Week One 9/8/24 game thread: vs Tennessee

[StLunatic88]

54 minutes ago, dll2000 said:

I think he is hurt.  

He looked to be running gingerly for sure. Weather it was just unsure or from injury, TBD. Either way I did not like his rushes today

[StLunatic88]

I will say, I’m curious about the Game Day inactive decisions. 

-If Keenan is already gimpy, how do you did Scott? Literally one play away from DeAndre Carter (or worse Velus) being a major factor in the offense. Wild that we essentially planned on 4 WRs today

-I don’t get what is going on with Roschon, but if Homer is getting carries, Roschon better be active for those instead (still don’t get how “valuable”Homer is on ST, but they believe so…)

-On the same hand, Velus can’t be active unless he is getting a full dedicated package each game, because like 2 random plays isn’t valuable enough since he can’t return kicks

 

[SLCbear]

1 hour ago, BEAR FACE DOWN ARROW said:

Yeah I hated this game but am glad we got the win. Caleb didn't do much productive, but he also didn't lose us the game when there were ample opportunities for him to press and give the ball away. Really cold comfort there, but he at least didn't explode.

My bigger question is what ancient burial site did George McCaskey violate to bring this curse upon the Bears?  I mean EVERY year we field a team, and no matter how much they invest on offense, or plan to be explosive, the only way the Bears seem to win is with grind it out run game and fiesty D with super unlikely wild plays.  Seriously you could clone Patrick Mahomes,  bring back the greatest show on turf, and spawn 4 Calvin Johnsons and we would still really be hoping to run out the clock with ten minutes left in the fourth. 

The curse of having average, bad trenches.

 Gotta believe all of the1st 3 rounds of '25 Draft will be spent there and possibly another high pick or 2 there in '26. Gotta get that RIGHT 

[beardown3231]

I'm rewatching the game. Where are the designed rollouts or getting CW on the move immediately for a short out throw? 

[SLCbear]

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFe3dk44/

[StLunatic88]

14 minutes ago, SLCbear said:

The curse of having average, bad trenches.

 Gotta believe all of the1st 3 rounds of '25 Draft will be spent there and possibly another high pick or 2 there in '26. Gotta get that RIGHT 

This has been said for the past 2 drafts. I’m going to go with unlikely that we spend all our pics in the line. We still have the DL to take care of. Will need to likely replace 1 starting WR plus depth. Going to need to be replacing LBs soon. 

I like drafting OL just as much as anyone, but that would be bad roster building

[Sugashane]

2 hours ago, beardown3231 said:

A win is great, but I'll be that guy: Williams needs to be a lot better. Too many deflected passes, missed at least 1 TD if not 2 on the Carter miss, and the sacks he took were backbreakers. The tipped passes at the LOS was very concerning. On one late in the game he had a WR screen blocked perfectly to Odunze (iirc) and it was deflected. It was likely a TD. He's my guy, he's a rookie and I pounded the table for him, but that was very unimpressive. I'm done handicapping these guys- Titans have a good DL, bears iOL sucks, rookie, first game, etc- just as I was with Fields. He needs to be a lot better, plain and simple

He absolutely needs to play better, and I expected him to. He sucked overall today, but there was little help around him. Either he missed the open throw, a good throw was dropped or out of position (Rome didn't sit in a gap that he should have IIRC, and Allen's dropped TD), and Waldron did almost nothing to help the IOL. It was a complete cluster**** by the offense as a whole. They basically played hot potato on who would screw up each play and the IOL couldn't gel at all most of the game. So many missed responsibilities (from live view at least).

I'm kind of giving the offense a quarter of the season to get some timing down, and won't really hold much weight on these 1st 4 games for them. I want them to do better, but if the same issues are happening in weeks 5-8 as through 1-4, I'll be more concerned. There is too much talent to be THIS bad, and it's way too early for pitchforks, but with how much most of us clamored for better players on the IOL, I sure as hell hope Poles were right and they just struggled due to the top talent this week.

Williams just connecting on two of those open deep tosses completely changes the narrative of this game (Allen catching that damn TD would too), he 100% needs to play better. 

[Sugashane]

32 minutes ago, SLCbear said:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFe3dk44/

Damn it I want Eberflus to be a top coach for the Bears, he's such an easy guy to like. Just need to see him not get outcoached by MLF, Johnson, and KOC.

[The_Romen]

Doesn't this get boring and draining after 100 years? This is the same story as *literally* every other year in Bears history. 

[beardown3231]

32 minutes ago, The_Romen said:

Doesn't this get boring and draining after 100 years? This is the same story as *literally* every other year in Bears history. 

It's one thing to admit Williams played terrible today which I did. It's another to already be comparing this offense to ones of the past specifically ones from 1930. It was his first start. Look at how bad Nix and Daniels looked today, too.

With all of that being said, I thought you were done?

Edited September 9 by beardown3231

[Sugashane]

33 minutes ago, The_Romen said:

Doesn't this get boring and draining after 100 years? This is the same story as *literally* every other year in Bears history. 

It definitely gets stale, but I've been watching this team for 30 years, so it just seems like it has to change eventually. I'm nowhere near as passionate about them as I was previously though.

[AZBearsFan]

I didn’t think Williams was terrible today. I thought watching that he was better than the stat line showed. Don’t misconstrue that though - he wasn’t good today either. He looked like a guy in his first start. He played nervous early and that showed on the early miss to Allen, and the sack taking us out of FG range was really bad. He was oddly really inaccurate for a stretch in the 3Q. It wasn’t pretty. The good throws were far outweighed by the ungood ones.

It was a collective effort today though - the group around him didn’t do him any favors all damn day.

The IOL was really bad. Shelton made Lucas Patrick look like Jay Hindenburg today. Multiple penalties. Beaten like a drum by Simmons and Sweat all GD day. No push in the run game. He was an absolute mess. They have to look at Bates there next week after that performance. Jenkins got worked in the running game at least a few times. Davis got pulled after like 2 series and was the main culprit on the long sack, then again later got put back in then pulled again (don’t recall him being hurt). Jesus Christ.

We couldn’t run the ball. At all. Outside our first 2 runs by Swift and one late they didn’t do anything, and because of that we were behind the sticks (and usually well behind them) all day. For any QB it’s asking a lot to ask him have to move the team down the field through the air pretty much all day, let alone one making his first career start. For a guy in his first start, I don’t care how talented he is, that’s worst case scenario.

Williams found some rhythm and drove us down to the RZ just before half… then our future HOF offseason addition drops a TD pass that hits him right in the hands. $23M this year to make that exact play, and he’s 0 for 1. Ugh.

Play calling was questionable at times too. Any thought to moving the pocket when we couldn’t stop immediate pressure up the middle? How about a screen pass? A slant? Where were the “get our guy settled down in his first career start” looks? Kmet playing 50% of the snaps is idiotic. Having Carter try to block a 3rd down WR screen is more idiotic. I saw way too much Travis Homer today. I thought Roschon being inactive hurt on short yardage plays. I like Velus as a running back but if he can’t be your KR (and he can’t) then forcing him a few touches isn’t worth making him active over Scott or Roschon.

For some positive notes, I thought the OTs played pretty well. Both held up just fine in pass protection (the sacks came on immediate IOL pressure and on a stunt where Shelton left the middle to triple team someone). Wright missed an obvious block on an end around but most of our running game woes came from IOL futility. I’ll take what we got from the OTs today. Darrell Taylor was a damn force all game today, and looked solid against the run. Billings is a monster. Dexter had a sack. Flus brought pressure and it mattered - nice to see him continuing to be more flexible in that regard. This game flipped at halftime with our adjustments on that side of the ball.

Caleb did do some good stuff today too. First and foremost, he protected the football. He avoided the catastrophic mistakes that Levis didn’t, and that was ultimately the difference in the game today. I loved the 10 yard run he had on 3rd and long to get a 1st down late in the game. I thought he managed the game pretty well. Not flawless, but pretty well.

I mentioned it a week or so ago - rookie games like this were always gonna happen for him. It’s normal. That we were able to somehow win this game in a game where the offense was this underwhelming overall is a gift and we should appreciate every bit of it.

******

Non-Williams related - what in the name of Zeus’ butthole could Levis have been thinking on the pick six? Dumbest decision I’ve seen in a long time. Once we made whatever adjustments we made to shut down the run TEN had no chance on offense. Levis’ stat line was putrid, but he was worse than it shows. Even his TD pass was a bad ball that should’ve been intercepted. 

[SLCbear]

3 hours ago, StLunatic88 said:

This has been said for the past 2 drafts. I’m going to go with unlikely that we spend all our pics in the line. We still have the DL to take care of. Will need to likely replace 1 starting WR plus depth. Going to need to be replacing LBs soon. 

I like drafting OL just as much as anyone, but that would be bad roster building

How is it bad roster building to load up trenches (both sides)

 QB and trenches matter most. 

 

Edited September 9 by SLCbear

[Epyon]

My largest take away from the game today is:

This isn't a super bowl team.

And let's be real, the odds even before this game of everything just clicking and us going on a miracle dream run where to put it VERY mildly: "Not good" to being with, but any miniscule hope of that that nigh impossible scenario playing out this year is gone now.  And it wasn't even the QB having a pretty rough day..... because I think Caleb will get better, and frankly I was expecting some "rookie struggles", especially early on this year....... What kills any potential Superbowl scenario this year is that imo, there's ZERO chance it will happen with this OL.... I didn't have a lot of faith in them before today, and frankly they where MUCH worse than I had expected.... and none of them are rookies, so I'm not really super confident it's going to get much better.... Sure we may end up playing teams who aren't nearly as strong on the DL interior....in the regular season. The post season, however, is a different beast, and those teams are going to have monsters in the trenches as well.

The good news is: it's actually pretty close otherwise. The defense was largely good, though we'll need to see how well they can maintain pass rush going forward as the Titans had a suspect OL themselves.  Stevenson is going to stay a gambling man, which might cost us a bit at some point, but he's also making good plays too. Special teams today was superbowl caliber.  And the tools are there for the offense, with the exception of the OL.

My overall prediction before the season was that we actually win the division, make the playoffs but lose either the first or second game, but now I'm back down to a more realistic maybe hoping for a Wildcard.... Caleb will need time to bake and the OL will be a problem the entire year, which is likely at least 2 games difference by the end of the reg season.

Regardless, that'd still be a pretty good result for a first year QB, on a team that's still finishing off it's rebuild. The trajectory at least is still looking good, and if we can get the trenches solved next year, next season could have us into the real winning window.  Still eager to see what we can do going forward for the rest of the year.

 

 

[TankWilliams]