Week 3 GDT: Bears vs Browns

[soulman]

20 hours ago, dll2000 said:

Wow.   I was jesting in a way.   I don't have twitter, but it is full of blue check marks openly saying Nagy did it to Fields on purpose.

That would be a rather large conspiracy theory.

 

A man whose fighting to keep his job and prove that against all conventional wisdom that he's been right all along may do strange things.  Especially when that same man has the play call sheet and headset and mic to the QB in his possession. 

I'm beginning to believe Nagy is delusional every time he claims he can "fix it" so nothing would shock me coming from someone who sees his career in NFL coaching crumbling to dust before his eyes.  Has he called Andy Reid yet to see if he has an opening?

The only one who can explain that turd his offense dropped is him.

[soulman]

17 hours ago, Uncle Buck said:

This guy nicely sums up the way I feel on the matter.

 

There have been times in the past when I've felt that Kaplan's lack of patience was wrong but not this time.  I don't care that we're only 3 games into the season.  That's been more than enough to show that once again the Bears camp and preseason have been virtually useless as far as preparing this team for the regular season.

The defense saved Nagy's bacon last week or that could easily have been a loss as well.

Kaplan is spot on relative to just how poorly Nagy and his staff came up with a game plan that gave Fields an honest shot at even sticking with the Browns offensively.  If we can assume that none of it was intentional including the play calls and lack of adjustments to stop Garrett then all that's left is the evidence of total incompetence.

If Dalton is still unable to play this Sunday what's the plan?  Play Fields again handing him yet another failed script or start Foles scripting yet another dink and dunk passing game the Lions can easily handle and hope the defense can bail you out again then breathe a sigh of relief that somehow you made it through the first four 2-2?

The next four games are LV, GB, TB, and SF.  Does anyone believe we have a prayer of winning even one of those games with this offense?  I don't.  So we role into November 2-6 with one game against Pitt then a Bye Week.  At best we'd be 3-6 and for that Nagy should keep his job at least 'til then or continue to maybe win 2 more games?

Like I posted previously.  How many more games do Pace, Phillips, and GMcC need to see to know that Nagy is not gonna "fix" this.  He isn't capable to fixing it.  All he's capable of is handing out weekly excuses for not having fixed it an accepting the blame.  On that score he's correct.  No one else is to blame but Matt Nagy.  No one.

I like Kap's plan.  Fire Nagy.  Name Mike Pettine as interim HC not Bill Lazor.  I want Lazor and the remainder of the offensive staff focused on how to create workable game plans and call plays that actually work for whichever QB is playing.  That's gonna be enough of a challenge for them as it is.  Pettine can cover game day decisions.  He has before.

IMHO nothing good can come out of allowing Matt Nagy to finish out this season because now his only focus will be on what's best for Matt Nagy and saving his job not on what's best for Justin Fields or the Chicago Bears in general.  If the Bears were just an ordinary business and Nagy it's GM he would have stepped down after Sundays game or been forced to step down.

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

What I see as pretty likely is that things make a _bit_ more sense offensively against the Lions, and a win gets Nagy even more time to flop around before getting fired in that streak of tough games you bring up.  

The upside is that our 2nd round pick might grab us a guy that falls out of the first!  The downside is that games like the last are what was keeping the "sit Fields" people up at night.  There's a train of thought that says if someone is going to be a great QB it shouldn't matter, but I don't care who you are if you get absolutely pummeled while feel like you're failing at your job there's only so much you can take.   That was a very good defense against a very poor OL with an insane gameplan, but that asterisk doesn't matter if Fields is taking 6 sacks a game and having to explain his decisions in a presser every week.

So Bearsy to have a top QB prospect land in their laps, and then do literally everything wrong with him.  I was never firmly in sit or start camp so it's not like I had a call here, but he's not going to be successful if this is how it's going to go for him. 

[Heinz D.]

On 9/28/2021 at 8:47 AM, soulman said:

The next four games are LV, GB, TB, and SF.  Does anyone believe we have a prayer of winning even one of those games with this offense?  I don't.  

If Lazor starts calling plays again, there is a chance to win games in that stretch. Nagy has been better than he was in the first half of last year...but it still isn't enough. We need an actual, capable offensive mind running that side of the ball. 

[blkwdw13]

After looking back on this game for a few days, how did every single other offensive coach go along with this game plan. To me that is just as bad as Nagy's game plan, and I get it they might get fired but then they don't have what happened on them and they actually spoke up about it.

[HuskieBear]

2 hours ago, blkwdw13 said:

After looking back on this game for a few days, how did every single other offensive coach go along with this game plan. To me that is just as bad as Nagy's game plan, and I get it they might get fired but then they don't have what happened on them and they actually spoke up about it.

this is what i wonder too. do we have a bunch of yes-men in the room with him or a bunch of incompetent coaches? either way, not great bob

[Sugashane]

1 hour ago, HuskieBear said:

this is what i wonder too. do we have a bunch of yes-men in the room with him or a bunch of incompetent coaches? either way, not great bob

Sadly the best case scenario is that they brought it to his attention but he was too self-righteous and arrogant to believe them.

[Epyon]

Become a big fan of this guys' breakdowns.... this one is every sack play from last week and the cacophony of things that went wrong.... Good lord Peters and Ifedi had a brutal game..... and then some high (low) lights from mustipher and Fields being late repeatedly.

 

[soulman]

In every instance where it's not simply bad scheming it's about Fields learning to make faster reads and throws.  IMHO the only way you're gonna get him to reset that internal clock every rookie QB has become accustomed to in college ball is for him to play.  That's it.  All of it.

We could talk for a week about Ifedi looking as bad as an OT could ever look and blocking assignments that can't possibly work but all of that is old news.  That's a bad OL period.

[Sugashane]

8 hours ago, soulman said:

In every instance where it's not simply bad scheming it's about Fields learning to make faster reads and throws.  IMHO the only way you're gonna get him to reset that internal clock every rookie QB has become accustomed to in college ball is for him to play.  That's it.  All of it.

We could talk for a week about Ifedi looking as bad as an OT could ever look and blocking assignments that can't possibly work but all of that is old news.  That's a bad OL period.

Not just play, but for the playcaller to SCHEDULE the throws. Every play has a timing aspect, he needs to be taught that when his right foot takes that thirds step, its time to make a step and throw or dump it to the hot read. We worked on that all week for my son. Bad habits form because they weren't corrected early enough, and breaking them is because someone is forcing good habits on them.

My kid can wing it well enough but the kid that was before him was a year older and had a cannon. My son can't throw it as far so we are working on two level throws and getting him on the move. Rollouts he doesn't throw until he gets outside the tackle box (read long, short, run), straight dropbacks (short, long, hot), and if he doesn't see anything he scrambles with the ball high. Honestly getting to beat the crap out of my kids with a pool noodle was therapeutic. lmao, He also held the ball high and by his ear (I hate when kids do this, its completely unnatural and exposes the ball). So I worked with him having to hold about a 6 inch cut of a pool noodle between his chest and the football. If it dropped before he started his throw then he had to do burpees. Tuesday he dropped it 5-6 times, and he didn't yesterday or today. We will have to keep it up but he will have it memorized after a few weeks and will keep that position while dropping back then too. While an 11 year old learning a spot is rudimentary compared to the pros, the concepts are the same. Find weaknesses, find ways to fix them, and put them in the best position to do whatever they excel at.

Knowing Fields hold the ball longer means Nagy and Lazor should be doing this already. Anticipate that he will be more aggressive than Dalton and call the quicker game to compensate. He will not get rid of it as fast as Dalton (dude has 10 years experience on him) so you adjust the scheme. Move the pocket, give an extra blocker, do whatever it takes to protect him so he can utilize his God-given abilities. I've bashed Nagy relentlessly but I wanted Fields in because I thought the one thing Nagy would be able to do was protect the QB with conservative calls. Since he chose to ignore that, I just don't know what he is good for. 

[JAF-N72EX]

21 hours ago, Epyon said:

Become a big fan of this guys' breakdowns.... this one is every sack play from last week and the cacophony of things that went wrong.... Good lord Peters and Ifedi had a brutal game..... and then some high (low) lights from mustipher and Fields being late repeatedly.

 

I haven't watched this video or any other breakdown but one thing that has caught my attention while watching Fields is that I wish he would switch hands while running with the ball. I hate it when I see him running away from a defender on his right side and holding the ball on the same side. That's a fumble waiting to happen. You're taught to put yourself between the ball and the defender. If the defender is going to be on the left side....put the ball in your right arm....and visa versa.

[Epyon]

2 hours ago, JAF-N72EX said:

one thing that has caught my attention while watching Fields is that I wish he would switch hands while running with the ball.

Yeah, I was always coached to put the ball in the arm nearest to the sideline... and that was just highschool, kinda triggering how few people at higher levels do that, opens the ball up to bigger hits from the field of play.

Regarding Fields specifically, he has a pretty bad tendency to hold the ball in a single hand thrower's grip while running, instead of tucking the ball and transitioning to a runner's grip where the entire arm cradles the ball. It's caused 2 fumbles already since we drafted him, too. Bad habit.

[soulman]

10 hours ago, Sugashane said:

Not just play, but for the playcaller to SCHEDULE the throws. Every play has a timing aspect, he needs to be taught that when his right foot takes that thirds step, its time to make a step and throw or dump it to the hot read. We worked on that all week for my son. Bad habits form because they weren't corrected early enough, and breaking them is because someone is forcing good habits on them.

I watched the video where J.T Sullivan critiqued each of the plays where Fields was sacked.

IMHO two of them were on Fields for not getting rid of the ball when he should have.  One was a route to Kmet that was open.  All he had to do was lead him with the throw.  The other was when he had Mooney (I think) singled up with the LCB in man coverage.  He just needed to go long and lay it out there for him because he was beating his coverage.  Both times Fields hesitated and got sacked.

The other seven were either a coverage sack because no one got open or just horrible blocking by most everyone.  Ifedi looked worthless on at least two or three of them and there was no way Peter could handle Garrett alone.  Both could have and should have gotten help but in some cases there was help but the chipper took the wrong guy or we had two OL double teaming one DL and another rusher came through untouched.  That's just a poor scheme.

But Sullivan's point on those two and maybe one more is well taken.  In the NFL guys often don't get more open than that so you have to make the throw.  In college ball Fields had far more time to throw and his receivers typically got more separation.  That can be fixed pretty easily unless Nagy is in his head too much about not turning the ball over.  It looked to me on at least three or four passes that Fields hesitation was caused by that so he didn't risk it.

I've completely flip flopped on his starting.  Yeah, we need to fix the pass protection now but the only way Fields will get his decision making process and release up to NFL speed is to play so he keeps seeing coverage and can repeat his successes and avoid his failures. 

I watched a bit of the Cincy vs JAX game last night and both Burrows and Lawrence were getting much better protection and much better play schemes and calling.  JAX was 0-3 going in and we beat Cincy yet both offenses were far more crisp and executing much better than ours.  Our defense beat Cincy not our offense and it's nearly always that way with Nagy.  No matter what he says I expect more of the same this coming weekend.  They're a mess offensively.

 

[BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW]

11 minutes ago, soulman said:

I watched the video where J.T Sullivan critiqued each of the plays where Fields was sacked.

IMHO two of them were on Fields for not getting rid of the ball when he should have.  One was a route to Kmet that was open.  All he had to do was lead him with the throw.  The other was when he had Mooney (I think) singled up with the LCB in man coverage.  He just needed to go long and lay it out there for him because he was beating his coverage.  Both times Fields hesitated and got sacked.

The other seven were either a coverage sack because no one got open or just horrible blocking by most everyone.  Ifedi looked worthless on at least two or three of them and there was no way Peter could handle Garrett alone.  Both could have and should have gotten help but in some cases there was help but the chipper took the wrong guy or we had two OL double teaming one DL and another rusher came through untouched.  That's just a poor scheme.

But Sullivan's point on those two and maybe one more is well taken.  In the NFL guys often don't get more open than that so you have to make the throw.  In college ball Fields had far more time to throw and his receivers typically got more separation.  That can be fixed pretty easily unless Nagy is in his head too much about not turning the ball over.  It looked to me on at least three or four passes that Fields hesitation was caused by that so he didn't risk it.

I've completely flip flopped on his starting.  Yeah, we need to fix the pass protection now but the only way Fields will get his decision making process and release up to NFL speed is to play so he keeps seeing coverage and can repeat his successes and avoid his failures. 

I watched a bit of the Cincy vs JAX game last night and both Burrows and Lawrence were getting much better protection and much better play schemes and calling.  JAX was 0-3 going in and we beat Cincy yet both offenses were far more crisp and executing much better than ours.  Our defense beat Cincy not our offense and it's nearly always that way with Nagy.  No matter what he says I expect more of the same this coming weekend.  They're a mess offensively.

 

It's a good video. Really highlights how complete the Bears are in being bad on offense.  Bad scheme, bad personnel, bad disclipline and then QB doing all the things he's bad at poorly.  

If the games look like last week, I think we're into the territory that the "he has to sit or he'll get ruined" people were worried about. 

[soulman]

11 minutes ago, RunningVaccs said:

It's a good video. Really highlights how complete the Bears are in being bad on offense.  Bad scheme, bad personnel, bad disclipline and then QB doing all the things he's bad at poorly.  

If the games look like last week, I think we're into the territory that the "he has to sit or he'll get ruined" people were worried about. 

While watching both Burrows and Lawrence last night I couldn't help but notice just how much more efficiently their entire offense ran.  Both were getting reasonable protection and JAX OL was creating gaps by getting some push.  Both teams RB's averaged over 4 ypc and Burrows threw for over 300 yards.

The only push I see with our OL is guys getting pushed back into the pocket.

JAX is 0-4 and we beat Cincy yet look at their offenses with rookie QBs and one with only 14 NFL starts to his credit.  Now compare that to our offense and tell me that Fields isn't just as talented as Lawrence and Burrows yet Nagy couldn't even come close to putting an offense on the field like either of those.