Bears 23, Patriots fif... holy shit, 51: Sucker Bet

Pack it up, boys and girls, that was the season. Playoff hopes may have died last week against Miami, but yesterday was the Bears' last chance to convince me that there was going to be anything good to take away from this year. There's no more "Well, they could go on a winning streak," no more "work out their issues and finish strong."

This was the game to convince me not to just toss this season in the trash. A road game against a strong opponent, something the Bears had been inexplicably good at to this point in the season. Instead they gave up 51 points and managed to score just one touchdown while they actually had a chance to stay in it. Sure, they ended up putting up 23 points (which is still terrible); but once it's 45-7 I doubt they're really trying super hard to stop you from putting a couple away in garbage time.

I'm not gonna do good, bad, ugly because that's Kyle's thing, and almost everyone would be "ugly" anyway.

Season Two, Episode 17: THE HATENING

In keeping with this week's theme, Kyle and I spent about 40 minutes just personally insulting every player and coach in the Bears organization. Enjoy our shameful rage.



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I am Rick Morrissey. We are all Rick Morrissey.

After Sunday’s baffling, embarrassing loss to the Dolphins, reports surfaced of shouting from the Bears locker room. Of fingers pointed, fans griped at, and voices raised.

The confusing thing to me is that people are acting like that’s a bad thing. That it’s unwarranted. Because you know what? They should be mad. I’m mad.

Ever year, I get excited in the months leading up to the season. Every year, they make just enough moves to make it look like they’ve solved their problems. And every year, every Goddamn year, this doomed, underperforming shitpile of a team finds a new way to be just good enough to get my hopes up.

So yes, boys, point fingers. There’s blame enough to go around, because damn near every one of you fucked up on Sunday. Just put Ratliff, Willie and Forte in the other room and let it all out.

Dolphins 27, Bears 14- Your Team Is Bad.

Accept it. Live with it. They aren't "in a funk". Good teams don't have seven game funks. They aren't "gelling". It's the middle of fucking October. They aren't finding their rhythm, they aren't out of sync, they aren't anything but bad.

Why are they bad? I don't know. The most convenient option for most is to blame Jay because once again he threw an interception and those are bad. One interception should not sink an offense, though. It's everything surrounding that interception that's worse. They can't move the football, and that's the responsibility of 11 players and the guy who supposedly "coordinates" them.

Marc Trestman is the problem, folks. I know that's hard to get. I know he introduced us all to offensive football for the first time ever last year and it was grand, but a whole year later we've found ourselves in a rut, and he's to blame. This man does not trust himself, or his football team. In football you have two kinds of plays: base plays and constraint plays. Constraint plays are your screens, draws, etc. that you use against defenses that cheat. You take easy yards that are there to make them play honest.

Right now, no one's lying to the Bears offense. They're as honest as can be. Teams have repeatedly lined up this season in tight man coverage or basic deep zones and dared the Bears to just play football, and Trestman's turtled almost every time. This week he worked himself into such a panic over the potential damage the Dolphins defensive line posed that he never even bothered to make them establish themselves as a threat. He apparently conceded they couldn't run the ball against that front, since he made no effort to do so the entire first half (in the second half he tried it, and it worked, but by then it was too late. Shocking). He apparently doesn't trust his 6'4" wide receivers to win battles downfield, since his response nearly every single early down of the first half was a fucking screen that the defense was more than willing to sit and wait for.

There's no excuse for this offense to be this bad. None. Not one in the world. They had everyone today that they ever thought they were going to have with the exception of Marquess Wilson, and I don't think he's the savior. Trestman's response was to show so little faith in them that the Dolphins defense had won before they'd taken a single snap.

This is the Trestman we saw in glimpses last year. The one who lined up in a trick formation without Brandon or Alshon on the field to try and get a game tying 2 PT conversion vs. the Lions. The one that twice settled for field goals on second down rather than trust his offense to pick up a few more yards. The one that outthinks himself, doubts himself, doubts everyone around him. The perfectionist who fails to see how incredibly simple the answer really is sometimes. In short, it's the guy that could never get a whiff as a head coach despite all of his efforts as a coordinator. For once, it's not that hard to see why.

There is no good, bad, or ugly this week. No one had a good day (well, Jeremiah Ratliff), and many had bad, but the simple answer is that no one is being put in a position to win right now. That starts with the man at the top. I'm done defending, and hoping, and praying. Being different is not the same as being good. Marc Trestman, right now, isn't the answer. He'd better find some answers of his own pretty quick.

Season Two, Episode 16: From the Ashes

It's been so long, I can barely remember what this is like. Is... is this real? Am I dreaming? Is this thing on?

Kyle resurfaces for Victory Podcast 3 (surprise, surprise), but his shitty Internet results in an abrupt shift in audio quality when he has to switch to his cell phone. These guys would just die without me. Anyway, here's an episode in which we discuss the victory over the Falcons and Sunday's matchup with the Dolphins.




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I'm a Smart Man

There is a podcast recorded for this week, but I forgot the flash drive I put the sound file on so I won't be able to post it until tomorrow. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Bears 27, Falcons 13- The Right Stuff

For once, it all came together.

When the Falcons finally exploited the Bears banged up back seven with a brilliant screen to make it a 13-10 game right after the half, it was easy to see how things would unfurl. The Bears failure to convert another two minute drill, red zone trip into a TD was going to turn into the defense finally giving ground, the second half offense that had plagued the team since week three would re-appear, and before long the Bears would pull another defeat from the jaws of victory.

Once the Bears went 3 and out on their next drive, then allowed the game-tying FG, the panic was pure threat level midnight. And then....it went away.

Jay Cutler unleashed the armcock for a 74 yard completion to Alshon, they scored a TD, the defensive line dominated like they should against an OL starting Gabe Carimi, and the offense went right back down and scored another TD to truly wreck the Falcons hopes. It was exactly how Emery and Trestman and the rest of us envisioned this season playing out, and for once it worked.

It's hard to say what this will mean in the long run, as the Bears will need to string more complete games together to make up for the games they've pissed away, but it's all hopefully coming together, and maybe, mercifully, they'll finally start getting healthier. For now, this was as good as we could have ever hoped for, and I'll take it.

Kyle is a liar and he will serve an eternity aboard this ship.

I've made that reference twice today and I have no idea why.

Anyway, Kyle swore he was going to write a game recap and an article explaining our absence from the airwaves and then he totally didn't do it and now it's Friday afternoon so I assume he's not going to.

Travis doesn't exist anymore and Kyle had some overtime or something he probably could have explained much better if he'd actually written the article he promised to write, so we haven't all had time for a podcast that would inevitably have just been 40 minutes of Kyle's drunken sobbing anyway.

Me? I've got a different problem. I'm not going to write 2,000 words in the negative column at 2-3, I'm just not. This is a team with issues, but issues they could still theoretically fix and bounce back to a winning season. I had them losing that Carolina game in my opening day predictions anyway, so I'm not gonna write them off yet because they're a game back of where I assumed they'd be.

Unfortunately, I don't have anything in the positive column to really write about, which leaves me at something of an impasse. Kyle Fuller and Willie Young fill my heart with joy. There, I got a good sentence out. I think that's the only one in there right now. I tried again and all that came out was a little flag that said "BANG" on it.

This should not lead you to believe that I don't have 2,000 words loaded and ready to be fired at the negative column should they lose to the Falcons this Sunday. I hate "WE'VE SEEN IT ALL BEFORE MY FRENTS" as much as the next guy; but Jesus Christ you guys, this fucking team. I have a lot of very negative thoughts that I'm not going to put down in writing until I'm utterly defeated, which might be Monday morning.

So like I said, I'm not gonna write that article with 12 weeks left in the season. Talk to me in two days and I may be singing a different tune.

Anyway, if Kyle comes out of hiding and/or Travis phases back into this plane of existence for a few minutes, there will be a podcast next week for good or for ill. I'm going to write a recap if Kyle doesn't, it has traditionally been his province but apparently this whole Goddamn website is my responsibility now. You'll notice nobody took it upon themselves to start sending around the prog while I was away on business. These people.

What was I talking about?

Oh right, blogging. You're getting a big ol' mess of words from me and a podcast next week, I urge you to prevail upon Kyle via Twitter until he carries his weight. As usual, we'll see y'all on Sunday. Go Bears.

Packers 38, Bears 17- The Recap You Wait a Week For

Or not. I can't pretend I ever wanted to write this damn thing but my sense of completeness compels me and I no longer have the valid excuse of being on the interstate driving as I was Sunday night or working late the other nights of the week. It is time to discuss this.

And you know what? I'm not that mad. I'm really not. Not that the loss isn't upsetting, not that it isn't disheartening that the Bears still haven't closed the gap with the Packers, but things are far from grim. I believe the rest of the Bears schedule is shaping up to be fairly favorable, they appear to be getting somewhat healthier as a team, and, if you dig past the box score, there were some good things that happened in this game.

There were obviously more bad things, however, and that needs discussin'. I naturally spent all of last week in a healthy state of fear about the game, and once it was revealed that Jared Allen was a late scratch, well, that gave me a pretty unshakeable sense of foreboding. Not that Jared Allen alone could have prevented the massacre Rodgers committed, but even one or two sacks that stopped drives might have changed the complexion of the ball game. Without Allen and Ratliff the Bears defensive line lost the ability to constantly shift and rotate players on the DL that had been so pivotal to their success early in the season. Despite the Packers frequent struggles in pass protection over the years, they have two very, very solid guards in Josh Sitton (who may be the best pass-protecting guard in football with Evan Mathis out), and TJ Lang. If you want to get to Rodgers you need to threaten his tackles, and the Bears lacked the guy who draws the most attention out on the edge.