Well, that was as ugly as they get, wasn't it?

I've completed my first-half analysis, and with the permission of the WCG readership, I think I'll pass on the second half this week. After all, we all know what happened, don't we? Mr. Burns came in to play QB, led the Bears to 5 three-and-outs and an INT in six possessions, and generally speaking at no point made any of us believe that the Bears would score a touchdown in this game unless it was provided by the defense or special teams. Perhaps there's value in slow, methodical, painstaking analysis of that, but there's a reason I didn't do this during the Krenzel/Hutchinson Era, right?

Anyhow, there's not much to say about the first half either, except that we all suspected that Jay Cutler played a big part of the half under the influence of a concussion. And having watched every play in slo-mo repeated times ... if he got hit in the head earlier in the game, I didn't see it. He did get popped violently from behind early in the second quarter (see play #18), and while he might have felt whiplashed after that one, he didn't get hit in the head.  Of course, I may have just missed something, or maybe that hit caused more damage than it appeared to. But watching it again, what I saw was simply a QB who was under fire and tried to overcompensate for it.

As for the OL ... they've been getting beat from the ends all season long, and facing two good DEs here in Osi Umenyiora and Justin Tuck (although Tuck frequently lined up inside when Jason Pierre-Paul was in the game), they got killed. But it's worth pointing out that when they were getting killed on the left side, it was usually because they had tight ends blocking the DEs (again, see play #18). Omiyale has gotten steadily better in pass protection as the season's gone on, and while he didn't have his best game Sunday night overall, he wasn't the one getting Cutler dead.  Play #22 was the only one where his guy sacked Cutler, and on that one we can all agree that Cutler was overly indulgent in holding the ball.  

So, that's pretty much all I have to say about that. Full first-half offensive analysis below:

Continue reading this post »

Sorry to be so late with this - the Bears are kicking off against the Giants in two hours. But the Monday night game really threw my timing out of wack, as in the first two weeks Monday was the day I got the most done. Anyhow, I should be on a more normal schedule this upcoming week.

By this point, there's not much left to say about the game against the Packers, so I'll leave my comments brief, since this FanPost is by its nature VERY, VERY LONG:

1) Jay Cutler, as we've pretty much all noticed, had some moments in this game that were frighteningly reminiscent of his worst games last season. He escaped from this one with only one interception, but he had two more called back and a third that was simply dropped. True, the penalties "caused" those two interceptions in some respect, but throwing deep to covered receivers while under pressure is a recipe for disaster. It's as simple as that.

But of course, he made some terrific plays as well. His deep out to Johnny Knox (play #31 below) in the second quarter got a lot of attention, but his back-foot throw to Greg Olsen in the fourth was equally impressive. And as in the last two weeks, he did a pretty good job of getting away from pressure and buying himself time, even if he did get sacked a few times.

2) Speaking of the sacks, I'm willing to give Frank Omiyale his props this week, and I'd name him Lineman of the Week for this game. Kevin Shaffer showed some progress though still had more trouble, but of course, he's not a starter in good times. He actually split time, though, with rookie J'Marcus Webb, though, and Webb was basically a complete disaster. I don't want to be too hard on the kid, but he's clearly not ready to play at the NFL level yet, and he was a complete liability every snap he took. 

3) For whatever reason, Dom Capers didn't seem concerned about the pass rush in the second half. Until the Bears' final possession, they stayed in the same 4-man rush for most of the half, with Frank Zombo, Cullen Jenkins, B.J. Raji (who was mostly ineffective throughout the game), and Clay Matthews lined up left-to-right in a four-man front. The Bears handled this pretty well, although they had more trouble with the pressure after Capers got serious and started mixing things up again. 

4) I don't want to see the Bears run sweeps again. They just don't have the speed or strength to do it. It's a guaranteed fail every time.

5) Along those lines, I continue to think that the biggest problem with the Bears' running game is their running backs. Forte just doesn't look like a good runner anymore, having difficulty breaking any tackles no matter how weak, and usually unable to hit the hole with any acceleration. And Taylor doesn't look much better to me.

Well, OK, not so brief. But at least I'm finished before kickoff! As usual, full play-by-play below.

Continue reading this post »

This week, the Bears ran about 20 fewer offensive plays than they did in Week 1 against the Lions, so I've posted my play-by-play analysis of the whole game in a single post instead of breaking it up into two parts. So, this post is very, very long!

Here are a few observations from me:

1) The Bears completely wasted two of their timeouts in the first half. The first was on a challenge that the Bears had zero chance of winning. The second was late in the half, when they were trying to get in position to score before halftime, and the Bears called timeout as the officials were measuring a possible first down.

Now, this may not seem like a huge deal, and one might even say the lost challenge was worth a shot given the circumstances. But, I thought the lost timeouts played a huge role. On that last offensive possesion before the half, the Bears were without a timeout for the last three plays (see plays 30-32 below) from the Cowboys 22, with about 32 seconds left.

With no timeouts and so little time, they had little option but to throw three straight passes with eyes toward the end zone; in other words, low-percentage plays. And given the circumstances, the Cowboys were able to call their defensive plays accordingly. With those two wasted timeouts left, they'd have much more flexibility in their play-calling, and a much better chance of converting the scoring chance for a touchdown. Instead, after three straight incompletions, they kicked a field goal.

2) This game pretty much proved that there's little difference between Chris Williams and Frank Omiyale. That's not a conclusion that anyone ought to be happy about, but there it is. I thought Omiyale was just mediocre in pass protection on the left side (what would we expect?), but he did a fine job run-blocking.  

I thought Lance Louis was the Bears' best lineman in Week 1, but he looked just average this game.

3) Along those lines, for all the praise the OL has gotten for protecting Jay Cutler, pass protection was still an issue all game long. But, three things minimized the damage:

First, Mike Martz simply called fewer plays with deep drops, and pass plays generally called for Cutler to get the ball out quickly. Ware especially was less effective after Martz settled on quicker routes, as for whatever reason he seemed to be playing the 7-step drop throughout the game even though Cutler was mainly doing 3- and 5-step drops. He was continually going far wide of Cutler, even though he was still beating his blockers as often as not.

Second, Cutler himself was absolutely terrific in avoiding pressure when his protection wasn't solid. Football Outsiders have been saying for years that the QB shares a lot of responsibility for sacks, and this game was evidence of that. Cutler moved around a lot in the pocket, avoiding pressure, threw the ball away when he needed to, and just as important, stood tall in the pocket and took hits when he needed to get the ball out. A less aware QB takes a lot of sacks in this game.

And third, Dallas got spooked after the Olsen TD, and dialed down the pressure. That play came on a 7-man blitz, and I think there was only one more play after that where Dallas did that. Most of the second half, they were bringing 4 and occasionally 5. Unfortunately for them, though, their secondary isn't that good, and Cutler was able to pcik them apart pretty easily, as I predict good quarterbacks will be able to do throughout the season. Their success really depends on rattling the QB with the pass rush, and if that doesn't work, they've got nothing. 

Don't get me wrong, credit the line for slowing down the Dallas rush, but this still looks like a mediocre pass-blocking group. The real stars of this game for the Bears were their QB and OC.

4) The most effective blocker on DeMarcus Ware? Greg Olsen. Hard to believe, but true. I thought Olsen was actually good when he stayed in to block throughout the game.

4) Matt Forte has his strengths, which I'd describe as a) good speed in the open field, as we saw on his long touchdown last week, and b) effectiveness in catching passes out of the backfield. But he's terribly slow to accelerate, and he's not strong enough to break a lot of tackles. This line isn't great at run-blocking, but they're better than they are with pass protection. Forte's simply a bad fit, because he can't accelerate through holes before they close  and he can't beat tacklers one-on-one. The failure on the 3rd-and-1 in the fourth quarter (see play #49) was almost completely attributable to Forte, in my opinion - he actually got good blocking.

I thought Forte also shared a lot of the blame for the failures from the Lions 1 last week, also. Like I say, Forte has his uses, but it seems to me that he's gotten as little out of the line's performance as possible. 

5) Chester Taylor's only had limited action, but he doesn't seem much better. On the last real possession, where a first down would have basically sealed the game (see plays 55-57), I thought Taylor made bad reads on all three downs, and could have had better yardage.

Anyway, the full PBP analysis is below.

Continue reading this post »

Thanks for the positive feedback and recs for my first half play-by-play analysis. As promised, here's the second half.

I'm not going to promise a full season of these or anything, since they're extremely time-consuming. But it's fun to do, so we'll see how much stamina I have as the season wears on. I strongly suspect it will have a lot to do with how the season's going.

A few observations from half 2:

1) Ndamukong Suh definitely had less impact as the game went on. He was disruptive in the first half, but as you'll see, the Bears were mostly able to keep him contained. Even Omiyale bottled him up one-on-one during a couple plays. I suppose that's to be expected from a kid in his first real NFL game, but it <b>is</b> a reminder that he's only in his first NFL game. He may be dominant in the future, but he's still got a ways to go.

2) Lance Louis looks far and away like the Bears' best offensive lineman.

3) Matt Forte, in case anyone did not know, is not a capable goal-line back. If you're interested, or masochistic, the big goal-line fail can be found in plays 68-71 below, and long story short, I think Forte is probably more to blame than the line is. Not his fault really - he's just ill-suited for the role, not strong enough to break tackles or move anyone back.

4) Cutler was mostly awesome in this game. He (mostly) made good decisions and (mostly) made accurate throws, most of both of which came under consistent if not quite overwhelming pressure.  

I'll conclude my thoughts by saying what everyone already knows: that the Bears left a lot of points out there, and this game shouldn't really have been close.  As well as the Lions' defensive line played, the Bears still gained a whole lot of yards, and were only kept from scoring when they got in their own way. Beyond their defensive line, it didn't seem to me that the Lions had much going on with their defense, and they're bound to play a bunch of teams with better O-lines than the Bears. Not hard for me to see them getting torched a few times this year.

Similarly, even with Stafford in, the Lions' offense was barely able to move the ball. The Bears' D dominated them in this game until that final drive. It remains to be seen how many defenses the Lions will play this year than are better than this one, but they've obviously got a long way to go.

Long story short, if the Bears hold on to the ball, we're probably making a bunch of Lions jokes and Detroiters are looking for rope again. They've got talent, and their future doesn't look as bad as their past, but right now they still look like a bad team to me.

Continue reading this post »

Hello, I'm new to WCG, but if some of you are Blackhawks fans you might (but probably not) recognize me from my occasional comments at Second City Hockey. But I've been a Bears fan all my life, which is not too easy when you're living that life growing up in Florida and then living in Texas.

But I live in Chicago now, and of course I can follow the Bears closer than I ever could as a kid. Plus, I've recently acquired one of these newfangled toys called a "DVR", which allows me to record games and watch them over and over. Even in slow motion if I want to! Golly gee, technology these days, am I right?

So I thought I'd do a little play-by-play analysis of the Bears' offense, to see on a play-by-play level what works and what doesn't, with an emphasis on the line play. Sure, it's easy to say "the line sucks" or "big hole to run through there" (not so much the second these days, though), but what makes it possible? Who are the contributors and goats that lead to the success and failure of each play?

Following the jump is every play in the first half of the Lions game, with analysis of each one. Now, some general caveats:

1) I'm working from the FOX broadcast, which generally is the worst kind of broadcast to work from. They don't really care about showing you who's on the field and who isn't. So while I've tried to identify the Bears' personnel for each play, sometimes I just don't know.

2) Obviously, I don't know the specific play calls, blocking assignments, etc. So while sometimes someone is standing there and looking stupid while a pass rusher gets through untouched, I don't have any way of knowing if he blew his assignment or someone else did. So I try not to assign blame, instead just focusing on who does what. That said, trends do become obvious over time - if a player is consistently standing there looking dumb while a pass rusher gets through untouched, something's probably wrong.

3) Yes, there are probably typos, and possibly even sentences that don't, strictly speaking, make sense.

And here are some general observations that I've gleaned so far:

1) Louis was easily the best OL the Bears had in the first half of the game, often bottling up Suh by himself. Omiyale and Williams seemed very weak. Kreutz does a lot of standing around. Garza I didn't notice much, either in good or bad contexts.

2) The line as a whole nonetheless played OK when it comes to pass-blocking. It was definitely a "bend but don't break" affair, almost always getting blown off the line of scrimmage, and with Detroit rushing only four on nearly every single play of the half. It's not like the Lions were bringing a lot of heat, and I shudder to think of what will happen when the Bears play a defense that does. BUT ... there were very few occasions where someone got through untouched. Cutler always had at least a chance to make a throw; the only sack was more or less a voluntary affair on his behalf (see play #15 below). And he was not hit or even seriously hurried often, either.

3) The line was garbage on run plays. Seriously, garbage.

4) Aromashodu appears to have been called on to run-block a few times out of the slot, and was basically a bucket of fail in these situations. Knox had a couple of nice downfield blocks, though.

5) Manumaleuna looks like the primary blocking TE, but he needs to improve if this is going to be his role.

So, without much further ado, here's the 1st half analysis. If there's sufficient interest, I'll post the second half in a day or two ... these things take a while to do, as I usually watch each play a half-dozen times or so, sometimes more if the angles are bad or there's a lot going on.

Continue reading this post »