That could show a lack of confidence in their blocking, or in the hands of their backs and tight ends, or both.
Was just reading the transcript from McCarthy’s Monday press conference…he seems to be pinning quite a bit of it on (unexpectedly) good coverage on the part of the Bucs:
I don’t get to see every Packer game, but, from what I saw in the Vikings game last weekend, they were frequently keeping a running back in to help with pass protection. That might be limiting Rodgers’ check-down options.
But, overall, it does seem like Rodgers is trying to avoid the big stupid Favrian interceptions, and instead is eating the ball instead. I’d hope there could be a middle ground between the two.
As Aqib Talib goes, so goes the Buccaneers secondary. He’s tied for third in the league with 5 picks, and god knows it’s not because teams are having to throw on us.
He gambles for interceptions, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. This week it worked.
I’ve had some time to digest what happened this week with the Bears (and sober up and recover), time has passed a bit and the anger and rash words have cooled a bit. Still, I feel the need to discuss and prognosticate a bit on the team and where they are headed and how they need to change to get there. Hopefully it’ll be somewhat reasoned. The outcome of the Packers game has gone a long ways towards getting my mood right.
The first angle I’m considering discussing is how to evaluate Lovie Smith and GM Jerry Angelo. It’s a very frustrating task for many reasons and I am probably beginning to sound like a broken record on the subject around here. Lovie is a very soft spoken guy and a absurdly loyal guy. He’s very measured in front of the media and always speaks optimistically when asked anything. Much of the talk is meaningless PR-speak crafted to avoid making headlines and protect his players. Often this is an asset in a coach because meaningless or scripted outrage is usually the first sign of a coach losing control of his team. However, Lovie’s loyal players-coach persona seems to be creating a culture of lenience and carelessness. Players aren’t practicing enough and players are making mistakes on the field at every position. Players at key positions seem to not pass the eyeball test physically, especially on defense, several veterans look soft and weaker than you’d expect a NFL starter to look. You have to wonder if the pressure within the locker room is great enough to get them into the gym and working to be better. The constant injury issues could be a reflection of this too.
Lovie’s nice guy act and trite press conference language makes criticizing him a dull exercise. The Chicago media, which generally has some teeth, has been surprisingly soft on the guy in his tenure here even though there have been some pretty glaring failures through the years. Granted, Lovie has pretty much owned the Packers since coming to Chicago in 2004 and he led them to a Super Bowl for the first time since Ditka so he’s earned a bit of slack, but I think most savvy spectators realize that the Bears haven’t exactly been consistently good under him and they’ve laid too many few eggs. Lovie is basically a very savvy politician. He always keeps a happy face when the cameras are rolling and generally stays out of the papers. He has always managed to have a credible scapegoat for his failures and was able to use them as cover without looking like he was doing so. He’s responsible for Rex Grossman, Ron Turner, Bob Babich and just about every other major decision that’s been blamed for the failures over the years. Heck, even Jerry Angelo has potentially taken more heat than Lovie. Lovie has made a reputation as one of the consummate good guys and his well publicized relationship with Dungy further reinforces that. He may actually be a very nice guy, I’ve not heard much to the contrary, but that seems to buy him far too much insulation from critique and benefit of the doubt.
To boil it down, I don’t think Lovie is a very smart coach. Year after year the Bears have been out-maneuvered, out-schemed and out-adjusted. There have been a lot of occasions where there Bears lost games due to being unprepared, more damning there have been games where they were much more talented and either lost or won much more closely than we should. Frequently it seems that the Bears come out of halftime playing worse than in the first, games where opposing players and strategies are successful and go unchallenged for entire games. Games where the Bears exploit a weakness and then forget about it for the balance of the game. The Bears offense has always been conservative and the defense is a bend-but-don’t-break system. Both of these ideas can win you games when you are more talented and less mistake prone than your opponent, but it won’t get you very far when you need to step it up against a formidable opponent. Again, Lovie gets a pass because he wins the games he should and loses the ones he shouldn’t, he’s successfully controlled expectations.
Jerry Angelo. Every draft rolls around and I go off on a rant detailing the needs of the team and the failures that he’s had which caused them. Every draft I’m left furious and frustrated after our picks pass. Perhaps the most amazing thing is that there seems to be little clarity from Halas Hall on who’s calling the shots in the draft room, after 5+ seasons we’re unsure of how much control (read: blame) Lovie or Angelo deserves. Angelo seems to be the default for critique when a draft pick flops or he passes on a area of need, but considering the amount of value spent on defensive players it seems clear that Lovie is getting what he wants.
Continuity has been a strength and an obvious focus for the Bears and I think it’s clear that Angelo is at the heart of this, they’ve consistently spent money to retain their own players on both sides of the ball. Logically this sounds like a good thing and much has been made of the need to build from within, but perhaps it speaks of an inability to scout talent internally and realistically compare players from the outside. Again it’s politics. If you pull a Dan Snyder and pony up big money for a FA and it flops you get crushed in the media, if you pony up not-so-big money to hold onto a good but not great player in your own locker room and it flops the player catches the heat. No one bothers to ask if signing Nathan Vasher to a deal after an injury plagued season was smarter than going after Clements or another Pro Bowl caliber player.
It’s been a trend for the Bears under Angelo’s regime to resign our own players to good but not great deals when their stock seemed low. Vasher, Tillman, Harris, Urlacher, Mike Brown, Hillenmeyer, Alex Brown, Desmond Clark are just some examples. Most had one or two great years followed by a poor or injury plagued season. They were almost always signed to deals after those down years under the assumption that those great seasons were the real thing and that the bad year was a fluke. On occasion this has proven to be true, and buying low is typically a great idea, but the Bears seem to have made that gamble too many times and lost it more than they’ve won it.
Health is a constant theme, and that’s always an issue in the NFL so it’s tough to blame someone for what could be just bad luck but eventually you have to start questioning the trend. Bears players, especially defenders, can never stay healthy. Angelo also has a habit of drafting guys with injury histories in college. Gambling (buying low again perhaps) like that can work, but the Bears have been living on it and not properly hedging their bets. While talent evaluation is part of the blame as it applies to injuries, it seems that our training and medical staffs are partly to blame too. That also is a Angelo controlled item. When players look weak on the field and are constantly injured and not practicing hard enough there’s a cultural issue, and it seem the Bears are in bad shape as far as that goes.
Many of the Bears players are very talented. Almost everyone on defense has shown Pro Bowl caliber play at one time or another. Perhaps better leadership could motivate them to reach and maintain those levels of play. We simply need a higher standard and there’s no way that Lovie can provide that as far as I’m concerned. It’s unclear to me how much I need to blame Angelo for the rest and I could probably be convinced that a better coach and staff could get better play from the talent he’s drafting and signing to potentially smart contracts. This of course assumes that Angelo isn’t to blame for all those failures, if he’s handcuffing Lovie there he needs to go too. Lovie needs to go regardless because even without the personnel issues he’s failed with the Xs and Os enough to deserve a pink slip.
To further highlight the issues with personnel we can talk about player development. Like I noted, many players will play well once and then flounder. This is a coaching issue and a motivation issue. Recently we’ve had more severe issues with players who they weren’t even able to squeeze one good season out of. Cedric Benson is exhibit A. Why did it take him being released and unemployed to become motivated to actually work hard? Kyle Orton and Tank Johnson are other players who left the team and succeeded elsewhere, both are special cases and I’m not necessarily saying we shouldn’t have made those moves but it raises questions. Lesser known players like Marc Columbo, Justin Gage and Bobby Wade were drafted as Bears and never found success here before becoming regular contributors elsewhere. Why do capable players seem so unable to develop here?
Lovie has taken command of the defense and staked his reputation on it. Marinelli was supposed to fix the D-line. Time will tell if Lovie is able to leverage the injuries to Urlacher and the rest of the defense and Harris’ implosion as scapegoats to buy himself another season. Maybe Ron Turner will be the sacrificial lamb this time. God knows that with $11M and 2 years left the McCaskeys will be looking for every reason to keep Lovie. And if Lovie stays, Angelo probably will to. They are a package deal at this point I think.
In doing a little browsing of the Chicago Sports Blogs I came across this article from the Tribune. Haugh basically comes to the same conclusion that I do regarding Lovie and JA, we’re basically stuck with them both due to the size of their current contracts and the McCaskey’s cheapness.
He makes this statement after highlighting the financial obstacles in landing a big fish HC.
I completely disagree with the supposition that bringing in a “hot NFL coordinator” is a lateral move or regression versus keeping Lovie. I’m guessing the Saints, Falcons, Niners, Texans, Dolphins, Broncos, Cardinals, Jets, Steelers and Ravens feel pretty good about the “hot coordinators” they brought in. I’d much rather find the next Sean Payton or Mike Tomlin over bringing in a giant ego like Cowher, Shanahan, Holmgren or Gruden to run the show.
He notes:
If we are stuck with tweedle dee and tweedle dum for the next couple seasons as most suspect then it seems critical that Ted Phillips step up and demand some changes of the sort. Lovie’s personality and cool demeanor might be an asset if it’s a counter-point to a more aggressive/abrasive offensive and defensive coordinator. Perhaps hiring a creative, up and coming OC who likes to air it out could balance out Lovie’s overly conservative streak. Maybe a Rex Ryan-like mouthbreather could motivate and challenge (scare?) the defense into playing like it’s hair’s on fire while Lovie reigns in the risk taking to a acceptable level. Having “Lovie’s guys” in those spots isn’t working. Similar challenges and checks and balances to Angelo’s system of scouting, self-scouting and player development need to be forced.
Part of the problem in Detroit has been a revolving door policy on coaches. Is it wise to pick a young smart coach and stick with him for a few years, no matter what happens? I know the Lion receivers get pretty befuddled by new play books over and over. Teams with long winning histories seem to stay with a coach a longer time. I could not be wrong about that ,could i? Would Detroit be smart to give Schwartz a ten year contract?
Lovie is the previous Mike Tomlin. Buccaneers defensive position coach who became a defensive coordinator and then the head coach of a Super Bowl team.
The poor man’s Mike Tomlin it appears.
If they think he’s The Guy, then yes. The same goes for offensive coordinators and offensive lines. The Lions signed their offensive line, so we’re stuck with them for a little while.
Oh god. I just read what I typed out. Please shoot me. If you find a silver bullet, please shoot me in the back of the head so I don’t see it coming. I’ll be watching videos of Barry Sanders on YouTube to make it easier.
Well, in fairness, Lovie inherited the league’s 23rd ranked offense and 22nd ranked defense (by scoring). Tomlin inherited the league’s 12th and 11th ranked units, respectively.
Not to diminish Tomlin’s achievements, but he is still basically running Bill Cowher’s team.
I think you may be confusing cause and effect here. Coaches stay with teams for long periods because the team does well, not the other way around. NFL head coaches are much more likely to be fired than to retire or be hired away by somebody else. Giving Schwartz a long term deal would be putting the cart before the horse- just look at Buffalo, which gave Dick Jauron a long term extension after a 4-0 start only to discover what everyone else already knew - that Jauron has a good year once in every half-dozen or so. Call it the seven-year itch.
I’ll tell you what I tell every fan of decent teams - the guy you replace him with is likely to do an awful lot worse. Eagles fans wanted Andy Reid fired at this time last season, and I pointed out that whoever his replacement was, there was a 1 in 50 chance he’d be the next Bill Belichick, a 4 in 10 chance that he’d be demonstrably better than Reid, and a 45 in 50 chance that he’d be worse - and in all probability, whoever they hired would be much worse, not just a little worse.
Yeah, it’s certainly too soon to be treating Tomlin as the second coming. Lovie however is a finished product, he is what we think he is. We’re going to be stuck with Lovie for 2 more years I think. This will be the test of if he’s capable of adjusting and changing his ways to suit his talent and situation. I suspect he’ll be blindly stubborn and convinced of his system and we’ll go from below average to truly awful but he’s at least got a chance to salvage things and make something of it.
One thing were Tomlin and Lovie can be compared is how they dealt with struggling 1st round drafted running backs. Lovie basically kissed Benson’s ass, handed him a starting job he hadn’t earned in spite of his players objections and shipped off a team leader to make room for him. He never forced him to work, develop and earn his spot. Tomlin so far as taken Mendenhall and given him tough love. Publicly benching him. Demanding hard work and dedication and team concept. Not surprisingly he’s responding very nicely.
Mendenhall was picked at the end of the first round. Benson was picked at the beginning. It’s an awful lot easier to stick $5 million on the bench than $25 million.
Anyway, it wasn’t Lovie’s fault that the Bears drafted Benson.
I disagree. They gave a long term contract to Matt Millen. Look how well that worked out.
Lovie had plenty of control over both decisions. Angelo and Lovie are equally culpable in each situation. If a coach lets issues like salary and draft status influence player and game decisions that’s about as big an indictment as anything.
Frankly, Lovie probably had more cover to bench Benson because fan and team favorite Jones was on the roster and productive while Tomlin had busted wheel Parker and a little else. In 2006 Lovie force fed Benson the ball against all indications. Tomlin, when it would have been easy to provide cover to Mendenhall and keep trotting him out there with fingers crossed decided to act.
Good grief, the Lions are 17 1/2 point underdogs this week against Minnesota. Is that possible?
What’s the biggest NFL spread ever? That’s getting up there!
There’s a local sports talk radio show host and former sports columnist up herein the Twin Cities who just blogged about last week’s Lions that their early 17 point lead was a good way to be able to spot who the real Lions fans were and who the phonies were. The phony Lions fans were thinking the Lions had a win in the bag. The real Lions fans knew that not only could they still lose, but lose by double digits.
I’m not even going to smack talk about this game. it’s gotten to the point where I almost feel bad about the Vikings beating them. I would actually like to see the Lions turn around and become a force in the division. I just don’t want it to be this week. Nothing personal, but we have to take the win. We’re playing for home field advantage. You might see Tavaris Jackson in the game for a lot of the 2nd half, though.