Here’s the supposed explanation for the end of the Bears game. Can’t vouch for the accuracy but seems to track with the various comments made postgame.
On the 2nd down play the Bears called a QB Draw. But neither OT could hear the cadence. For some inexplicable reason they weren’t using a silent count. When the ball was snapped they didn’t react and Caleb took the sack on the jailbreak.
Following the sack, Caleb is waving for the play call to come in. It took something like 15 seconds to get the play call in. The call, another QB Draw.
Once Caleb got the call and got people set, he realized that they didn’t have enough time for a draw play. He may or may not have forgotten they had a TO, but it seems like the policy is that the coaches are responsible for calling time outs. Caleb made the decision to change the play at the line as he watched the clock tick down.
Obviously that wasn’t the right move.
If this is at least directionally correct, it’s a combination of brain damaged play calling, slow decision making by the OC, poor preparation, not using a silent count, a rookie QB making a bad decision, and a HC who was so out to lunch he didn’t realize any of this was happening.
I just rewatched the sack. I don’t actually think the above is correct. It looks like Caleb did use a silent count in the gun. And it also looks like both tackles reacted normally to the snap.
That said, neither guy makes really any effort at all to block the ends. I can’t explain why. The LT seems to react like he missed it, but the RT straight up watches the DE run uncontested the to QB. I have to think, whatever the play call, they are coached here to surrender the edge. But a QB Draw had no chance with that. So it looks like there was some miscommunication or a misunderstanding about how that play was suppose to work.
Edit: I think maybe it was a QB Draw looking the blocking of the IOLs. But Caleb takes a couple step drop even though he’s in the gun. This seemed to screw up the angles, he’s supposed to step up and let those guys run past him. The RG gets pushed back which may have also screwed up the lane. Definitely a clusterfuck.
A not quite football question about all of yesterday’s games.
Being thanksgiving, they all ran on the nostalgia of Madden and his turkey legs (and turducken), BUT they also featured the Maddencruiser,
The tour of it showed a Greyhound bus, labeled as such.,with features added. But I swear I remember back when he used it it just said “maddencrusier”, with nary a Greyhound logo, and later had sponsors plastered on the sides.
Am I remembering wrong, or are they trying to rewrite history? (It’s obvious the interior has been redone and updated, too).
I believe that the one they were showing yesterday was the original Maddencruiser. The article below indicates that it had been donated by Greyhound, and is what Madden rode in from 1987 to 1994. He rode in five different buses, in total, over the course of his broadcasting career.
Bears HC Matt Eberflus is supposed to be meeting with GM Ryan Poles and team president/CEO Kevin Warren this afternoon. If they’re going to make a change, I would think that this would be when it’d happen.
In the span of seventeen days, Thomas Brown has gone from being the Bears’ passing game coordinator, to their offensive coordinator, to their interim head coach.
Also, for the record, @Omniscient : you were correct on this, and I was wrong. I figured that the McCaskeys would wait until the end of the season. Though, that debacle at the end of the game may have changed the calculus.
I’m a Lions fan and I could NOT believe they pulled it off. When the clock hit zero, I was stunned how badly Chicago had made decisions in the final moments.
I had known that the Bears had been bad for a while, but in looking at Pro Football Reference, I realized just how bad it’s been:
In the last twelve seasons, they have had one season with a winning record (12-4 in 2019)
The last time that they won a playoff game was 14 years ago, in the 2010 postseason. And, even that year, they lost the NFC Championship Game to the Packers (of course).
Nitpick: it was the 2018 season. They lost the wild-card playoff game on 1/6/2019, 16-15 to the Eagles. The game ended when their last-second field goal attempt hit the left upright and then the crossbar before bouncing back into the end zone. Known as the double-doink. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BICgLiBy46o
In that time they’ve had 10 Offensive Coordinators. 11 if they nominate a new interim OC to replace Brown. That also doesn’t include playcallers like Nagy and Trestman.
Maybe that presser was the final straw that caused the firing. If he had put his hands up, admitted the error and said he would learn from it he might have kept his job (for now). In saying if he was in the same situation again he would do the same thing the upstairs realised the only way to stop it happening again is to get rid of him.