Well, I was going to do a player by player breakdown of the bad players from the Bears this year before moving onto the coaching staff, but with the latest coaching changes, that's worth more of a discussion, so here's briefly a list of players on this team who suck ass and should probably die:
-Orlando Pace
-Frank Omiyale
-Olin Kreutz' rotten corpse.
-Greg Olsen (most of the time)
-Tommie Harris
-Nathan Vasher
-Danieal Manning
-Zack Fucking Bowman
-Al Afalava
-Kevin Payne
-The three-headed linebacker monster of suck (Hillenmeyer/Williams/Roach)
-Pretty much anyone else on the roster besides the ones I explicitly named yesterday.
Moving on-
The Bears fired 6 coaches yesterday. Let's look at each one-
-Ron Turner, Offensive Coordinator: Anyone that reads this site will know how fervently I defended Turner before this season. His system is not a bad system, and I don't believe he himself is a particularly bad coordinator. He's not particularly good either. He's certainly not innovative. Any moron could look at the offense this year and trace every problem back to the offensive line. Turner isn't responsible for putting that together. But he Is responsible for gameplanning around that, at least somewhat. He didn't. The continued insistence on "establishing the run" over the first half of the season cost this team dearly, as did his utter refusal (until After the team had been eliminated from contention) to roll Cutler out and utilize his mobility in order to buy time to pass. His wide receiver screens, while not as pointless as those used by Crowton, Shoop, or Shea, still sucked. I won't miss him, but he doesn't deserve 100% of the blame, either.
-Harry Hiestand, Offensive Line Coach: This is completely deserved. Name one offensive lineman the Bears have developed effectively during Hiestand's tenure. The only time the line was effective was during the 05 and 06 seasons, when a veteran heavy lineup really didn't Need coaching.
-Pep Hamilton, Quarterbacks Coach: Thank god. Can you name any three quarterbacks with more easily fixable mechanical and technical issues than Rex Grossman, Kyle Orton, and Jay Cutler? Can you name anything Hamilton did to fix Any of those issues?
-Rob Boras, Tight Ends Coach: Can I blame him for my hatred of Greg Olsen? It's not this guy's fault that Olsen drops everything and can't block, is it? If it is, he should probably just kill himself.
And assistants Luke Butkus and Charles London: Other than pissing the meatheads off by firing Dick Butkus' kid, I don't think this will have any effect.
Now, I agree with all of those firings. My problem that list is that it fails to include many of the people who needed to be fired the most, namely, the defensive staff and Lovie's cronies.
I understand that it was a pipe dream to hope that Lovie would be fired, especially after they won the last two games of the season. You'd think in a normal organization three playoff-less seasons would have a bigger impact than two games that allowed a team to finish 7-9, but hey, this is the Bears we're talking about. The fact, however, is that Lovie needs to have the circle of yes men that surrounds him removed. For God's sake, Bob Babich still has a fucking job. The rumors stating that Lovie had decided to make Marinelli the defensive coordinator are fortunately untrue, but that still won't change much.
With Babich and Marinelli and his fellow Cover 2 loyalists in place, the defensive coordinator that Lovie hires (probably Perry Fewell) will be surrounded and outnumbered, if he even wishes to change things. It doesn't matter who calls the defensive plays for this team. The scheme is broken. Tommie Harris is worthless. The front four has been mostly ineffective and wildly inconsistent for three straight years. The safeties all suck, and the corners can't keep up with anybody. The defense and the defensive coaching staff needs a complete overhaul, and Lovie needs to be stripped of as much of his authority as possible. That's not happening, so this team's fucked for at least one more year.
With some actual improvements on the offensive line (which won't be forthcoming if Angelo just signs this year's Orlando Pace or Omiyale on the market) and an offensive coordinator that tailors the offense to fit Cutler's strengths (like Jeremy Bates, the former Denver QB coach and current USC offensive coordinator that Cutler is supposedly lobbying for), this team can make marginal improvements and perhaps be in playoff contention next year, but if nothing changes on the defensive side of the ball the odds of winning anything are greatly reduced. In short, give up hope. Just give it up. It's going to be another long fucking year.
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