Preseason Week 2 - Bears vs Tru Believers

[WindyCity]

That was an embarrassing effort.

The Bills are so deep and well built. They had a 2nd and former 1st round pick playing DL in the 4th quarter.

This team is not talented enough for guys to sit out and for them to look good. Dalton is not a good enough QB to raise the talent around him up.

[soulman]

3 hours ago, Heinz D. said:

I had to Tivo it. Is it even worth watching? 

Probably not.  You might enjoy watching Attack of the Crab Monsters a bit more....maybe twice even. 

[soulman]

2 hours ago, Sugashane said:

Nagy is concerned he is slow to learn and might have a questionable work ethic. He read it once, because he isn't an idiot. 

No.....he's a stable genius.  There can be more than one ya' know.  😁

[Ty21]

5 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

Dalton f***ing blows

Dalton, even at his peak, has always been my perfect example of an unspectacularly average nfl QB. Even his best career year was meh. 

[Ty21]

I wanted Tru to go off and he did. Hope he’s somehow able this year to find himself a starting job next year. I facetiously talked him up when he was here just cause he had like an oblivious almost oafish kinda personality (kinda like he never stopped being incredulous at the fact that he was in the nfl) but I genuinely want him to blow up the league. That would be awesome to see. 

[JAF-N72EX]

9 minutes ago, Ty21 said:

I wanted Tru to go off and he did. Hope he’s somehow able this year to find himself a starting job next year. I facetiously talked him up when he was here just cause he had like an oblivious almost oafish kinda personality (kinda like he never stopped being incredulous at the fact that he was in the nfl) but I genuinely want him to blow up the league. That would be awesome to see. 

That's pretty high hopes. Unless Allen gets injured, Mitch won't even see a single meaningful snap this year to even "showcase" for other teams.

Coaches have seen enough of Mitch to know he isn't the answer. He isn't going to find himself a starting job unless he happens to fall into a magical situation where a playoff team loses their starter and are forced to play Mitch in the playoffs and he catches lightening in a bottle ala Foles. This is where QBs like Mitch and Winston' careers are at right now, and that's the best they can hope for at this point. Other than that, they will likely bounce around from team to team as back-up Qbs before eventually falling off the radar.

[JAF-N72EX]

4 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Learning by Osmosis.  We are all watching and learning.  I’ll be ready next year watching Dalton.

That's not how practice works and you know it. Stop being so overly dramatic lol.

[JAF-N72EX]

4 hours ago, dll2000 said:

They brag on QB room meetings where he listens to Dalton and Foles.

Yeah. And that's part of learning. See the long list of former rookie QBs who have listened to vets.

[Kmart128]

1 hour ago, JAF-N72EX said:

That's pretty high hopes. Unless Allen gets injured, Mitch won't even see a single meaningful snap this year to even "showcase" for other teams.

Coaches have seen enough of Mitch to know he isn't the answer. He isn't going to find himself a starting job unless he happens to fall into a magical situation where a playoff team loses their starter and are forced to play Mitch in the playoffs and he catches lightening in a bottle ala Foles. This is where QBs like Mitch and Winston' careers are at right now, and that's the best they can hope for at this point. Other than that, they will likely bounce around from team to team as back-up Qbs before eventually falling off the radar.

As an outside perspective... never say never. Just look at what Ryan Tannehill is doing with Tennessee. He struggles in Miami put himself in a good situation and now finds himself as one of the league better QBs.

[soulman]

1 hour ago, Kmart128 said:

As an outside perspective... never say never. Just look at what Ryan Tannehill is doing with Tennessee. He struggles in Miami put himself in a good situation and now finds himself as one of the league better QBs.

But with Mitch Trubisky you eventually find that he needs to be in a near perfect system for his particular skill set to work.  He's not a well disciplined pocket passer and when panicked or pressured he needs to revert to playground football to get anywhere.  In the right situation and with the right coach he can win some games but he will always fall short against top defenses.  That's where his limitations show up big time.

Essentially he's about one level up from a capable college QB with far less accuracy as a pro than he evidenced in college where even there he wasn't playing at the same level guys like Watson or Mahomes were or any of the current rookie crop.  He was vastly over promoted prior to the draft and like many, other including our GM, I bought into the hype too rather than asking to hard questions of him that should have been asked.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not a "Mitch hater".  I really hope he does well.  But if he's your starter my prediction is still you'll never win a championship with him when all any good defense needs to do is take away what little he can do well as a passer and he craters.  IMHO it's something inside of his head that causes him to freeze up and completely lose his focus and so far it hasn't been coached out of him.

[soulman]

Tonight I find my apathy returning in spite of Justin Fields.  This can only mean one thing.  It has to be Matt Nagy based.

I've had it with his offense and his coaching.  Yeah, it's preseason but when your 11 year vet QB can't muster much more than a string of failed drives and 3 and outs vs your former failed starter whose ripping your defense a new ******* the obvious only becomes more obvious.  Four vet NFL QBs have pretty much failed at running this offense successfully or even moderately successfully.  They can't all be the problem can they?

I like to compare situations like this as I have at times in the past.  It's pretty much based on pure simple logic and Occam's Razor.

Imagine yourself flying in a big beautiful aircraft.  You're the pilot.  You begin your take off roll only to find that two miles down the runway you're still not yet airborne and you aren't about to be even if you had another two miles of runway to use.  This plane simply won't fly.  Then you learn that three other well qualified pilots also failed to get it airborne.  At this point pure simple logic says "it's not the pilots" that are the problem.

If it's not the pilots it won't matter how many more you hire to fly it.  It won't fly.....period.  Then Occam's Razor kicks in with the simplest solution which is get rid of the guy who designed the damn thing to begin with and find someone else who can design an aircraft that will fly.  And while you're at it fire the guy who hired this failed aeronautical engineer in the first place.  He's not the guy you want hiring the next one either.

JMHO, but I think this is about where we seem to be right now.

[Epyon]

2 hours ago, soulman said:

Tonight I find my apathy returning in spite of Justin Fields.  This can only mean one thing.  It has to be Matt Nagy based.

I feel like there's ample room to also blame the offensive line, and the skill position people (at least the ones in preseason)....

I genuinely can't remember the last time the Bears had an effective run game where the ball carrier actually ran the ball where the play was designed to be run, unless it was intentionally outside (and away from) the offensive line.... It's been a problem since we lost the Long/Slauson combo (and even then we only had HALF an OL)

As for skill position guys... People are literally never open on this team.  Mooney I trust, and A-Rob I trust.... but everyone else is largely wearing a defender draped on them tighter than their own jersey.

Now, the question is whether that is because of Nagy's scheme.... or because of a gratuitous lack of talent.... but either way, even if Fields is good, I have seen absolutely nothing out of the offense so far to make me believe it's even a top 20 unit.

 

In fact, I'd be extremely curious on this if anyone could stomach watching our preseason games again to tally this up:

Given:

W: Plays where the running back gets 3+ yards running the ball where he initially sets to run it

X: Positive plays by any qb where they didn't have to use their legs to extend it, or bail the OL out.

Y: Plays where the running back only got positive 3+ yardage because they cut back against the play design

Z: Positive plays created entirely by a QB (almost assuredly Fields, but in theory can also include Dalton or Foles) using their legs to bail the play out

 

I feel confident that (W+X) - (Y+Z) ends up being a negative number....  The offensive scheme right now is hoping the backs can break 4 tackles or find a massive cutback lane while running, while the QB runs for his life to extend a play long enough for defensive coverage to break down on passing downs.

Edited August 22, 2021 by Epyon

[abstract_thought]

Bears just aren’t a good team anymore. The secondary is bad, the OL is bad, the QB is (still) bad. You can blame Nagy to some extent, but what do you expect? You’re starting several late-round, even undrafted guys with no experience. You bring in cheap vets who haven’t been good for years and you rely on them as difference-makers. Meanwhile you’re allocating tons of cap to a few players on an aging, agonizingly top-heavy defense. This team will need to be rebuilt before it can contend again. Help me Justin Fields, you’re my only hope.

Edited August 22, 2021 by abstract_thought

[Madmike90]

Like at said at half time of the game a preseason score will never worry me...we have no idea how much of what we saw from either team was actual install...for all we know we are running at 30%...they are running at 80%...who knows...what was concerning was the penalties and mental lapses but again it's just preseason and some of that can be forgiven a little...

That said the one thing I think everyone can see from the two games so far and even what is coming out of practice is that Fields is light years ahead of Dalton in terms of pure talent...as much as Nagy is saying we need to see Dalton in a live game I can't help but see Matt Flynn everytime I see Dalton...

If Nagy doesn't pull the trigger early on Fields in the regular season then I could see Brian Daboll on the Bears sideline with Lake Dawson sitting upstairs in 2022.

[dll2000]

https://dabearsblog.com/2021/daltonstarter#more-29261

Good read.

This article reflects my feelings since just after draft when they Nagy said they were going to roll with Dalton this year.

I knew this is where people were going to end up more and more.

Wait until after Rams game …