For the Record: Week 1

Good eve intrepid readership. For the Record is back, reborn as a collection of all of our thoughts on every non-Bears team who played in the past week. Enjoy!



Kyle picked the Ravens, Erik and I picked the Broncos... Kyle, you done picked wrong. The Broncos were clearly the best AFC team before that game, and now I don't know how you can pick anyone else to come out of the AFC unless Houston wins by 50 tonight. The Ravens held it together for a while but clearly Lardarius Webb didn't matter as much as they maybe thought, and potentially Corey Graham isn't as good as he looked at the end of last year. Should probably hold off on judgment until they play someone who isn't QB jesus.



I can't remember which of you I said it to, but the Ravens are clearly all Joe Flacco. They're a good team, maybe even a great team, but as soon as the wheels start to fall off the whole thing goes up in flames.



Next week we get a line that is clearly having issues. Purple Jesus got himself a 78 yard run to start the game, then went 17 carries for 15 yards. We know the Lion run D isn't amazing, that was seriously shitty line play. Maybe now we know why they grabbed J'Marcus! Two of the Viking TDs were due to blown coverage on Jerome Simpson of all people, and the other was that early AD run. Vikings: not good.



The Vikings looked so fucking bad. I mean if you were just watching individual plays, you would think the Lions were playing so badly it defies explanation, and they won by ten points.



And Suh had yet another dirty play. At what point does the NFL just suspend him for a year to teach him a lesson? He's going to permanently screw somebody up. I thought the Lions played well enough to get to 7-9 or 8-8. And Reggie Bush did what you might expect considering the offense he's in now.



On Vikings-Lions I'll just say I'm amused that Christian Ponder threw the ball deep for once and it resulted in 3 picks. Boy's turrible. Also I had the Lions pegged for 7-9 a ways back, and I'm not moving off that. Maybe 8-8, but no more. Defense is still shit after that front four.



Let's see, that takes care of Vikings-Lions. Up next: Chiefs-Jags. Are we impressed with the Chiefs or just really unimpressed with the Jags?



I'm like... half of both? The Chiefs looked like they know what they're doing, but the Jags appear to be getting worse with experience, so it's hard to be objective about someone beating them. Charles is a beast, errbody know that, Alex Smith is certainly capable of managing a game well enough to win with that. It remains to be seen how they hold up against a team that doesn't somehow fit the medical description of "mentally retarded."




Do we need to discuss Chiefs-Jags? The Chiefs are going to do that Chief thing where they find the most boring way to win 9 games against an underwhelming schedule and then quietly bow out of the playoffs to let the big boys play. Andy Reid will be viewed as a hero for this. The Jaguars are horrid, but we knew this. What is amusing is the fact that some people actually believed the whole "Gabbert looks different now, guys!" stuff coming out of camp.



Fair enough. Next up we have Fins-Browns. Kyle and I both had the Browns, nice job Erik. Weeden is... very bad. Also, Mike Wallace is a lil bitch.



I expected the Fins to win, but I expected it to be a halfway enjoyable game. Granted, I was watching it three TVs down only during breaks in the Bears game, but it sure looked like World War I to me.



Yeah it was Brutal. I did not expect Weeden to be that bad. As most know, I think, I loved Weeden at OK State and really want him to succeed. The tools are there, and the last coaching staff did Nothing to ease his transition to the NFL. He's lacking his best wideout in Josh Gordon right now, so I don't want to completely bury him...but things don't look good. And yeah, when reading Mike Wallace's comments about not getting the ball enough after ONE GAME, remember that this is the team that traded Brandon Marshall for being too much of a headache and subsequently signed Chad Ochocinco and Mike Wallace.



That is really, really important to remember. Jordan Cameron looked good, but the rest of the Browns? Yeeeesh. Let's see... next up how about Pats-Bills? I was SO CLOSE. But no cigar. Manuel looked okay, the weirdest Bills thing was definitely that Fred Jackson looked much better than Spiller. Also, Kenbrell Tompkins got targeted 14 times and caught 4 of those passes. I don't have drop data, but what I think that means is Brady wants WELKAH back.



Yeah he looked a little lost. Which is understandable, considering he lost his three favorite receivers in one offseason, I suppose. I forgot Julian Edelman existed until yesterday, so that earns him at least a game's worth of awkwardness before I say he's losing it. The Bills actually looked a lot better than I expected them to, considering how tumultuous their shit is right now. That FR TD definitely helped.



As for the Bills...CJ Spiller is a lot like Jamaal Charles. Those days will happen where he just won't break the big one, and the Pats were keying on him as a receiver as well. Manuel looked fine running a very conservative offense. Hard to really get much information on him from that. I'm still not high on him! If the Patriots suck this year, and they very well might (Brady averaged 5.5 YPA against a Bills defense missing it's star safety), they have little to blame but their own arrogance. The passing game will get a boost when Gronk returns, but they gambled on being able to control Hernandez' temper when teams had him flagged, they thought they didn't need to actually sign or develop veteran receivers, they thought Welkah was replaceable (and Amendola did have a nice game, to be fair)....they're just arrogant. They buy their own bullshit about The Patriot Way so hard, but if it were true their plug and play system would have fixed their shit defense long ago, and it still sucks.



Yeah, my guess is Brady is regretting that pay cut right about now. I think the Spiller thing could also be that, well, Fred has been better than CJ before. Would not surprise me if he was again. Next up we got Bucs-Jets. Already hearing that they want to try Mike Glennon in Tampa. Doug Martin again showed that he is mediocrity incarnate, but he gets a ton of carries. And Geno Smith... did really well! Against a good secondary. What is wrong with the world?!



The Bucs are just their own worst enemy, I think. They have a good team! I look at the roster and there's a lot of talent there. Certainly enough talent to beat the Jets! Martin isn't the best back in the league, but he can get the job done. Vincent Jackson is really good. Freeman shouldn't be as bad as he is. If Glennon is the thing that makes it work, I'm all for it. That team should be 7-9, or maybe 8-8. Their schedule is kind of brutal this year, though.



I'll not have you besmirching CJ Spiller, you sonofabitch. I don't think Josh Freeman is a bad QB. I really don't. He's inconsistent but he's also had a lot of turmoil and turnover in his career, but Greg Schiano has never showed an ounce of faith in him and I don't think the tough love approach is working. Freeman's just melting down. As for Geno? No idea. He still managed to look awful at times even with his overall solid performance. Definitely on the whole a good debut. He also ran a bit, which is nice to see. He didn't do much of that in college, and with the Jets line and RBs...he may have to be his own running game at times.



Next up we have Falcons-Saints. That went pretty much as expected, yeah? Erik thought Atlanta would win, but we can't really fault him for that. Two good teams playign good football. A little surprised the Saints only gave up 17 points.



I thought that game was more of a toss-up than you two, and I don't think anything happened to convince me otherwise, for sure. Both teams looked solid, the Saints defense looked better than expected, Steven Jackson was overhyped to begin with but the commentators just can't stop complimenting him for some reason. Sproles had a good game because he's a badass.



Anyone buying the Saints new and improved defense had better calm down a bit. Honestly I think the only reason both of these teams didn't score more is they both were going on long, time-consuming drives against each other. Is the Saints defense marginally better than last year? Probably, are they good? Probably not. I'd say both of these teams are in trouble if they run against a team that can score AND play average defense.



I don't think they're "new and improved" by any means, but that doesn't mean they can't be better than they were last year. I also think it's impossible to overstate the value of Sean Payton to this team. I'm guessing the Saints will have a good year but the Falcons will win the NFC South, and then they'll win one playoff game and celebrate it like they just won their third consecutive Super Bowl again.



Next up, everybody gets to apologize for calling me crazy, Titans-Steelers. I will simply reiterate what I said last week: The Steelers are genuinely terrible. The Titans at least have some pieces. The Steelers lost talent everywhere and gained talent nowhere. They're going to struggle all season.



I guess I didn't realize just how bad the Steelers are. But here's the crazy thing: people are still going to call them a good team. Pittsburgh is just one of those teams that, for whatever reason, people will assume is good whether the evidence bears that out or not.



I hesitate to kill the Steelers completely, yet, because their defense is still capable, but....God. That offense is hopeless. They have Roethlisberger and no backs, and a bad offensive line that just lost one of its two good pieces for the year. Still think the Titans suck as well. Did you see the Titans safety on the opening kickoff? Where he caught the ball out of the endzone, then backed up an kneeled down for a safety? HA. I did that once in Madden and nearly killed myself of shame. Can't imagine how Reynaud would have felt if they'd lost that game by one or two points.



The safeties in week one were very, very strange. 3 safeties, all int he first half, in 3 different games. Has never happened before. Count out the Steelers, Kyle, trust me. They can't score, and their defense really isn't capable. They are way, way down. Next up is Oakland-Indy. Indy pretty much proved they're going to regress, right? And Terrelle Pryor proved he can run, and not much else!



Yeah...the Indy game is exactly how I think their season plays out: Luck actually looks better and more efficient in the West Coast, their defense is horrid and presumably costs them several games against teams that are good. Pryor at least made the Raiders watchable.



They could bounce back and get into the playoffs again, but I would be totally unsurprised if they didn't. They had a real hard time with the Raiders, who are not good. Pryor looks better than Flynn, but that's going to last six weeks, tops. He's either going to get hurt, or they're going to rein him in and neuter the offense. Either way, expect a short-lived Raiders Hopeful movement, followed by despair.



The final day game is a pretty solid competition between Carolina and Seattle. Is this a classic Carolina game in which they look good but lose, and they'll still go 6-10? Or is their defense really that much better than it was last year? Also, be prepared for people to jump off the Seahawk bandwagon and onto the Niner bandwagon.



As we all said in the Progkakke, the Panthers love to keep it close but still lose. That defense is stout as shit, and even Cam Newton with one weapon is still Cam Newton. I'd be prepared to grant them 7-9, though I wouldn't be surprised at 6-10. The Seahawks struggled but won against a good defense, and the 49ers lit up a bad one. Clearly, the Niners are better!



Both the 49ers and the Seahawks looked as I expected yesterday. Seahawks less good on offense, still great on defense. 49ers less good on defense, still great on offense. As for the Panthers..I wouldn't read too much into this. They lost to the Seahawks last year 16-12. With their front four they match up well against the Seahawks run game. They still gave up 325 yards passing. They're still mediocre.



Yeah, looking back, all three of us basically foretold exactly how this game would go. Shitty afternoon game: Rams come back to beat the Cardinals. We all still think both teams are crap, right? Also this was really the game that put you two behind me. Your belief in Carson Palmer hath betrayed you, Kyle!



That one was another toss-up, I'd say. Both teams looked pretty much exactly like you'd expect them to look. Both Cardinals offensive TD's were Palmer to Fitzy, both STL TD's came from a Tight End at short range. Rams leaned on Greg the Leg to edge out a close one. That's the most Rams game imaginable, honestly.



Palmer looked about as good as I predicted he would, too, which, if you remember, was "good enough to be my fantasy backup." Arizona should be far more competitive in all 9 of its losses this year. The Rams piss me off. Jeff Fisher had opportunities to put that game away by actually showing some balls and refused. Also the "package of plays" he has for Tavon never materialized. NO ONE GIVE JEFF FISHER A SHINY NEW TOY EVER AGAIN. The man never trusted McNair, he ran Eddie George into the ground, he utterly ruined Vince Young, and now he's going to turn Tavon Austin into Ted Ginn.



We've already said a bit about it, but the good afternoon game was Packers-Niners. We all hit this one on the head. The Packers just can't figure them out. Matthews should be suspended, not for the hit solely, but because he said he would do it all week. My favorite part of that game was that the Packers spent all offseason learning how to stop the read option and... Kaepernick just dropped back and passed all day. I love Harbaugh so goddamned much. Oh and Jermichael Finley had a couple beast mode plays that were fantastic and partially made up for him handing the ball to the Niners once.



It's funny, I actually know a Packers fan who said "Calm down, Bears fans. You beat the Bengals, the Packers held the conference champions to the limit," as though losing to a good team is better than beating a less-good but still pretty decent team.


Kaepernick is terrifying. Matthews absolutely should be suspended but won't be. I don't want to overstate the importance of the Packers D getting shredded because they always seem to pull it together to win 12 games anyway. In short, I do not want to face either team.



Sunday night was set to Yackety Sax as the Giants and Cowboys tried desperately to lose, but only New York accomplished their goal. How unthreatened are you by these two teams?



I worry more about the Giants than the Cowboys, because Eli Manning has the Incredible Hulk in him and all it takes is bad timing to get Manningblasted. When he's not on literal fire, though, you can actually see the pieces falling off of that team on the field. That Manningface Kyle posted was beautiful.



I worry about neither too much. They both have huge holes but can be dangerous if they avoid mistakes...which they clearly, rarely do.



-Fin

Opinionating: Ten Thoughts on the Bears and Beyond

1) Marc Trestman loves him some bunch formations. I first noticed this watching highlights this summer of Trestman's offense up in Montreal, but he really likes the mismatches created by bunch formations, shotgun or not. They even lined up a few times with Fiametta, Martellus Bennett, and Kyle Adams or Steve Maneri in the bunch and just a single wide receiver. Between the size of the Bears receivers and the versatility of Bennett...this should be a very profitable formation for the team throughout the season.

2)Matt Slauson looks like a great pickup. I didn't single him out in my recap, but PFF had Slauson as the Bears' second highest graded lineman after Mills at a +2.3, and he really has done a great job in the preseason and now in week one setting the pocket. He doesn't look dominant in anything he does, but he he doesn't make many mistakes. He's just now entering the prime of his career at 27 and it's possible some of that money Emery has been moving around to create cap room might be headed his way as part of a midseason extension. His beard is epic, too.

3)Jamie Dukes said what? Apparently Jamie Dukes of NFL Network said the Bears offense looked no different than it did under Lovie while he was a guest on the Score. If Dukes can find me tape of any game in the entire Lovie Era where the Bears ran 30+ plays out of the shotgun (as they did Sunday), I'll eat my laptop.

4) I was really impressed with Trestman's utter refusal to panic. 21-10 seemed pretty pants-shitting worthy at the time, but Trestman continued to mix up his playcalling with runs and passes and focus on high % plays. The offense finally established a rhythm and the Bengals had no answer for it. It was a far cry from the days of Mike Martz screaming "fuck this" and calling 52 passes and only 12 runs like he did against the Saints in 2011 even though they only trailed 16-14 into the 3rd quarter.

5) His day was rather unremarkable from a statistics standpoint, but I was really pleased with Alshon Jeffery on Sunday. Three of his five catches were for first downs, and after looking at it again I'm pretty sure he actually caught the pass on 3rd and 2 that was ruled incomplete on the Bears first drive. He'll have bigger days, but with all of the attention Marshall draws and with M. Bennett now stretching the middle of the field, Jeffery just needs to be a reliable chain-mover, and that's something that Jay didn't have when Jeffery was injured or shuffled in and out of the lineup last year.

6) I've never made any secret of my love of Carson Palmer, even though he's hardly the QB he once was before the injuries. I am glad to see that he was productive in his first day in Bruce Arian's offense. I was less pleased to see that the Cardinals o-line, unsurprisingly, still has some major issues, especially without Cooper. Between Arians gung-ho vertical approach and that line's protection, I predict Carson will be well on pace for another 4,000 YD season when he dies on the field in week seven.

7) Clay Matthews and Suh should both be suspended. They won't be, of course, because good players are often inexplicably immune to Goodell's banhammer. In Matthew's case especially I cannot fathom the hypocrisy of a league that hammers away at "player safety first" and then just ignores when a linebacker who spent all week vowing to hit the quarterback launches himself at said quarterback several yards out of bounds. I mean, does Greg Williams have to offer money to a player to get him to try to intentionally hurt a quarterback in order to make it wrong?

8) Danny Amendola is hurt again. You may not be surprised by this, but I would think the Patriots must be, because the only way I can understand passing on giving Welker a modest extension in favor of signing Amendola is if they were somehow kept in the dark about the fact that Amendola's injury history makes Bob Sanders look like a regular iron man. Bill Belichick the GM is rapidly falling into that AJ Smith territory where early success has convinced him all players are replaceable and thus not worth paying, and it's possible the Pats O could start to suffer the same regression that's plagued their defense since 2007.

9) The tempo of Chip Kelly's offense and it's radical effect on the NFL is going to be widely overstated. Even after running 53 plays in a first half where Washington did everything it could to avoid picking up first downs or maintaining possession, the Eagles only finished with 77 plays (the Skins managed to finish with 70, which is impressive given their weak showing in the first half), not the 80 or so that Kelly desires. I'm willing to bet the Eagles will average little more than the 74 plays a game that New England managed while leading the league last year. That's not to say the offense isn't going to be very successful. As long as Vick stays healthy and makes good decisions (and we know those are big ifs), that offense will do good things, I just think people should be focusing more on the quality of the plays the Eagles run, and not the quantity.

10) The Colts struggling to put away the Raiders reinforced what I already predicted this season for Indianapolis: Luck himself will be more accurate and productive now that he's reunited with Pep Hamilton (most famously known as Rex Grossman's QB coach in 2006, or Luck's old OC at Stanford, I guess), but that Colts defense will keep them from sniffing anywhere near 11 wins again this year.

Bears 24, Bengals 21- WAIT, THEY WON?

You'll hear lots of times that football games are a tale of two halves. I'd say that would be the case for this game, but the Bengals started the 3rd quarter with a dominant, shit-on-your-hopes touchdown drive as well. So, really it's the tale of a Bears offense that actually made one those mythical "half-time adjustments" and
dominated a very good defense for about a quarter and a half. The defense was somehow equally brilliant and terrible, the offense looked as vanilla as anything Mike Tice ever did before exploding for 225 yds and 14 points in the second half, and the Bengals did everything they could to fuck up a game they could have had well in hand early on. It all adds up to a 24-21 victory, an undefeated Head Coaching record for Marc Trestman, and a lot of stuff to talk about before week two.

Onto the breakdown:

The Good:

PASS BLOCKING: Oh lord did I feign confidence all week. "This is a new line!", said I. "They will hold up!" I swore. Inside, though? Oh so much pants-shitting. A team that got 52 sacks last year and added James Harrison? That's terrifying for anybody. So imagine my shock to sit here and look at a stat sheet that shows zero sacks allowed, and (by my amateur estimate) just one QB hit. Astonishing. The run-blocking certainly wasn't stellar, but the Bengals are very stout up front in that department. Those days will come, for now they can win a lot of games if they keep Jay clean. Kyle Long and Matt Slauson were particularly impressive, because Geno Atkins did Nothing today. Let's hope this holds up next week against a still very good Vikings D-Line.

Brandon Marshall: I don't care if Jay targets him 80 times. If he catches 80% of them and averages 13 yards doing so, it'll work out fine. Marshall had 8 catches for 104 yds and a TD, and I'm thinking his hip is fine.

Martellus Bennett, Pass-Catching TE: His blocking left a bit to be desired considering his reputation, but Bennett had exactly the kind of game he needs to have to keep pressure off of Marshall in the passing game. He caught 3 balls for 49 yds (although he did have a bad drop on the first play of the game) and one utterly amazing TD grab. His 3rd down reception in the 4th quarter iced the game. I like when I don't hate the starting Tight End's face.

Stephen Paea: the only member of the defensive line who showed up for most of the game, Paea led the effort to hold the Bengals to just 63 yards rushing, consistently getting penetration. The Bears one sack of the game came when Paea collapsed the pocket and ran Dalton into the arms of Shea McClellin. Let's hope he keeps it up and gets some help next week.

James Anderson: Dude's a huge upgrade in pass defense over Nick Roach at SLB, and he can run. I'm okay with the WORST thing about a guy's day being a dropped pick six on third down.

Jay Cutler: I'd have listed him first if it weren't for that utterly brutal pick. If Tim Jennings doesn't force that fumble, the Bengals probably win and Jay is the goat. But we don't live in an alternate dimension, so I'm going to focus on the Jay Cutler that was otherwise flawless and led three huge drives in the second half to win the game. Jay finished 21/33 (63.6%) for 242 YDs, 2 TDs, 1 INT, and a 93.2 rating against a very good pass defense, and he suffered from at least three drops. Other than the bizarre INT, those are exactly the kind of numbers Jay can manage week in and week out in this offense, especially with that kind of protection.

Marc Trestman: I liked how he called plays in this game. Other than some bad toss sweeps that maybe would work against lesser defenses, he was very smart with his gameplan. In the first half they played it safe and tested the waters to see how their young linemen would hold up, and once they had proven themselves (and, frankly, the score dictated it), they opened things up in the second half. Congrats to him for opening up as a winner.

The Bad:

Defense: Jesus, do I really need to specify? Outside of Stephen Paea and James Anderson, no one really  stepped up. The run defense was good overall, but the DL got little to no pass rush going, and everyone suffered accordingly. Charles Tillman battled dehydration and illness all day, and had two beautiful interceptions, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but Tim Jennings and Major Wright were particularly awful in coverage. AJ Green is a menace (and now that the Bears have won I can feel a little less awful about his big day for my fantasy teams), but still this was an atypical showing that you hope to see them rectify going forward. Oh, also, Jesus Christ someone tackle Jermaine Gresham.

Roberto Garza: Holy shit was he awful in run-blocking today, and with the Bears using the shotgun more than ever it was so readily apparent that he fires WAY too high on his snaps that my wife was screaming at him the whole game that he was going to cause a fumble. 

The Ugly:

Bengals is Stupidz: I'm glad they helped the Bears out, but, wow. Talk about an impressive self-destruction. They lost to timeouts because they were beaten by basic math. That's how you Bungle.

That's all for now. This was a great test for the Bears, and while it was ugly at times (and Cincinnati paid them plenty of favors with stupid decisions and turnovers), the Bears gave us plenty of reasons for optimism going forward.

Go Bears.

Meet your 2013 Bears! Roster Breakdown and BOLD PREDICTION

When we last left our heroes, we were flinging our feces at them as they somehow managed to go 10-6 and miss a playoff spot when the Minnesota Vikings beat the Packers because f&%k me, that's why. Since then, as you know, they've replaced the head coach with a guy half the fanbase undoubtedly knows only as "CFL guy", drafted the son of the guy known most for the movie Broken Arrow in the first round, made a bunch of free agent moves to fix the offensive line and the tight end spot, and now enter a new season as the biggest mystery team in the NFL. So who are these guys, and what can we expect? Onto the roster!

Quarterbacks: #6 Jay Cutler, #12 Josh McCown

As they've done the last two years, the Bears entered the sensible world of the NFL and kept only two QBs, since they along with everyone else realize that whether your 3rd string QB is on the roster or on his couch, you're fucked if you're playing him either way. You all know the Jay Cutler story at this point. He's got "no excuses" even though he's now got two rookie linemen on the right side and only one wide receiver who has made it through an entire NFL season in the last three years. The fact of the matter is, no, Jay doesn't have any more excuses. He does have the most talented offense he's been a part of since at least his last year in Denver (but even they did not have Matt Forte and Michael Bush), and a head coach who sure gives the impression he understands offensive football. There are those predicting a breakout season for Jay, and understandably so. But can someone breakout this late in their career? It's happened before, but not that often.

The key for Jay this year isn't suddenly becoming a guy who can throw 50 passes a game accurately, it's being efficient on the 25-35 throws he's likely to get.  I can't sit here and tell you he won't throw interceptions that will make your eyes try to crawl out of your skull in order to unsee them. He will. But he should also have the protection and help he needs to complete 60+ %, throw for 25-30 TDs, and hopefully keep his YPA relatively high. In the end I think the Jay Cutler we get will look a lot more like the guy we thought we were getting from Denver, even if he will never be the guy his talent makes you think he could be. Either way, that should be more than enough for this team to contend, and for Jay to get his money.

As for Josh McCown, well, the plan is the same: if he's coming into the game for anything more than garbage time, maybe find something better to do with your Sunday.

Progkakke Week 1: Resurrection of the 'kakke

Welcome back for another season of prognostications and snark, dear readers. For those who don't know, since this site's inception we have done weekly NFL/NCAA predictions, and last year's championista was Mrs. Code Red. This year we add Erik and drop the NCAA games. Welcome back!

Baltimore @ Denver

Iggins!: The champs are a bit underrated coming into the season, and Von Miller is gone, sure. But I think the home field advantage and the addition of WELKAH push the Broncos to victory here.

Erik: I’m with Travis here. I think everybody’s more down on the Ravens than they should be, but I just don’t think they’ll be able to keep up with the Broncos offense. And Jacoby Jones isn’t going to be able to sneak past the safety a second time.

Code Red: I’m taking the Ravens because they are better than they were last year. Won’t win the Superbowl, though.

Mrs. Code Red: I think they’re pretty evenly matched and it should be a good game but I’m taking the Broncos mostly because I just want them to win. Call me cliché but I love Pey Pey.

Cincinnati @ Chicago

Erik: In a lot of ways, this game is the microcosm of the season for the Bears. The O-line faces a true test, and if they hold up I’m not worried about anything else the Bengals can do. I think they’ll keep Cutler clean long enough to give the Bears the win.

Code Red: These are two very similar teams, and I get the “new scheme, new coach” questions about the Bears, but I have to think the Bears win this one at home.

Iggins!: As I said on the podcast, I’m betting on the offensive line succeeding and Peanut shutting down A.J. Green. Bears win, 24-10.

Mrs. Code Red: BEARS! 20-10.

Kansas City @ Jacksonville

Iggins!: My playoff prediction for KC would look pretty weak if I took the Jags, yeah? Chiefs win.

Erik: There’s not a whole lot left to say about the Jags at this point. Chiefs.

Code Red: Can anyone take the Jags, ever? Chiefs win.

Mrs. Code Red: I think this will really be Blaine Gabbert’s year! Just kidding. Chiefs, obviously.

SKOdcast Episode 15 will take place tomorrow, not today

Since my compatriots are both especially good at time management, we'll be moving this week's episode of the SKOdcast to tomorrow (Monday, September 2nd), at 6:15 pm. As always, you can listen in live at http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=127741&cmd=tc

A New Challenger Approaches! (It's Tom Musick)

For a long time now, it's been pretty obvious how my usual media targets break out. Hub is sensationalist and needlessly critical. Bernstein cares more about snark than content, and it backs him into corners. Morrissey is just an asshole.

And then there's Telander. Everyone else's ridiculous assertions and criticisms are generally gross overreactions, but they at least have their origin in something real. Telander just kind of picks the least sensible direction and charges at it drunkenly.

For that reason, Telander has long been "the Stupid One" for me. After so many years of great coverage, after so many years of watching this team he loves struggle and suffer and fail, he just turned his brain off when it came to anything after 1985.

But now, a new darkness is spreading. I've already done one article from Tom Musick about something that was just ass-flappingly stupid. And I thought "Y'know it's training camp. It's dumb, but the guy has to write about something. He did it poorly, but he had to do it."

Not true. This is clearly going to be an ongoing thing. Because this baffling collection of phrases, entitled "Trestman's 'Great Value' Promise Checks Out," exists.

In accordance with the Old Ways, Tom's statements will be in italics.

The Brandon Marshall Saga: Your Media Coverage is Bad, and You Should Feel Bad

Earlier this week, Brandon Marshall made a somewhat unprompted remark about how he's still not feeling 100% after his offseason hip surgery. He said he's still searching for his place in this new offense, and that he feels like he's not where he wants to be, nor is he where the team wants him to be, with his recovery.

Shortly thereafter, he was "given four days off for personal reasons." The news media, not just the Chicago crowd but everyone, immediately lost their shit. That is not a phrase to be thrown around lightly in this context, people were legitimately saying that Brandon was on the verge of relapsing to his old ways. Multiple arrests, assaulting police officers, beating up people in nightclubs... everyone was already boarding the "team cancer" train.

The most heinous offender, at least in my mind, was CBS Chicago's own Dan Bernstein, who pushed out a real pipe-clogger called "Needy Marshall Makes Himself the Story." My initial plan was to fisk that column, as I have so often in the past. But Dan, though the worst of the bunch, is far from the only one who went down that road. And they all deserve every bit of ridicule they receive for this.

Opinionating: Ten Thoughts on the Bears and Beyond

Welcome to this week's installment of Opinionating, where I use my inflated sense of my own self-worth to share my musings on the Bears assuming you care.

1) Brandon Marshall will be fine.  There was some fuss today from the media because Marshall made some cryptic comments about feeling rushed in his recovery from surgery and his hip not being 100%, and Trestman made a seemingly innocuous but mildly concerning comment about Marshall putting up big numbers "if he plays all 16 games." I have to say I'm not worried. I cannot possibly imagine the Bears putting Marshall into two preseason games and then having him unable to compete in the regular season because of his recovery isn't complete. If that's the case, the entire training staff should be fired. Either way, I'd expect Brandon to tough it out considering he had an All-Pro type year with the hip injury that required the surgery, anyway.

2)Moon Mullin is insane, and apparently has the memory of a house fly. Mullin was one of the main pot-stirrers this morning, writing this piece of crap about Marshall's comments. I don't even think the bullshit comes from him writing about Marshall's injury comments, which were admittedly odd and seemingly out of the blue, but from him overreacting to Marshall saying he's still finding his place in the offense. Mullin states that Marshall may be worried about being passed up by Jeffery, and uses Jeffery getting twice as many targets in one half of preseason football as Marshall as evidence. This just a week after Mullin, I shit you not, was one of the chorus of reactionaries criticizing Jay for targeting Marshall too much. The Chicago media can't go one fucking PRESEASON GAME without sticking their own heads up their asses just to argue with their colons about what they want to shit out on their next column.

Brandon Marshall has played in four different offenses in his NFL career, and he's never had less than 1000 yds in any of those seasons. I think he can handle whatever role he's given.

3) I think Marquess Wilson will not only make the roster, but could work his way into a 50/50 timeshare with Earl Bennett as the third wide receiver well before the midpoint of the season. This isn't an overreaction to a couple of nice preseason catches so much as affirmation that the talent he put on display at Washington State has rightfully overrode any concerns about his personality that dropped him to the seventh round. Also, sadly, if Earl even makes it to the midpoint of the season healthy I'll be amazed.

4)I don't know how I'll ever get over the Bears cutting Matt Blanchard. He was their best backup QB prospect since Caleb Hanie.

5)He's been forgotten in all the buzz about Long and Mills and even Bushrod (who plays the "glamor" spot of the OL), but Matt Slauson looks like a fantastic pick-up. We'll see how the season shakes out, but if he can repeat the solid performance he put up as a Jet last year I think an extension for him would be high on Phil's list, with the rest of the OL (assuming Mills and Long stay starters) under contract for the next few years.

6)Lance Louis was released today. That's a fact, not an opinion, but it's worth mentioning. I am glad that Phil decided not to trust the guard spot to a guy with one working leg, even though many at the time were quite upset to lose the best Bears offensive lineman from the past several years. Louis has always had issues with injuries, though, so it'll be interesting to see if anyone takes another chance on a one-dimensional, injury prone guard.

7)Also, the Louis news has me thinking that Jeff Ireland may be taking the Jerry Angelo approach to building around a franchise QB. Build an offensive line out of washed up veterans and a second year tackle who sucked on the right side as a rookie but will somehow play better at left tackle because "it's his natural position." I'll admit to thinking Tannehill would be a bust, when it turns out the kid can probably play, but he's going to have a hard time developing behind that protection.

8)I still feel really, really bad about Kevin Kolb. Robert Mays of Grantland said that Kolb's issue was an inability to avoid hits, which, even if true (and I don't believe it is. Kolb was sliding after a scramble when he took a knee to the back of his head. How the hell could he have avoided that?), seems unnecessarily cruel. Let's blame a guy who may suffer from a debilitating brain injury for the rest of his life for the death of his career while its body is still warm. I'd really like to put Mays behind last year's Cardinals offensive line to demonstrate the proper way to avoid a hit in that situation. You'd have a better chance of avoiding a hit if you ratted on Aaron Hernandez than playing behind that line (Last Hernandez joke I'll ever make. I swear. Unless you thought it was funny).

9) I love Mike Leach way more than I should, and his reaction to Jeff Tuel (his QB last year at Washington State) starting week one was classic.

10) I am terribly sad that no one in all of this quarterback insanity has signed JaMarcus Russell. Come on, that would be hysterical, and you know it. Nobody in the NFL knows the value of losing in hilarious fashion, except Rex Ryan. Clearly. Pull the trigger, Rex. JaMarcus is the way.

The Jay Cutler Myth, and Why it Doesn't Matter

Loyal listeners of our podcast will know that, after the Bears' final game last year, and after we knew they would not make the playoffs, I made a bet with Erik that I would accept Jay as the quarterback of the Bears' future if the Ravens won the Super Bowl.

This may seem like an arbitrary bet, but it was nothing of the sort. Last year's Ravens were eerily identical to the Bears, and in fact I could make a case that those Ravens were worse than the Bears. Ray Rice and Matt Forte are equivalent, the Bear defense was significantly better at every position than Baltimore and had a similarly legendary MLB who was failing to produce much of anything. The Bears had a better receiving corps (sans the walking disaster we codename Kellen Davis (also, as an aside, Anquan Boldin was not great last year. He caught on during the playoffs, but his regular season was less than mediocre)). In fact, the only real difference was that the Bear offensive line was worse.

You may have noticed I intentionally glossed over the most obvious comparison: quarterback. If you will remember, before the Ravens won the Super Bowl, it was largely accepted that they would never be able to win the big one so long as Joe Flacco was their quarterback. In my mind, if the Ravens won a Super Bowl with Flacco it would prove the Bears could win one with Jay. Why? Well, let's look at the stats:

QB1 Average season: 230ypg, 136 TDs, 100 INTs, 7.2 Y/A, 60.8% completion percentage.
QB2 Average season: 220ypg, 102 TDs, 56 INTs, 7.1 Y/A, 60.5% completion percentage.

Thoase are the career averages for Cutler and Flacco. QB1 is Jay, but really, it shouldn't matter which is which, those stats are nearly identical. Give Flacco two more years to accrue TDs and INTs and he'll end up very near Cutler's grand total, with slightly more TDs and slightly fewer INTs (but of course he has had much, much better receivers over his career). These two are practically the same person.

So what am I saying? Well, first, this Bear team can win a Super Bowl with Jay at the helm. For all the flak Jay takes, and admittedly I have given a lot of it, he is the best QB in Bear history, and it isn't really close. The two most important stats for a QB are not TDs and INTs, they are Yards per Attempt and Completion Percentage, and Jay is above average over his career in both categories. I like Jay as the Bears' quarterback.

I started this article with nice things about Jay to prove to ESPN Chicago that, yes, it IS possible, and now that you understand I am approaching this with goodwill, I ask that you give me some time to sound like I am criticizing Jay. I promise my point here is not meant to be negative towards our quarterback, but instead to dispell a nagging belief many Bear fans hold that simply will not hold true: that we do not know who Jay Cutler is or who he can be.

Scroll back up to that QB1 career stat line. Now compare those stats to these stats:

58.8% completion percentage, 6.6 YPA
63.6% completion percentage, 7.6 YPA

Those are the two worst instances over a season in which Jay has played at least 15 games, and the two best. In fact, if you remove the worst and best season for each from Jay's 7 years, just the one outlier on either end, you get something even more beholden to the point I will make:

60.4% completion percentage, 7.0 YPA
62.3% completion percentage, 7.5 YPA

Eerily similar, yes? Jay has played 5 15 or 16 game seasons and they are nearly identical. His two years in Denver have an inflated completion percentage because of the offense they ran (which, by the way, is indeed more similar to the offense the Bears will run this year than any of the offenses he has run in Chicago), but his YPA have largely floated between 7 and 7.5, his completion % hovers around 60%, and his TD and INT percentages also hold to within 1% of eachother over his whole career. This is not the career path of a confusing quarterback. It is not the career path of a quarterback ready for a breakout year. It is the career path for a consistently slightly above-average quarterback.

It may seem, watching Jay game to game, that he IS inconsistent. Some games he seems to be locked in like Drew Brees, other games he looks like Jonathan Quinn. But his inconsistency is, humorously, incredibly consistent. Let's take his last 2 full seasons. Last year Jay had 8 games with a QB rating of over 80 and 8 games with a QB rating under 80. Three seasons ago Jay had 9 games with a QB rating over 80 and 7 games with a QB rating under 80. Certainly, some of those games varied wildly, but his rating for his career has evened out at an 84. That is practically the definition of a slightly above-average QB (and QB rating is not a perfect measure by any means, but combined with everything else, it adds to the proof).

The point I am making here, and what I want our readers to understand, is twofold: Jay will not have a breakout year this year, but he won't be bad either. Jay will be the same quarterback he has always been. His inconsistencies in game, ironically, make up the greater whole of Jay Cutler that is actually an incredibly consistent quarterback.

But that is not a bad thing. Remember Joe Flacco. Go look back at that QB2 line. That QB just won a Super Bowl last year with a worse defense and a worse supporting cast. His career line? It's worse. So this year, when you're sitting through a game where Jay has thrown three picks and all hope seems lost, remember that Jay is consistent in his inconsistencies. Remember that the game with the 130 QB rating will come soon to even it out. Remember that Joe Flacco is just as consistently inconsistent as Jay. And now he has a Super Bowl ring.

SKOdCast Episode 14: The One Where Iggins! Craps Himself (That is not a Metaphor) is Now Up!

Listen as we all get way too excited about the Bears offensive line and the rest of the offense, discuss Phil Emery's offseason, the potential last days of the J'Marcus Webb Era, the sad career of Kevin Kolb, and a double whammy God Dammit Bears Fans (featuring Ditka, of course). Also, Iggins! has to leave mid-cast with the shits.

Episode 14 of the SKOdCast Live at 6:15

Follow along live as we discuss developments in the last two preseason games, roster cuts, Goddammit Bears Fans, and more.


Link!

Bears 27, Raiders 3- BEST MEANINGLESS HALF OF FOOTBALL EVAR

Tomorrow the columns will come. Oh lawd, will they come. They will smarm and snicker, they will laugh at you for having the unmitigated GALL for getting excited based on the Bears starters putting on a clinic on both sides of the ball. "Tis the preseason!" they will shout. "'Tis the woeful Raiders!" they will cry. They will do this while ignoring that they spent the last week making comments about Cutler favoring Brandon Marshall too much or claiming his interception is proof he won't make the reads necessary to fit Trestman's offense, because the preseason only matters when they say it does.

The truth is this: there's probably not too much we saw tonight that we can use to predict regular season performance. Even garbage teams (and my God, these Raiders are terrible) will rarely roll over for 27 points in the first half. That said, it's worth noting that the Bears offenses of previous seasons have rarely blown anyone away even in the exhibition slate, and the offensive line especially has struggled to keep Jay upright even against some rather lackluster competition. They did both tonight, and dammit, let no one begrudge you of your right to feel modestly optimistic that maybe the offense won't suck eggs for once.

To the breakdown:

The Good:

The Offensive Line: Jay dropped back 21 times and was never sacked. The only time he was even touched came on a bad snap, and they committed just one penalty. Forte and Bush rushed for a combined 13 rushes for 97 YDs and 2 TDs in the first half, which averages out to 7.5 yards per rush, and 4.8 yards per rush if you're using the Hub Arkush metric and automatically discounting the longest run of the game because it gets in the way of your argument. I don't know if Kyle Long was as dominant as he was last week, but he and Mills were both mostly flawless in pass protection and the Bears gained positive yards almost every time they ran to their side. It seems like the kids will be there on opening day, so it's good to see that they at least seem to be something other than awful.

The Defense: Matt Flynn is terrible and I will maintain that opinion to the grave, but it's still comforting to see the Bears hold a shit offense to just 3 pts (on a freaking massive kick from Sebastian Janikowski, nonetheless) and less than 100 yards of offense. In roughly twelve drives this preseason, the Bears starting defense has allowed just 3 points and forced five turnovers. Again, it's the preseason, but it's better than the alternative.

Jay Cutler: The statsheet will say he was 12/21, but he suffered six drops and missed on just three attempts. He was spot on all night, made great decisions, distributed the ball well, and for the first time all preseason worked in some deep balls and some intermediate throws. This will be his final action of the preseason, and he finished 22/34 (64.7%) for 236 yds (7.0 YPA), 2 TDs, 2 INTs, and an 80.0 rating. None of those numbers is particularly impressive, but they'd have been a lot better without the drops tonight and the pick against Carolina that came from Alshon's mistake. The first team offense under Cutler scored 41 points in 13 drives. If there's anything to take from those numbers, it's that if Jay can keep the completion % high and keep drives alive to allow the Bears to use Forte as often as possible, the team will score a lot of points.

Matt Forte: Make no mistake about it folks, for all of the talk about this being Jay's big year, and even though the Bears will undoubtedly throw the ball more than they ever have in the Cutler Era, the success of this offense still depends on Matt Forte. Trestman gets that. Tice tried to get it, but he wrongfully assumed that meant using Forte as the basis of a power offense. Trestman knows that you can run an offense through a runningback by throwing to him as well, and Forte showed what he can do on his 32 yard TD catch on a simple swing route. Charlie Garner caught 91 passes under Trestman in 2002. Forte should be licking his chops. Not to say that he'll be under-used as a runner, considering he's run it 14 times for 150 yds in the last two games.

Alshon Jeffery: I don't know if Jeffery will ever run anything that isn't a slant route all year long. He may not have to. It's working well so far, as he had 7 catches for 77 yards, almost all on slants. I just hope he can stay healthy, because he and Marshall can really be something special together.

The Bad:

Brandon Marshall: Not his night. No need to say anymore, he's roughly 950th on my list of concerns about the Bears offense, but yeah....couple of really bad drops. Oh well. Brandon Marshall is awesome.

Fendi Onobun: For anyone who misses Kellen Davis, Fendi seems more than willing to fill the role of athletic tight end who does everything but actually catch the goddamn ball. The sad thing is he might still make the roster, because the depth at tight end behind Marty B is....uninspiring. God damn you, Evan Rodriguez.

J'Marcus Webb: He didn't really play horribly, but another holding penalty was the last thing he needed with his roster spot as tenuous as it can be. For as much as I've been hard on the guy all offseason, he still has more upside than a guy like Jon Scott, but he's done himself no favors as far as convincing the coaching staff.

That's all for now. I won't be doing a recap next week, because the fourth preseason game is garbage, but I look forward to seeing you all in a few weeks when things actually matter. Hopefully we'll see a Bears offense that looks at least somewhat like the one we saw in the first half tonight. Either way, real football is near and there's a lot of reason to be excited. Go Bears.

Bits and Bites, Preseason Game 2

I apologize for the tardiness of this article, near as we are to the third game of the preseason. But I’ve been very busy this week and Kyle kept posting shit all the time. An orderly posting schedule is important to me, so I’ve left it this late.

Anyway, there were a lot of things to talk about concerning the Bears-Chargers game last week, and since the SKOdcast got moved we haven’t really talked about them much. I knew I’d find gold in the media reaction to the game, but when I got there I found something that I have never found before: there are too many stupid columns for me to do them all. Three stuck out in particular.

So I thought this was a good time to bring out an idea I had tossed around last year but never really moved on. There’s really one particular argument that irks me about any given story, and then I go back and make fun of the rest of it. But I figured I’d just take that one argument from those three columns and talk about it at greater length. Kyle must be rubbing off on me.

And so, without further ado, the first edition of Bits and Bites.

Does Cutler Target Marshall Too Much?

It's a common refrain among Bears fans, media, and the usual Cutler critics that Jay targets Brandon Marshall too much. This seems a pretty fair assessment when you consider that Marshall represented over 40% of the Bears targets last year, and 46% of their total passing yardage last year. Add in the fact that Jay targeted Marshall on all 5 of his passes in the second preseason game last week, and the fear remains that Phil Emery's big offseason addition of Martellus Bennett, or the continued development of Alshon Jeffery, is all for naught: Jay will continue to look Brandon's way on every play.

Is this true? Well, the overall numbers from 2012 certainly support this hypothesis, as I said above. I think the truth, however, isn't quite as bad as many people think.

 For one, when Brandon Marshall and Jay Cutler were together in Denver from 2007-2008, Jay attempted over 1083 passes, and completed 681 of them. Unfortunately, targeting data is unavailable from those years, but we do know that Marshall came down with 206 of those passes. That means Marshall accounted for roughly 30% of Jay's completions, a fairly standard number for a number one receiver, and well below the 41% of Bears completions that Marshall accounted for last year.

I can feel Iggins! eyes rolling as I've brought up the 2007-2008 Broncos again, but they're not really the crux of my argument. That was merely to establish that 30% of targets or total completions for a #1 receiver is a fairly healthy #. Consider that Tom Brady's top target last year, Wes Welker, got 27.5% of Brady's targets and 29% of Brady's completions in a much-more diverse offense than whatever the hell it was Mike Tice thought he was doing last year.

There are two things to consider when arguing that Jay targeted Brandon too much last year: injuries and incompetence, the former in terms of Earl Bennet and Alshon Jeffery, and the latter notably in the form of two individuals named Kellen Davis and Devin Hester. In the first two games last year when Jay had his entire depth chart to throw to (Marshall, Jeffery, Bennett, Hester, Forte, and Davis), Marshall accounted for 32% of Jay's targets and 34% of his completions. Slightly higher than their old numbers in Denver, but still reasonable.

In week three, Matt Forte was out with an injury, the first of the year for the offense, but Jay still distributed the ball fairly evenly, targeting Marshall on 11 of his 31 passes while targeting Jeffery on 7, Bennett, Hester, and Davis on 9 total, and Bush on 4.

Week four, however, is where the trouble started. Earl Bennett missed the game with an injury, and Jay targeted Hester and Davis with a combined eight passes, while targeting Marshall with eight as well. Marshall caught seven of his eight targets, while Hester and Davis caught 6/8. Balance was good, everyone was happy.

Over the next eight games, however, either Bennett or Jeffery (and sometimes both) were out of the lineup. In that time, with Hester and Davis now serving as two of Jay's top four targets, Marshall's target % shot all the way up 47.5%. The reason? Well my theory is that it had something to do with Davis catching a very mediocre 8 of 19 targets (42% catch rate, and I know you're thinking "holy shit, was it ever that high?") while Hester, who, to his credit, caught 13 of 20 balls, racked up just a mediocre 11 yards a catch in that span and had several absolutely brutal drops. Compared with the absolutely masterful performance of Marshall in that time period (he caught an absurd 63% of those targets while averaging 12.4 YPC, in case you needed me to remind you that Brandon Marshall is fucking awesome), it makes sense that Jay said "to hell with balance."  By the end of the season, the ineptitude of Hester and Davis led Jay to simply ignore them, as the two of them combined for just two targets in the last three games.

It's worth noting that Forte's % of Jay's targets remained pretty consistent throughout the season at about 12% (which is too damn low, but I think we all know Tice is to blame for that more than Jay), and that in the five games where Jay had all three of his top three wideouts, he targeted the Jeffery and Bennett duo (39%) just as often as he did Marshall (39%).

So does Jay target Marshall too much? It's hard to say that when it works so damn well. It's pretty clear that for the Bears to have a healthy passing game in 2013, however, he is going to have to spread the ball around. I don't think it's fundamentally against Jay's nature to do so. He did it quite well in Denver, and he was always pretty even-handed with all of his shitty receivers in the years before Marshall came to Chicago, so I think he's capable of it. I just think crucifying him based on last year seems a bit harsh, since he clearly started with good intentions and the stats show that he was more than willing to throw to people who weren't Kellen Davis and Devin Hester.

The key for balance in 2013, then, is not some fundamental change in Jay's approach, as some have suggested, so much as it is important that his other receivers stay healthy, his tight end maybe try catching more than one out of every three passes thrown his way, and Marc Trestman hopefully understanding that Matt Forte can do some beautiful things downfield if you let him try.

The SKOdCast is Temporarily Moving!

Hello folks. We will still have a SKOdCast this week but due to a change in my work schedule we'll be bringing you the truth at 6:15 PM SUNDAY night. We will see you then as we go crazy trying to cram in two weeks worth of preseason reactions into one podcast!

As always, you can find it here: http://talkshoe.com/tc/127741

Opinionating: Ten Thoughts on the Bears and Beyond

You know I haven't written one of my long, stat-filled monologues lately, and it's because I've had a number of thoughts that seemed too incomplete for a full post but too irrelevant to mention or expound upon in the podcast, so I've kind of just held onto them. As an egotistical windbag, however, I think, in the tradition of talking heads like Peter King, I'll start a new semi-regular feature with my ten thoughts of the moment on the Bears and the rest of the NFL. Some of these have logic and reason to them, others do not. So here we go.

1. Jon Bostic would be my starter at MLB in week one whether DJ Williams was healthy or not. I'm not one to overrate a couple of big plays. A simple pick six and a massive hit aren't enough to blind me to Bostic's weaknesses in coverage and the fact that he overruns plays. That said, people who remember DJ Williams as some kind of good middle linebacker are remembering a myth. I realize he has name recognition and once led the league in the ridiculously overrated statistic of tackles, but he has generally played better in his career at OLB and has never been a consistent coverage guy in the middle. If we're picking between two guys who will rack up a bunch of tackles and occasionally get embarrassed in coverage, I'll take the kid who might develop into something.

2. It's early and it's guaranteed they will all struggle to some extent at some point, but if Long, Bostic, Mills, Jeffery, McClellin, and Frey all start or contribute heavily in their first and second years, Emery's first two draft classes would already put much of Angelo's last half-decade to shame. They don't even necessarily have to be that good, the mere fact that they're going to set foot on the field trumps Angelo's classes of non-entities like Jarron Gilbert, Michael Okwo, Dan Bazuin, and Juaquin Iglesias.

3. With Emery's willingness to change 4/5 starters on a bad offensive line in offseason, despite limited cap space, you start to question all of Angelo's "we like our guys" and "good offensive linemen are hard to find" excuses for his failure to do the same.

4. I think people who expect Jay to have that "breakout season" are somewhat mistaken. I think Jay will probably just look a lot more like that guy in Denver we thought we were getting. That's good with me. If Jay can just move the ball, he has two things in Matt Forte and an actual defense that he didn't have in Denver that I think can make all the difference.

5. I am starting to have serious doubts about the future of Earl Bennett's career. This saddens me greatly, but there are enough young guys in camp who have done something this offseason to make you wonder how long Earl's spot is guaranteed. Part of me wonders if they might put him on the PUP if his concussion lingers, and give Anderson or Wilson six weeks to impress them.

6. I still don't think EJ Manuel will be good in the NFL. I don't see why the Bills would bother with starting Kevin Kolb in front of him, anyway. There's enough talent on the Bills offense that I don't think they'd be throwing Manuel to the wolves. Might as well see what he can do.

7. I still think the Ravens win the AFC North. Much like people are overreacting to the Bears losing Urlacher, many of the players the Ravens lost weren't actually that good, and they've made some solid upgrades with less-notable names. Also, considering the alternative is expecting the Bengals to improve for a third straight year, I'm hesitant to pull the trigger there.

8. I can't predict the NFC South to save my ass. I could see any team in that damn division going 6-10 or 11-5. Except maybe Tampa. My faith in Josh Freeman isn't terribly high, largely because I think Greg Schiano hates him.For what it's worth, I hate Greg Schiano.

9. I'd be legitimately afraid of the young talent the Vikings are accumulating, were it not for the fact that Christian Ponder is their QB. You get the feeling they'll finally move on from that mistake right as Peterson's legs disintigrate and the change won't make any difference anymore.

10. He's a total ass, but I feel kind of bad for Philip Rivers. He's going to die this year. That team is garbage.

Bears 20, Chargers 7 (Because the Recaps Stop When the Starters Do)

Tonight the Bears first-team offense came in with a lot to prove, if you're Hub Arkush, and were otherwise playing in a meaningless game according to everyone sane. Nonetheless, they performed well, with a few rather glaring mistakes in the form of two sacks and a brutal INT. Despite those hiccups that ruined two drives, two other drives ended with touchdowns thanks to a combination of some excellent run-blocking and a Chargers defense courteous enough to leave Marshall single-covered on four of his five targets (guess which one was the interception!). Trestman decided to pull the starters on a high note, so their night ended after four drives.

On defense, turnovers are still the story, with the team generating eight of them so far this preseason along with four sacks. The usual caveat that the preseason means nothing aside, this still looks like a Lovie Smith defense.

Finally, the big story of the night was the two rookies on the right side of the offensive line, and they certainly impressed. I'll discuss this more in the breakdown, so onto the specifics:

The Good:

Kyle Long: Holy shit, this kid is strong. He'll make his fair share of mistakes this year, and his technique is raw, but you saw tonight why Emery believes in him so strongly: he's a goddamn animal. He was demolishing in both pass protection and the run game, and paved the way for much of the Bears success to his side of the field. He finished last week against Carolina with a +2.3 grade from Pro Football Focus and a nice spot at the top of the depth chart, tonight he showed everyone he's here to stay.

Jordan Mills: He wasn't as dominant as Long, and Long certainly seemed to be the greater contributor in the run game, but Mills held his own in pass protection, got some push in the run game, and made no mistakes. If he can repeat this performance next week he'll for sure be the guy in week one, and J'Marcus Webb should be very, very frightened.

Brandon Marshall: He missed last week, but his presence was impossible to ignore this week as he caught a pass to convert a 3rd down on the Bears second drive, then followed it up with a TD reception where he schooled an over-matched DB.

Matt Forte: He can still scoot. He got two great blocks from Jeffery and Bushrod to spring him on his 58 yard run, but he still gets credit for turning on the second gear and bolting away. As long as the offense starts with him, run or pass, good things will happen.

Jon Bostic: He's still making plays. He absolutely killed a man to break up a pass (and it probably should have been ruled a fumble), and he's done nothing to give anyone doubts about starting him week one. He got turned around on a touchdown pass again, but overall he's farther along than we could have expected. It was a good night for Phil Emery's 2013 draft class.

Marc Trestman: I assume we'll probably see a few attempts at going deep in game 3, or maybe he's saving those for the real deal, but so far I am pleased with the vanilla version of his offense. They led with the run tonight, moved the ball with bootlegs and controlled passes, and attacked all sides of the field. Still, I'd like to see them work in Martellus Bennett and Alshon Jeffery more next week.

The Bad:

That Interception: I'm not putting Jay entirely in the bad category, he was 4/5 and had a TD pass and a 98.3 rating (so far this preseason he's 10/13, so, ACCURACY ISSUES TOTALLY FIXED GUYS), and even though some have criticized him for over-targeting Marshall, he was right to do so on the four completions, because Marshall was single covered. On the interception, however, he overreacted to pressure and forced it into double coverage to Marshall. It was exactly the kind of thing you'd hope to see him avoid, considering he's supposed to have other guys he can look to when he's under pressure this year. Last week's INT wasn't on him, but this one was entirely his fault. He also held onto the ball too long on the second sack of the night, but it was 3rd and 18 so he didn't exactly screw anyone but himself by taking a sack instead of throwing it away. Play smarter, Jay.

That's really all I have in the negative column. I was pleased with tonight's performance, mostly because no one got hurt. The only real takeaway that matters is that Mills and Long did nothing to dissuade Trestman from giving them another week in the starting lineup. Wouldn't it just be the damnedest thing if the Bears drafted not one, but TWO competent linemen? Oh, what a fevered dream that is.

That's all for now. Go Bears.

The Entire Start Kyle Orton Offseason, in One Convenient Place!

First of all, I want to remind everyone that we'll be in the Shoutbox tonight during the game, so feel free to drop in and overreact to a meaningless game with us. 

Second of all, it occurred to me that many of you may have been watching the Blackhawks and doing things with your lives after the end of last season, and may have missed many of our reactions and takes on the various Bears topics that occurred since the end of last season; so I figured I'd collect them all for you in a neat package. Here’s everything important we wrote before July, when you probably started actually caring about the Bears. And don't forget to check the SKOdcast archives, either here or on iTunes for any episodes you may have missed.

The Lovie Firing:

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/01/for-record-lovie-sads-and-whats-next.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/01/lovie-we-hardly-knew-ye-we-will-drown.html

The Trestman Hiring (AKA Iggins! panics over hiring a CFL coach, although he's mostly calmed down since then):

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/01/for-record-blame-canada-edition.html

Free Agent Frenzy:

 http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/03/me-and-marty-b-bears-free-agency-so-far.html

The End of the Urlacher Era:

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/03/goodbye-brian.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/03/sko-vs-telander-4-pastening.html

Trestman’s Offense and Speculation:

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/mike-martz-mike-tice-and-myth-of.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/schemin-marc-trestman.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-read-option-pistol-and-spread-are.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/can-tim-tebow-be-fixed-what-about-jay.html

Draft Madness (What We Thought, and What Erik Thought About What Rick Morrissey Thought):

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/rick-morrisseys-first-annual-pre-draft.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/04/2013-bears-draft-talent-trumps-all.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/05/let-me-first-take-this-opportunity-to_1.html

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/05/people-i-hate-you-if-youre-still.html

Iggins! Exposes the Lies of the Offseason:

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-dead-period-home-stretch-how-to.html

Feeling Good about Phil Emery and Marc Trestman:

http://www.startkyleorton.blogspot.com/2013/06/moneybears-phil-emery-marc-trestman-and.html

Episode 13 of the SKOdCast is Now Up!

SKOdcast Episode 13: Returning to the return of the last time we returned to Thunderdome: Exodus!

On tonight's episode we'll discuss last week's game, J'Marcus/Jordan Mills, my unabiding passion for Marquess Wilson, Jamaal Charles fear, and probably killer robots.

LINK ME BABY

Iggins! interviews ESPN Chicago, Preseason Game 1

Welcome, loyal SKOfans, to the first in a (hopefully) long series of interviews with a true titan in the industry, ESPN Chicago. It is a true honor and priviledge to be able to gain additional insight into what we see on the television through people who a-

DID YOU SEE THE J'MARCUS SACK?!?!?!

Er... I thought I was going to be interviewing someone FROM ESPN Chicago? Like, Wright or Dickerson? Who... who are you?

Bears-Panthers Notes (On the Parts that Sorta Mattered, but Not Really)

I said on the podcast this week that I fully expected a Cutler interception on the first series that would cause the usual fits of hysteria and naysaying, and Jay did not disappoint. Sure, old fuddy-duddy Jim Miller had to correctly point out that Alshon cut off his crossing route and was at fault, but since when has that ever mattered? Bears football is back, and there's no better way to announce that than a deflating interception.

Anyways, it's a Friday night and I have better things to do than watch Josh McCown, so here's the brief recap:

The Good:

The Offense: With a big O, I'm not referring to performance so much as the tiny glimpses of Trestman's philosophy that we saw. Shotgun formation early and often, but never of the suicidal empty-backfield variety, lots of Trips WR sets with Martellus moving around the field. Short drops. Quick decisions. Also nice to see them feature the backs in the passing game right away. The things we've been hoping for for years.

Jon Bostic: He was beat in coverage on the Panthers first touchdown, but he recovered nicely with good pursuit in the run game and beautiful coverage leading to an interception. I bear DJ Williams no ill will, but it would be nice to see a rookie start and produce immediately.

Secondary: Tight coverage by Jennings and Tillman for the most part, with a couple of nice pass breakups. Presumptive nickelback Frey had a nice pass deflection that should have been a pick-six as well.

Jay Cutler: The interception was not his fault, and he looked fairly comfortable. The ball came out quickly, and he ended 6/8 for 56 yards (7.0), and he threw the ball away when he needed to.


The Bad:

J'Marcus Webb: Don't want to overreact to one play, but it's all we've got so far, and that sack killed an otherwise promising drive.

Defensive line: Not much in the way of penetration, and Nate Collins especially seemed to be taken out fairly easily in the run game.


 Injuries: Not good to see Melton go down for any length of time.


That's all for now. Tune in to the SKOdCast Tuesday as we make sure to FREAK THE F*&K OUT OVER EVERYTHING. Or something.

Go Bears.

The Dumbest Thing I've Ever Read

We've all spoken at length about the tendency of reporters to fill the preseason with empty conjecture and pointless speculation. I've done more than my fair share of mockery of exactly those things. But let's be honest: that's just the way it has to be. They can't not report on team happenings, but nothing really worth talking about is guaranteed to happen. So sometimes they have to dig pretty deep to even find something they can write an article about. 

I'll mock them for doing it poorly, but I get it. You've gotta report on something, but there's nothing really to report on.

Then there's this. On Tuesday, as everyone in Illinois knows, we got our monthly test of the tornado siren system. I don't know if it's the same way in every state and I can't be bothered to look, but this is something that has happened in Illinois literally every first Tuesday of every month I've been alive. 

Enter Tom Musick, a man who somehow wound up working under Hub Arkush. In terms of sportswriter career progression, this is pretty much the version of giving a defeated sigh and agreeing to do an Uwe Boll movie. I used to wonder how Hub even got these guys to come work for him, in fact I believe there is audio evidence of me wondering that exact thing in episode 11 of the SKOdcast.

But after today, I know exactly how. This piece is called "Siren Fails to Slow Down Bears." And it is literally the dumbest thing, Bears-related or otherwise, that I have ever read. In it, Musick marvels at the fact that a routine test of the state's tornado warning sirens did not cause the Bears practice to break down into a screaming orgy of confused violence.

I just... I don't even know where to begin. I'm sorry, Italics, but you must bear the burden of his words.

Episode 12 of the SKOdCast is Now Up:

In which we discuss ACL tears and Kintaro of Mortal Kombat II fame:

Episode 12: The SKOdcast Cometh

Greetings, friends! Now that there's football in our lives again, we're working back toward a weekly episode of the SKOdcast. Join us tonight at 6:15 central as we talk more training camp: the hip new injury craze all the kids are trying, position battles, the ongoing odyssey of the Futtbumbler and more!

Well, maybe more. Those are the only three things on the docket. But we might discuss more than that. We usually end up going on tangents. But you get what I'm saying.

LINK ME

Episode 11 of the SKOdCast is Now Up!

SKOdcast 11: The Reckoning

Join us tonight at 6:15 for episode 11 of the SKOdcast, in which Red and I take on training camp rumors, Hub Arkush's new epicenter of stupid and so on, without Iggins because he's doing some farm thing for his birthday. Or something like that, it wasn't really made clear to me.

The Chicago Sun-Times, the Gift That Keeps on Giving

You know when I said in last week's column that the hack writers would come out firing, I didn't realize that I was going to be handed a twofer by the Intrepid Ricks of the Sun-Times.

Not to be outdone by Telander's vague ramblings and misapplied talents, Morrissey stepped up to the plate to remind us all that you can never be sad if you just don't hope for anything. Don't let the title "MORRISEY: Bears look like an 8-8 team" fool you. This column is not about the Bears. This is about Rick Morrissey's inability to feel joy until at last an intrepid adventurer returns the Casket to its ancient home.

As is our custom, Rick will be in italics.

The Further Adventures of Ace Reporter Rick Telander: At This Point, It's Almost Impressive

As the sun rises on a world that is once again warmed by the presence of football, so too do we who talk about the Bears rise from our ancient slumbers. Rejuvenated by the healing rays of training camp, we seek out fresh news. Even throughout the offseason, I'll admit that I checked the big sites almost daily in the hope of fresh news. Seeing as you're reading this, I assume that you too care about Bears news.

And so we turn to the reporters. Those who can swing by training camp every day. Those with access to players and coaches. And they come out of their caves firing; making wild conjectures about the most simple training camp occurrences and laying down bold predictions for the entire season based on an errant pass or stiff exchange between players.

This year is no exception. In fact, furious over the death of his beloved Pro Football Weekly, our ancient nemesis Hub Arkush launched his very own website more or less dedicated to overreacting to Bears news. And I fully intended to bring you a fresh offering from him today.

But as is his wont, Rick Telander just will not go down without a fight. Where there is baseless conjecture to be made, they say he will never fail to appear. In our direst need for totally irrelevant and almost certainly inaccurate coverage, he comes forth into the light. And so, Hub must wait. For Telander has spoken.

Oh My God, It's Getting Closer

I woke up this morning in a damn good mood. You know why? Because Bears training camp starts this week, with players beginning to arrive today. Now, I'm not crazy about reading the news articles related to camp (ZOMG. DOES JAY CUTLER HAVE A LOT TO PROVE THIS YEAR? NO WAY and OH MAN IT IS SO WEIRD WITHOUT URLACHER HERE INNIT), but I am glad that football is starting. From the moment that first practice snap occurs football once more ascends to the top of the ladder of our national interest, we can all keep pretending baseball doesn't exist, and we can begin our breathless countdown to a preseason game that we'll stop watching after the starters leave by the third series. Most importantly, we can overreact to all of these things listed above. It's a great time to be alive.

Bears camp has been a pretty hot topic most of the last few years, with the arrival of Cutler in 2009, the signing of Julius Peppers in 2010, and the Marshall/Jeffery acquisitions of 2012 providing yearly buzz along with the seventeen or eighteen different offensive coordinators used in that time period. This year, however, takes the cake, with the following overplayed storylines sure to dominate:

1) Jay Cutler. Frankly, based on the way this offseason has gone with regards to Cutler columns, I hope Jay has changed his license plate to "NO XCUZ'S", because that's the unofficial motto of his 2013 campaign. Never mind that we've yet to see if any of the additions to the offensive line can play, or if his wide receivers can actually stay healthy for once, or whether Marc Trestman still knows how to call an NFL offense. The additions of Martellus Bennet and Jermon Bushrod mean that Jay's now guiding an offense equivalent to the 1999 Rams and anything shy of that vague and nebulous concept of an elite season he's been haunted by will result in him being run out of town on a rail.

This is bullshit, of course. Jay Cutler has to be better than every other quarterback on the market next year. Unless you're really fond of the Ryan Fitzpatrick's of the world or you're foolish enough to think Emery and Trestman are willing to sacrifice good chunks of the prime years of Marshall, Forte, etc. to build around a rookie QB next year, that's not going to be hard for Jay to do. It's likely all Jay has to do to get an extension is survive 16 games without a major injury. What he hopes to determine with his play this year is how much money that extension will pay him.

2) Urlacher. Leadership. Identity. Lost. Scared (Related: How does Jon Bostic/DJ Williams/James Anderson feel stepping into Urlacher's shoes, besides the uncomfortable burning on their feet?).  Some combination of those words will be used in a number of stories about how odd it is for the team to get together without Urlacher. Most of these are just recycled articles from 2011 because it's easy to use a find and replace to switch "Olin Kreutz" for Brian Urlacher. In the end, the transition will be as relatively easy as that one was because players are not that stupid, and they tend to accept the guy who can play football over the guy who no longer could.

3)Meet the New Boss, He's Weird as Shit and has a Bad Combover. Marc Trestman's a weird dude.  I tried reading his book. In the intro his ghostwriter says "Marc and I realized we basically had content for two books, one about strategy and X's and O's, and one about bullshit coaching cliches and maybe a mention or two of God" (I may have loosely paraphrased there). Much to my chagrin, the book was a collection of weird, empty coaching patois instead of the insight into his offense I was hoping for. Long story short, Trestman is odd. He just escaped from Canada, for fuck's sake. That'll change a man. He's going to do things differently than Lovie, and many things, positive and negative, will be said about this. We have no idea of measuring whether his weirdness means anything until the games matter, however, so just ignore Dan Bernstein on this one.

4) Kyle Long Did (X) Today. This one's actually kind of interesting. It'll be worth noting whether Long looks absolutely lost or not given his concerning lack of experience in college. That said, Gabe Carimi was the star of two consecutive training camps so take all of this with a grain of salt.

5) Contract Extensions. Jay. Tillman. Melton. Jennings. These guys are on the last years of their deal. It stands to reason that Emery, the general manager, is aware of this fact. He will still get asked 75 questions a day about it like he's fucking blind, and someone (probably Telander) seems to think they will eventually get Phil to say "Holy shit, dude. Not sure how I missed that. I'll get right on it." Never mind that there are roughly 80 ways that NFL contracts are skewed in favor of teams retaining players, and that the absolutely earliest that any of these situations would actually be problematic is next fucking March, this will be treated as some kind of massive dark cloud hanging over everyone.

6) Josh Lenz. I don't know whether this guy will be overrated or not. But he's fast, scrappy, white, and went to Iowa State, so...well, yes. He's going to be overrated. Ignore anything you hear about him.

That said, enjoy this day. Bear football is now a light at the end of this miserable offseason tunnel. We're getting close. Go Bears.

Episode 10 of the SKOdCast Now Up!

Podcast Tonight at 6:15 PM

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/127741

Listen Live as we discuss:

-What a Director of Analytics is, and why it's a good thing
-Stupid shit Bears and NFL coaches do that we hope will go away.
-Erik's hilariously failed attempt at defending the honor of Aaron Hernandez.
-Goddammit, Bears Fans.

SKOdcast Episode 9: Tourney Final and Chicago Sports Outlook

In tonight's episode we finish the tournament and discuss the current Chicago sports outlook. We also somehow weasel Anne Frank, Roman Polanski, and further discussions on Chris (OR IS HE?!) Long into there. Check it out on iTunes and leave a review! Enjoy!

MoneyBears? Phil Emery, Marc Trestman, and the Evolution of the Bears Organization

The Chicago Bears entered the twentieth century in 1974. That was the year they hired Jim Finks, the General Manager and architect of the Minnesota Vikings 11 division titles and 4 Super Bowl appearances in 14 years. In his first draft Finks brought in Walter Payton. He was the one that drafted Doug Plank, Mike Hartenstine, Dan Hampton, and many others who formed the backbone of the successful Bears teams of the 80s. He oversaw the hiring of Buddy Ryan. Under his guidance the Bears made the playoffs in 1977 and 1979, breaking a postseason drought going back to 1963.

More important than all of this, however, was that Finks was the first person to run the Bears that wasn't part of the Halas/McCaskey family tree. The Bears had been surpassed in the division they used to rule by the Vikings, and it wasn't even close. Driven to desperation by a decade of futility, George Halas loosened the reins of control, and the result was the resurrection of the franchise.

Then, in 1982, Mike Ditka wrote George Halas a nice letter asking if he could be the head coach of the Bears. Without consulting his GM, Halas hired Ditka. Finks responded as any GM who had just been publicly neutered would: he walked away. Personnel control went to Jerry Vainisi, the team's long-time treasurer, who continued largely in Finks' stead for the next several years as the team built upon the foundations laid by Finks' overhaul and turned into a championship organization. Just as quickly as this turnaround began, however, it fell apart. Vanisi clashed with Mike McCaskey, and McCaskey, always quick to credit himself for the success of a team he had no hand in building, fired Vanisi and assumed total personnel control for himself. After a decade of improvement, the Bears were back to being a small-time mom and pop organization.

The results are well-known. The Super Bowl champion Bears fell apart, McCaskey's drafts failed to come close to replicating the quality of Finks and Vanisi's, then McCaskey made the ill-fated decision to hire Dave Wannstedt and grant him personnel control. Finally, after the team's second consecutive 4-12 season in 1998, McCaskey botched the hiring of Dave McGinness, turned the entire franchise into a laughing stock, and forced his own family to fire him.

After the firing of McCaskey, the Bears slowly took steps towards becoming a respectable franchise once again. They hired a search firm to find them a real general manager, and for some reason that search firm settled on Jerry Angelo. Angelo eventually hired Lovie Smith, and together the two of them built a team that competed regularly and garnered respect, but still came up short.

 Lovie and Jerry represented a comfortable middle-ground for the always-conservative McCaskeys. Angelo valued his scouting department, his gut feelings, and the evaluations of his coaches. Lovie Smith talked of getting off the bus running, promoted a closed-door policy with the media, and spoke with reverence for "Chicago Bears football." While both were steps forward from the lunacy of the era before them, they were still thoroughly old school types, determined to build the Bears on a tried and true playbook written long ago.

Enter Phil Emery and Marc Trestman. What the two of them are trying to accomplish right now has rarely been attempted before in the NFL, and certainly not in Chicago. In a press conference he gave back in January, Emery referenced the extreme statistical analysis he uses in order to evaluate a player:

Yes we’re going to pay attention to the coach’s grades. Yes we’re going to pay attention to our internal scouting grades. But let’s look at this another way. I went to STATS Inc., went through all the numbers. Went to Pro Football Focus, did all the numbers. I’m familiar with STATS Inc. We’re one of their contracted teams. Spent quite a bit of time with their people, not only their programmers but went to their offices, watched how they grade tape, how they triple check all their facts. So I trust all their data, that’s it’s unbiased, that it doesn’t have my hands in it, that it doesn’t have our coach’s or scout’s hands in it, or anybody else in the league. They are simply reporting fact. Some ways to look at it is in a very Money Ball way, crunching the numbers.

That evaluation process right there is a big step forward from Mike Tice telling us that J'Marcus Webb "graded out well" in the team's evaluation process while every other statistical metric and our own eyes told us otherwise. Just today, Emery took this process a step further by appointing Mitchell Tanney as Director of Analytics, a new stat-oriented position in the front office.

Another sign that Emery valued statistical analysis and an unbiased evaluation of player performance was the decision to move on from Brian Urlacher. Urlacher said it all when he stated that he believed he'd still be a Bear if Lovie Smith was the head coach. Emery was unswayed by Urlacher's history, his presence, his leadership, or the historical importance of MLBs in the Bears defense. He simply saw what any statistician or objective evaluator would see: a washed up football player.

This new mode of thinking also shows up in Emery's draft strategy. It's clear from his statements on the importance of versatility and the drafting of players like Shea McClellin and Kyle Long that Emery understands the changing nature of the NFL, and the need for fast, athletic "tweeners" who can fit multiple schemes without substitutions.

Kyle Long is also an example of the Bears new forward-thinking approach. Aaron Kromer, explaining why the Bears put Long at guard instead of tackle despite their assertions that he is their most talented lineman, cited statistics that demonstrated that most pressure on quarterbacks actually comes from the interior, and stated that the Bears philosophy would be to build their pass-protection from the inside out.

The last, and most important, change that Phil Emery has brought to the Bears is Marc Trestman. As mentioned nearly everywhere, Emery took a huge risk bringing in a guy from the CFL to coach the team. Trestman is regarded as a guru and an innovator, a guy who has witnessed the evolution of the West Coast Offense practically since it's birth, who has incorporated elements of the spread offense, the read option, and other recent trends, and who was brought in to give the Bears a counter to the machinations of the Packers and other offensive juggernauts. While it remains to be seen how Trestman will fare in the NFL, it's clear the Bears are going in a very new direction.

When Phil Emery was hired last year he was more or less an unknown. Some questioned how much power he would even wield, considering he was forced to keep Lovie Smith on as head coach. Since then, however, it's become painfully obvious Emery has complete control of this team. He fired Lovie, despite Lovie's stellar reputation and relationship with the McCaskeys. He moved on from Urlacher, despite McCaskey conspiracy theorists' fears that George McCaskey's comments about Brian meant they would pressure Emery to keep him. He made a bold and unorthodox coaching hire after a lengthy interview process, passing on several "safer" picks. Regardless of what anyone thought in the beginning, Phil Emery right now IS the Chicago Bears.

There's no guarantee, of course, that any of this will work. Numbers are imperfect, and both Emery and Trestman remain unproven quantities in the NFL. The fact of the matter is, however, that the future seems more hopeful for the organization now that it's finally free of people who appeared to be more concerned with the past.

SKOdCast Update

Hello,

As you may have noticed, if you're looking for anything Bears related amidst the Blackhawks in the Final and baseball, there's not terribly much to talk about in the dry-period besides "so and so said Joe Anderson looked good in mini-camp," and we refuse to talk about mini-camp. So from here until the preseason we'll be doing the SKOdCast bi-weekly. So see you next Tuesday!

Episode 8 of the Podcast Now Up!

Enjoy!

And as promised, here's the David Terrell interview with RedEye: http://articles.redeyechicago.com/2013-06-12/sports/39931743_1_redeye-opinion-gabe-carimi

Episode 8 of the Podcast at 6:15 PM

http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/127741

Before we all stop paying attention to watch the Blackhawks, join us as we discuss:

The Sweet 16 of the Worst Bears Players Ever (Since 1997)

Goddammit, Evan Rodriguez

Goodbye, Gabe Carimi

Goddammit, Bears Fans