Games are never won or lost on one or two plays. Collection of plays that will make or break your day. Bears played hell of a game but came up short to beat best team in division. I hope that Fields continues to play well through rest of season. This team needs to grow and young players need to develop.
This is a good take IMO. That loss hurt for a lot of reasons. Wins have been scarce (to say the least), we haven’t won a division game in almost 2 seasons, we had victory in our grasp and let it slip away, etc. But we are seeing a developing team develop. JF looked really good in his return. Not flawless, but more than good enough to beat a very good team. Our defense was playing really well too (until the last 5 mins). The Sweat trade looks like a great move so far, and we have a solid defensive backfield when healthy. They weren’t flawless either - JJ missed a couple of picks; Edmunds missed some key tackles - but (until the final 5 mins), they played well enough to beat a very good team. I see progress everywhere, except coaching. As many others have pointed out, running Herbert up the middle repeatedly in Q4 was chicken-shit. Yes, you want to eat clock, but you also have to protect your lead by adding to it. Those play calls gave us very little chance of putting more points on the board. As for the defensive coaching, the shift to prevent D let Goff off the hook - on two consecutive drives, which also happened to be the pivotal drives of the game. Where did our pass rush go? Our D should have been rested and ready, given the time of possession disparity. Why did Goff suddenly look so comfortable, after having been shaken and wobbly most of the game? Because we let him off the hook. The D played aggressively for the entire game, but now we shift to “bend not break” and open the door for Goff to march his team downfield using very little clock? Either the strategy was wrong (my opinion) or the execution was poor. Either way, it is a coaching failure. Fluss seems like a good guy (Getsey - who knows?), but he can’t close a game with this team. I hate the idea of bringing in a third coaching regime/system for Fields (and yes, I’m assuming we ride with him), but that might be necessary.
He was used to having to stop and come back to deep balls from the last few weeks.
Did anyone notice that it looked like he let up for a step, which then resulted in the ball being a bit out of reach?
Velus 2.0
Not a play with a high completion rate. No way he should feel like he cost us the game.
That and the fumble hurt us more than anything
It isn’t on him. It was one play. I felt like he has been carrying his load today and the last few weeks.
Maybe Flus can come out & show some accountability too?
Honestly, it’s a rookie mistake. He looked like he stopped for just a fraction of a second. Came at a bad time. But also, WHY throw that type of play call when the game can be put out of reach???
It wasn’t the playcall, it was the decision.
The route isn’t meant to be thrown, especially in that situation. It’s meant to be a clear out for the underneath routes.
And if the underneath route isn’t there? If he breaks open on the deep ball down the field the QB is just not supposed to throw it even if no one else is open?
The concept is called with a deep route. Any route being run on a given play has potential to be the target if it is what’s open on the given play/how it is defended. If you don’t want to throw a deep ball under any circumstances, then you don’t have a deep route on the field. Doesn’t matter what the intention of the deep route is. What matters is how the play develops and what the progression is.
He was clearly open and had a step with a good opportunity to catch that ball. That makes it a good decision.
Tough quote for the “it was a terrible pass” crowd
It’s not “it was a terrible pass.” It’s “Fields consistently fails to connect with his WRs more than 10 yards downfield.”
Sure this one is on Scott. But it’s part of a way larger trend that Fields is inaccurate deep and on a different page from his WRs.
it was an over throw, cant win with a qb who cant throw more than 200 yards in todays nfl
Why can’t we blame JJ? Dude wants to be paid top tier money and had a huge PI call and 2 dropped INT chances.
Let’s not blame any players at all because they played very well for the most part.
I wouldn’t call scoring 2 TDs off 4 turnovers playing well
Yeah well we also could have not played scared predictable ass football on 1st and 2nd down. Maybe we wouldn’t have been in a 3rd and long if we just stuck to literally what we had been doing all game and what just landed us an 8 minute drive the drive before. Nope, of course we didn’t.
Not excusing him slowing on the route, that wasn’t great… I just hate that this is what’s being talked about on that final possession.
I’m never going to understand changing how you’ve been playing all game because of the clock and the score.
I think that was my biggest complaint about lovie, is that at the end of games where we were up by a score, he’d go into prevent defense and inevitably give the other team a chance to tie or win it because we abandoned the gameplan that got us the lead late in the game in the first place.
I don’t want to be a coach, but it seems to me like there are two obvious things every good coach should be able to do.
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Create a scheme that fits your players, highlighting their strengths while minimizing their weaknesses
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Stick to the plan if it’s working. See it through to the end.
And this coaching staff does neither. I quit a high paying job recently because the people above me couldn’t do either 1 or 2
We weren’t in a prevent defense.
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I agree. I put the blame on Getsy, not on a rookie WR who made a rookie mistake.
I get running it but fucking two shotgun runs? That hasn’t worked since Getsy has gotten here when the defense knows it’s coming. Be more creative Jesus Christ.
The fact that they knowingly ran those plays straight into a brick wall, not even TRYING to actually get a positive play is just sickening.
You mean running the ball and getting bailed out by defensive penalties?
Agree. This is the clearest of many examples of how the coaching staff has lost games. I can’t think of three worse playcalls. The first 2 are inexcusable. And I’m not trying to defend fields though I think he did enough. But does anyone know if fields can CHANGE THE PLAY at the line? The third down call though. We needed a first down. Not 40 yards. Time for a 10 yard route to Moore or kmet.
Scott was wide open and it was a perfect ball… it was the right play. We have been shredding him for not seeing open receivers all year.
A 40 yard pass is a low percentage pass. It should not have been drawn up like that. One route is super deep. Dj was not even at the first down marker. Bad play design for the situation. I agree fields threw a perfect ball to the right player. But he should not have even had the option
Having a fast WR stretch the field creates space underneath by pulling safety help.
The rest of the play might be bad, but having a speed guy take the top off isn’t bad at all.
I’ll agree with you there. I still think the chance of completion is low for the deep ball vs anything else. Look at the charges packers game. Quentin Johnson dropped it and he was wide open as well
This was not on him. Yea, he messed up. Yea it was at a bad time. Yes Fields threw a beautiful ball that would have hit him in stride.
However, they should not have been in that position. The Defense should not have given up points that fast. Getsy should not have done 2 runs up the DAMN middle.
There was a shot right before that 3 play drive started of Flus intently looking at a sheet of paper. We starting joking about him doing scratch math trying to figure out how many different ways they could run up the middle…little did we know it wasn’t actually a joke.
Feel bad for the kid, he’s going to feel that one a bit, but again we should not have been in that position.
That one pass changes the entire narrative of this game.