Trouble, baby.
I'm glad I waited a while before posting this, as I think I have some decent perspective now.
The Bears played like crap for nearly 4 quarters. They turned the ball over 4 times - unacceptable for a veteran team coached by a guy who preaches turnovers and ball control. They were utterly gashed by the Vikes on the ground - again, unacceptable for a team that played in the Super Bowl last year (guess who watched tape of the first Green Bay drive from the week before?). Dear Bears: Fix the turnover problem. Fix the run defense.
But, there was some good. Devin Hester, you are out of your mind. On the Fox postgame show Jimmy nailed it right, on, the, head. He said that the most valuable guy on a football team is the talent evaluator. Talent wins football games. There's no coaching that can turn Bobby Wade into Devin Hester. There's no coaching that can turn - sorry Bears fans - Cedric Benson into Adrian Peterson (the Vikes, not ours).
But he can be good, if not great. The problems can be fixed. Another free bit of advice for the Bears? Tell Benson that he's got two, maybe three games. He's going to get all the carries, every down, every series. He either stands up like a man and lives up to his "special" tag or he's gone. Enough of this third down BS and enough coddling what should be a professional doing his J-O-B.
P.S. Hey, Turner? Run that go route to Hester, like, five times a game.
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I'm with you - I was planning to wait until mid-week to make any comments on this game. I was too angry, and too dejected, to put any rational thoughts together after this game.
Right now, I see 2 major problems with this team: player performance on defense, and coaching on offense.
I can't complain too much about the offense, having scored 27, 27, and 31 points in the 3 games since Griese took over. With the special teams & defense we are supposed to have, those point totals should be enough to win any game. However, scoring points does not absolve them from criticism. Ron Turner has mismanaged Cedric Benson as poorly as I've ever seen a coach manage a running back. When he's on a roll, keep giving him the damn ball. When he has a couple successful runs, do not pull him for a lesser player like Adrian Peterson simply because you want to get him a few carries. Memo to Ron Turner: Dick Jauron tried this with Cade McNown in the 1990s, it doesn't work. If a guy is struggling & needs a break, by all means do it. But when a guy is rolling, let him keep rolling.
Additionally, do a better job using him situationally. Stop the damn pitches to the outside, hes not the kind of back who is going to make plays outrunning the linebackers. He needs a hole to hit and to move downhill, not laterally. Don't pull him out, replace him with 5 foot nothing, 180 pound Garrett Wolfe, and call a run up the middle. On 3rd or 4th and short, don't call pass plays, and don't call QB sneaks, pound the rock with Benson. Once he's been successful at that a couple of times, and the defense dedicates 11 guys to stopping that, then try throwing in some other wrinkles to get creative.
While Benson is not as shifty as LT or as fast as the Vikings Adrian Peterson, he is a good strong running back who is talented enough to run for 1300 years a season. But to do so, he needs to be used properly, and right now Turner is not doing that.
Defensively, we need to get healthy and Babich needs to stress fundamentals. It sucks we lost Dusty & M. Brown for the year, and getting Vasher, Walker, & Tommie Harris back at 100% will be a boost. But regardless of who is on the field, make the tackles that are there to be made. As much pub as Peterson is getting after that great game, he didn't do anything special. He simply ran where there was a whole, kept his legs moving, and didn't allow Bears defenders to strip the abll or make arm tackles. He wasn't bowling anyone over, or making any fabulous moves, he just ran fast & hard, and the defense didn't do anything to stop him.
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