It sure was nice of the Packers to show up after the first quarter. Cam Newton threw three interceptions, but he also made a lot of plays.
One of these days I need to watch him play. Maybe in 2 weeks.
He looked like a rookie QB today. A very talented rookie QB, but a rookie QB. He made some bad decisions, he overthrew an open receiver giving the Packers an int., he missed LaFell open in the end zone, and he didn’t look too sharp in crunch time. But you could see his athleticism, and ability to throw the long ball.
In two weeks, I think he’ll get frustrated by the Bears defense and have a bad game.
Plus they’ll have three full games of game tape to plan for him. One of the Packers biggest concerns about Newton was the fact they had really limited game film on him.
I suspect that his skills are better suited to playing attacking 3-4 defenses like the Packers and Cardinals, especially with undersized LBs. The Bears flavor of the Tampa 2 with a 4 man pass rush and a lot of men in coverage could frustrate him into a lot of forced throws. At least that’s what I picture, haven’t seen enough tape to know if that’s true. The Bears tend to destroy inexperienced QBs, experienced guys with patience can pick them apart.
Bad days for safeties in the NFC North with both Nick Collins and Major Wright being carted from the field with some bad looking, potentially very bad injuries. The latest is that Collins should be OK, but I haven’t heard anything about Wright.
The NFC North went 2-2 this week. The Bears looked like last year Bears, with serious protection issues putting Cutler at huge risk. The screen/dumpoff game worked fine, but there wasn’t much in the red zone for them to do. Their defense didn’t get the turnovers they needed to win this game. The Lions looked great in an easy win, as predicted. The Packers played … not the greatest, but got the win against a bad team. And the Vikings were, as I said, unpredictable. The first half, they looked like a very good NFL team, and then they disappear and let the Bucs beat them. Not a good sign for them.
You know, I’m going to have to go against conventional wisdom here and say that Mike Tice sucks. The Bears are certainly not loaded on the OL, and Mike Martz seems to play right into the Defensive Coordinators hands half the time, but I keep seeing what looks to be glaring systemic problems with our blocking. It’s trendy and usually appropriate to lay the blame at the feet of the players when it comes to blocking, but I don’t recall many occasions where the Bears blockers were physically outmanned. I’m not seeing interior lineman knocked back into the pocket, I’m not seeing tackles getting abused by stud DEs. I’m not seeing blockers getting piled up in the hole. I’m seeing stunts, twists, overloads and delayed rushes coming in completely clean. I’m seeing constant breakdowns in assignments. I’m seeing lineman standing around blocking no one or blocking DLs and LBs who are dropping off into coverage on a zone blitz. The problem seems to be a combination of scheme and awareness. While it’s likely that a fair number of mental errors can be attributed to those players not reacting to cues and missing line calls, it seems like some of the schemes are fundamentally flawed.
The Bears have a somewhat unconventional system in which the OC has essentially no input on the blocking schemes. Martz calls the plays, Tice calls the blocking for it. This set up might be fundamentally flawed. I’m not sure it’s reasonable to have the OC so detached from the blocking and it might contribute to Martz going so pass happy so often. Were he more aware of the limitations in blocking he might pick different plays and conversely if Tice were more involved in play calling he might be able to mix up his blocking assignments more proactively.
The system is busted and I’m no longer convinced it’s the result of a poor selection of talent.
Wright walked off under his own power, pretty much unassisted. He had a stinger it seems, and took a hit to the crook of the neck. Probably no lasting damage done which is a relief, but I suspect he might be out for a few weeks as a precaution. Not sure how similar a neck stinger, if that’s an accurate diagnosis, is to a concussion from a medical point of view.
The team hasn’t announced anything officially.
Man, you Dio replacements simply cannot carry Dio’s jock.
Well, it’s tough for even delusional fans (like me) to blame the officials for either of the two losses. This is two weeks in a row in which the Vikings were outcoached. Both the Chargers and Bucs came out after halftime and changed the dynamic of the game, on both sides of the ball.
Most of the Vikings fans I know are in the same boat as me. We’re extremely pissed that the team had two extremely winnable games, and let them both slip away.
Rational. Not filled with inane Packer hatred. Contains factual information and actual analysis of the game. No blaming the refs for the Packers win or the Vikings lost.
Nope. Not like Dio at all.
This place isn’t the same now.
Can he be unbanned just in this thread?
I’m trying not to be too giddy about the Lions, but they look really, really good.
I will say it here and now.The lions will not make the playoffs 1-7 in their division maybe 2-6
As they only play 6 games in their division, losing 7 division games may be quite a challenge. 
:smack:
Brad Biggs tweeted that Carimi’s prognosis looks good, probably nothing serious. Nothing official and it’s just inferences, but it’s good news nonetheless.
Jason Hanson played in his 297th game with the same team. breaking the record. He has been a very good kicker on a very bad team for 20 years. He gets no respect ,but he has been at the top or near the top for kickers for a long time. But he had very few opportunities to make the big kick. When a team goes 4 and 40, how many big kicks are there? When the have an o and 16 season, what important kicks did he get?
Nick Collins is out for the season.