Kordell Stewart Approves This Message.
It was not a good weekend for your football team if I happened to be in attendance.
I traveled to my old stomping grounds on Saturday to watch my high school football team lose a second-round playoff game (to a team they beat during the regular season). The following day, I witnessed Kurt Warner’s dissection of the Bears secondary at Soldiers Field.
Beer eases the pain.
If there was one thing I noticed about watching high school football its that it seems about 100x faster when you’re actually playing it. Although there were some talented athletes on the field, I couldn’t help but think, This all just looks a lot slower than I remember. Of course in my current shape, I probably couldn’t run down a single player on either team.
Speed wasn’t the most glaring issue on Sunday as I watched Kurt Warner dissect the Bears defense, although Larry Fitzgerald routinely made their DBs look like they were carrying a plow behind them. Watching from the north end zone, we get a pretty clear view of coverage schemes that you don’t see on a TV broadcast.
Put simply, the Bears defense looked lost. It was the second time this year that a top-tier QB methodically picked them apart with screens, short routes, crossing routes and deep patterns. The more pressure the Bears brought (which wasn’t nearly enough), the easier it was for Warner and co. to adjust to find the open receiver. Carson Palmer did the same thing a few weeks ago. Heck, Matt Stafford and Seneca Wallace both put up 250+ yards against this unit.
I was emailing with my friend BK about the state of affairs in Chicago. There’s really no short-term answer for this team. Lovie Smith will not be fired or bought out of his current contract, which extends through 2011. First, Smith took them to the Super Bowl three years ago. Second, the McCaskey’s just don’t do that, not even with absolute disasters (see: Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron). Not to mention the $11M they’d eat.
So where do you start rebuilding? The offensive line is a mess. The defensive line is aging and inconsistent. Even with Urlacher healthy, the linebackers don’t have much tread left (Briggs can’t do it alone). And what about the secondary? Outside of Peanut Tillman, who’s a shade slow these days and needs others to make up for his gambles, there’s not a legit performer in the back-end (they gave up their last game-changing DB, Mike Brown, after years of injuries). Lest we forget the scheme itself — it’s painfully apparent to everyone but Lovie that the Bears don’t have the talent to support the Tampa-2.
Sure, the Bears locked up one of the league’s best young quarterbacks in Jay Cutler, who more than any other season is carrying an abysmal offense on his back. And they found a diamond in the rough with Matt Forte last year, who has looked more like Curtis Enis than Walter Payton after a break-out rookie season.
But for both to succeed in the long-term, they need a supporting cast that’s just not there. Speaking of which, Orlando Pace was arguably the worst free-agent signing of the year. Unless they meant to sign the Zombie Pace, in which case he’s showing remarkably quick feet for a corpse.
It’s going to be a long second-half for the Bears: Vikings twice, Eagles, Packers and Ravens. That’s a tough nut to crack for a team still in contention for a wild card spot. But it’s going to be an even longer few years for Bears fans that only weeks ago saw 2009 as a turning point for the franchise.
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The Chicago Bears Will Rise Again (Just Not Anytime Soon)
Kordell Stewart Approves This Message.
It was not a good weekend for your football team if I happened to be in attendance.
I traveled to my old stomping grounds on Saturday to watch my high school football team lose a second-round playoff game (to a team they beat during the regular season). The following day, I witnessed Kurt Warner’s dissection of the Bears secondary at Soldiers Field.
Beer eases the pain.
If there was one thing I noticed about watching high school football its that it seems about 100x faster when you’re actually playing it. Although there were some talented athletes on the field, I couldn’t help but think, This all just looks a lot slower than I remember. Of course in my current shape, I probably couldn’t run down a single player on either team.
Speed wasn’t the most glaring issue on Sunday as I watched Kurt Warner dissect the Bears defense, although Larry Fitzgerald routinely made their DBs look like they were carrying a plow behind them. Watching from the north end zone, we get a pretty clear view of coverage schemes that you don’t see on a TV broadcast.
Put simply, the Bears defense looked lost. It was the second time this year that a top-tier QB methodically picked them apart with screens, short routes, crossing routes and deep patterns. The more pressure the Bears brought (which wasn’t nearly enough), the easier it was for Warner and co. to adjust to find the open receiver. Carson Palmer did the same thing a few weeks ago. Heck, Matt Stafford and Seneca Wallace both put up 250+ yards against this unit.
I was emailing with my friend BK about the state of affairs in Chicago. There’s really no short-term answer for this team. Lovie Smith will not be fired or bought out of his current contract, which extends through 2011. First, Smith took them to the Super Bowl three years ago. Second, the McCaskey’s just don’t do that, not even with absolute disasters (see: Dave Wannstedt and Dick Jauron). Not to mention the $11M they’d eat.
So where do you start rebuilding? The offensive line is a mess. The defensive line is aging and inconsistent. Even with Urlacher healthy, the linebackers don’t have much tread left (Briggs can’t do it alone). And what about the secondary? Outside of Peanut Tillman, who’s a shade slow these days and needs others to make up for his gambles, there’s not a legit performer in the back-end (they gave up their last game-changing DB, Mike Brown, after years of injuries). Lest we forget the scheme itself — it’s painfully apparent to everyone but Lovie that the Bears don’t have the talent to support the Tampa-2.
Sure, the Bears locked up one of the league’s best young quarterbacks in Jay Cutler, who more than any other season is carrying an abysmal offense on his back. And they found a diamond in the rough with Matt Forte last year, who has looked more like Curtis Enis than Walter Payton after a break-out rookie season.
But for both to succeed in the long-term, they need a supporting cast that’s just not there. Speaking of which, Orlando Pace was arguably the worst free-agent signing of the year. Unless they meant to sign the Zombie Pace, in which case he’s showing remarkably quick feet for a corpse.
It’s going to be a long second-half for the Bears: Vikings twice, Eagles, Packers and Ravens. That’s a tough nut to crack for a team still in contention for a wild card spot. But it’s going to be an even longer few years for Bears fans that only weeks ago saw 2009 as a turning point for the franchise.
Like this: