Negative is if a team knows that is crux of your plan it only has to plan defend 1/2 the field at a time.   A good DC with a few weeks to prepare his team will devour it and turn the ball over.  

Thing is there are only so many route combinations you can do on roll outs.  It's mainly high, low, middle coming across field with QB   If recognized early enough they can be sat on and sitting on a route means a high chance of INT.  Especially in zone or a zone/man hybrid.

 

 

[Superman(DH23)]

41 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

That's other part of MT/Nagy offensive explosion that will come to an abrupt halt unless he can diversify.  MT excels at roll outs.  1) Because he is athletic and 2) because it simplifies reads to 1/2 the field.  

Negative is if a team knows that is crux of your plan it only has to plan defend 1/2 the field at a time.   A good DC with a few weeks to prepare his team will devour it and turn the ball over.  

Thing is there are only so many route combinations you can do on roll outs.  It's mainly high, low, middle coming across field with QB   If recognized early enough they can be sat on and sitting on a route means a high chance of INT.  Especially in zone or a zone/man hybrid.

 

 

You can mitigate all that with formation and movement.  The whole league is doing a lot of rollouts/moving pockets, and play action.  Because simplifying the offense is how you are successful.  Aaron Rodgers is killing it this year because they are using a ton of play action and rollouts/moving pockets.  Just like what the Rams have done for 3 years, what the 9ers do, and what the Titans do.  The spread, the I, the pistol, the motions, it's all just window dressing, if you really break it down everybody is running the same set of about 20 plays.  Obviously there are exceptions.  Baltimore basically runs a dressed up triple option, and the Chiefs are running a traditional WCO that looks new but is still fundamentally the same thing Paul Brown ran.  The other approx 30 teams in the NFL are trying to disguise and make the defense guess wrong all with the same playbook.

[dll2000]

1 hour ago, Superman(DH23) said:

You can mitigate all that with formation and movement.  The whole league is doing a lot of rollouts/moving pockets, and play action.  Because simplifying the offense is how you are successful.  Aaron Rodgers is killing it this year because they are using a ton of play action and rollouts/moving pockets.  Just like what the Rams have done for 3 years, what the 9ers do, and what the Titans do.  The spread, the I, the pistol, the motions, it's all just window dressing, if you really break it down everybody is running the same set of about 20 plays.  Obviously there are exceptions.  Baltimore basically runs a dressed up triple option, and the Chiefs are running a traditional WCO that looks new but is still fundamentally the same thing Paul Brown ran.  The other approx 30 teams in the NFL are trying to disguise and make the defense guess wrong all with the same playbook.

You are correct Aaron Rodgers is playing more within structure, and most teams use many of same base plays, but Rodgers can successfully run a number of straight pocket passes or play action at any time and be successful.   That keeps teams honest.   Same with Mahomes.      

The key to pressuring a defense is forcing them to defend as much as grass as possible on each play.   If they can bunch on you in any one spot or  predict and sit on your routes it is advantage them.   

If they can get that aggressive step in right direction at snap it means everything versus waiting and watching.   Even better if you have an extra guy in position just to take something away and the offensive team can do nothing about it to take advantage.

Bears have done much better at that lately because Mooney and TEs and Oline are contributing whereas before not so much.   In past it was easy to stack against run, take away Arob and pressure MT on obvious passing downs.      

My only point is you need to be able to successfully run plays that pressure middle of field from pocket as well.   Or teams will seize on your predictability.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

[IotaNet]

11 hours ago, dll2000 said:

 ... Credit where credit is due.  Mitch is playing really good right now.  But let’s not pretend like he has been good all along.   I would note he is still missing some big throws and making some boneheaded plays, just rest of offense is playing much better ...

This is real talk right here. I think about the TD throw to Graham in the end zone yesterday. He was wide open yet Mitch almost overthrew him anyway. Graham had to make an acrobatic leap to catch the ball -- and he's 6'7"!

I'm not a  Mitch hater at this point -- grumbling won't give us a 2017 draft do-over -- and I'm genuinely happy for him. But I don't believe that he's turned some magical corner and become something other than what he is.  Now - if he beats the Pack this weekend and wins a playoff game, perhaps I'll change my tune. 

Edited December 28, 2020 by IotaNet

[Uncle Buck]

On 12/27/2020 at 12:17 PM, dll2000 said:

Sometimes you can tell the guys on PEDs because they often have a thick bloated look, Kittle looks natural. 

Media is all amazed at all these O and D linemen dropping weight after their careers.  The discipline, the fortitude...  LOL.  For many it is mainly being off the juice for first time in a decade or two.  It shrinks you back.  

I saw former Vikings center, Matt Birk recently and he looked like a holocaust survivor compared to the way he looked in his playing days.

[Heinz D.]

1 hour ago, Uncle Buck said:

I saw former Vikings center, Matt Birk recently and he looked like a holocaust survivor compared to the way he looked in his playing days.

Yikes.