week 2.5 bearsing

to me, it's flagrantly obvious that the bears problems start all the
way at the top: ownership. I don't know where the buck stopped when
people like jim finks or bill tobin were brought in, however it's
clear to me that nowadays that this organization is fundamentally
flawed.

whoever is hiring the people who hires the football people is hiring
the wrong people. whoever hires the GMs is hiring people who clearly
can not consistently identify super-bowl-caliber talent in players.
this causes the team to have a bunch of bums, most notably at the
quarterback position, and then this causes the bears to always have
holes comprised of full-on bad at numerous positions.

look at this administration: as doug and OB often say, jerry angelo
probably wouldn't get another GM job in the NFL if he were to lose his
gig with the bears. with the exception of 2005-2006, this
angelo/lovie administration has been a back-n-forth year-to-year
jekyll and hyde situation. one year they'll be good enough to make
the playoffs, perhaps even make a run to a conference title game or a
super bowl, but then everyone involved will start to believe that
they're the smartest team in the league and they'll rest on their
laurels, that being that they've got a team that will perennially
contend for championships. they don't address the obvious flaws that
their "quality" team had, nor do they seemingly do anything proactive
in terms of stocking the team full of depth that will ensure a
veritable array of shark's-teeth-type-replaceability at the skill
positions. jerry angelo and lovie smith both know that having a
quality defensive line is the key to running the cover-2 defense,
therefore that's the position that they'll always go out of their way
to draft players for, believing that an eclectic combination of lovie
and rod marinelli are so damn good at their jobs that they can turn
any schmuck who jumps out of a pool into a fearsome football force.
it's obvious to me that jerry angelo believed that he solved ~90% of
the team's problems when he went and acquired jay cutler, likely
assuming that once he had a bonafide elite franchise type quarterback
that it didn't matter who's blocking for him or who's going to catch
the ball: he's a franchise quarterback, so he obviously excretes magic
pixie dust that enchants everyone around him to play better.

invariably, after they go into the next season puffing their chests
and acting smug and egotistical, they have a sub-.500 season and then
they begin to freak out and worry about their own job security. this
causes jerry to do things like immediately go out and grab a muhsin
muhammad (coming off of a ~14TD career year season) or a julius
peppers (beast) and then make a few other moves to address some of the
things that went horribly wrong last year. from that point, lovie
seems to be a good quality coach who can take mediocre talent and put
them in a position to play solid NFL defense, which combined with some
flashes of talent on offense then enable the bears to go and have a
"magical" season like 2001 or 2006 or 2010, which leads everyone
involved to believe that they're truly amongst the elite teams in the
NFL, thus causing them to repeat the cycle where they go into the next
season with the puffed-out-chests confident that they're smarter than
95% of the league, and this is why they'll go and draft a redshirt
project like stephen paea at DT as opposed to going out and getting a
wide receiver who can catch the damn ball. when the bears are coming
off of a good season, they often focus on doing the things that their
gut tells them to do (i.e. MORE DEFENSIVE LINEMEN NO MATTER THE
COST!!!) as opposed to what they ought to be doing (amassing an armada
of weaponry around jay cutler which provides the foundation of a
perennial top-15 offense for the next ~5 years)

what's really sad and bothersome to me is that i see the bears
absolutely wasting the window afforded to them by the prime of jay
cutler's career. even jerry knew that bringing in mike martz was a
horrible idea: martz is so rigid and smarmy in his ways that he
refuses to let cutler audible or change plays... he doesn't call a
bunch of bootlegs or plays that would play to jay cutler's strengths,
which i equate more to childhood afterschool freeform football than
rigid supercomplicated post-don-coryell offense that MUST BE EXECUTED
AS IT IS DRAWN UP, FOR IT IS THE WORD OF FOOTBALL GOD (amen). i think
that the bears would thrive if jay were given an offense that was more
dynamic in its construction and allowed him to play to his strengths
as a mobile quarterback who always believes he can make a play even
when the odds are stacked against him... instead, he's being told that
he has to be a quarterbacking robot by a guy who's so full of himself
that it takes him numerous examples of near-total failure to finally
relent and start calling plays that allow his offense to be
productive, as opposed to a perpetual game of "smear the queer" where
jay's running for his life so damned much that i'm legitimately
worried that it's going to stunt his development as a quarterback and
rob us of the chance to see the bears actually have a bigtime
you-win-because-you-have-that-guy type quarterback.

all in all, i reckon i'm set for a lifetime of suffering as a bears
fan cuz the whole damn organ-I-zation is just so damn goofy weird and
bad that everyone in a position of power to hire and fire is going to
hire people who make the wrong moves/hires and that will trickle all
the way down to the product on the field, which is flagrantly obvious
when jay cutler is getting hit so hard and so often that it almost
immediately transcends the realm of fun-bad and becomes merely sad...
downright sad.

that's my two cents

# SHAKE THAT!!!@

props to matty ice and the dirty birds

http://sinicalypse.kaen.org/djtimosman/dj%20tim%20osman%20-%20bears%20pick%20me%20up%20-%20props%20to%20matty%20ice%20and%20the%20dirty%20birds.mp3

it should be done uploading in... uhh... 15 minutes.

that said, wow. just wow. that was a ballgame, whether it was the bears categorically owning the falcons in the first quarter mentally smacking matty ice around (this was akin to the bears/bucs game with griese a year or two ago when THERE WAS NO FUCKING PASS RUSH TO SPEAK OF. hopefully marinelli can get gaines adams to play like the 4th overall pick of the 07 draft and we can have some gaines on the d-line. we need it. marcus harrison was schooled)

and the offensive line OH MY FUCKING LORD as big doug buffone said, FRANK OLMEAL(sp) SHOULD BE BROUGHT UP ON MURDER CHARGES CUZ HE NEARLY GOT FORTE KILLED.

thank god ob and doug are back from the failed chicagosportswebio.com experiment and back on the score... they're two old 60s bears who feel what you feel and when the bears lose, it's appointment radio. hell it's always appointment radio, but like, when the bears lose like they did last night... wow. take a lot away from it:
kevin payne pinball, once i learns me some javascript again i'mma make that game, man he got fucking schooled on that TD to end the first half. he went to cover a wide receiver and stayed deep, then nick roach gets deked out by tony gonzalez AND NOBODY IS FUCKING DEEP AT ALL.

peep my tweets, i prolly made 100+ during the game and like i'm pleading NO TOUCHDOWN GIVE THEM A FIELD GOAL NO LEAD IS SAFE WITH JAY CUTLER.
then the offensive line?!@ wow. orlando pace plays LT with a walker i swear to god. the bears hesitated on the 4th and inches at the 4.5 yard line with 30 seconds left and pace was like "i needs me some advantage" false start and a failed pass to dez clark.

JOHNNY KNOX IS GOOD AS GOLD I MEAN IF YOU START WITH 3WR YOU GO DEVIN THE DUDE THE EARL OF BENNETT AND GOOD AS GOLD KNOX. bennett made a bigtime catch to get the bears to the 4.5 for that failed conversion.

the bears didn't deserve to win that game. i mean, they did, but the way they played, it's akin to me... we felt ourselves so much we were mentally masturbating... kind of like phil jackson's thoughts on sports talk radio. and like, the falcons fucking schooled the bears in the 2nd quarter... matty ice lived up to his name, after looking erratic and taht offense didnt do shit... SANDBAGGERS!!@# they stopped the flood alright.

props given... mike smith coached a hell of a game, schooled lovie... and even tho cutler was obviously the best player on the field, he wasn't enough to overcome not just the bears mistakes but even his own mistakes like those two horrible INTs... he has like 7 redzone INTs during the last 2 seasons, tops in the nfl. why?!@
it's like why i run www.myspace.com/vladimirguerrero and www.myspace.com/aircutler at the same time. both of them believe in themselves so much that they're going to take a shot, they're going to swing at a pitch a foot high on 0-2 with the bases loaded in the playoffs and look horrible when they miss, they're going to throw interceptions in the redzone...

BUT THEY'RE ALSO GOING TO HAVE THE BALLS TO MAKE TAHT OMFG FUCKING PLAY WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT. YOU CAN CHALLENGE THEM TO MAKE BAD DECISIONS, BUT LOOK AT THAT TD CUTLER THREW OFF OF HIS BACK FOOT PRESSURE IN HIS FACE AND I MEAN THAT'S WHAT IT'S ABOUT. LOOK AT WHAT VLAD DID TO JONATHAN "UNTOUCHABLE IN THE PLAYOFFS" PAPELBON DOWN 1 2 OUTS BASES LOADED TO GET TO VLAD?!@ HELLO. YOU DONT DO THAT BECAUSE HE'S VLADIMIR FUCKING GUERRERO AND HIS LARGE VOCABULARY THAT YOU'VE NEVER HEARD BECAUSE VLAD DOESNT DO INTERVIEWS STRANGELY LACKS THE WORD FEAR.

while there enough negatives to go to bed immediately after the game pissy consoled by ob and doug and howard griffith and finfer on the breaks from ob and doug, still, i woke up feeling good about this team. THEY DIDN'T GO OUT LIKE BITCHES LAST NIGHT, EVEN THO THEY PLAYED LIKE THEM FOR MOST OF THE GAME. yes, painful as it as to admit: the bears need to get smacked around sometimes to get that FUCK YOU WE'RE DOPE mentality going... sure, i run around telling everyone we're going to win the superbowl this year, and while i do indeed believe, i also like the unpredictability of sports... thats why i watch just about all of them, except hockey unless it's live or on HDTV cuz man regular tv and hockey?!@ only in the playoffs... you never fucking know. sometimes you know and when you know like the 85 bears, well, you ride it out and smile cuz you fucking earned this shit.

this is the best time to be a bears fan... your team is going through growing pains, making moves to win that fucking super bowl and they're committed... and it's going to happen, time is only a formality... they'll do what they have to do and then in the end, it's like our coach lovie smith... all the bears coaches were wearing pink billed hats and did you see lovie wearing a pink billed hat!?@

a little tease

fret not, guys, i will write some bears shit soon.. give me a few games now to watch the team closely and analyze it and believe me, 2009 is a good year for the chicago bears. WE HAVE AIR CUTLER!!@#

oh yeah.

i could write 50,000 words on the bears right now... i will sometime soon.

alls i gotta say is two words: IT'S TIME

now watch the super bowl shuffle and dust off them shuffling shoes... ya bw0y admiral awesome aint fucking around here >>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev6AAgZGaPs

2007 bearsing: IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT (and i feel fine, but everyone else doesn't)

i can sum it up best by dropping this quote from efnet's #bears a few minutes after the loss became official:

<> the cubs are done this year
they still can make it and all
<> haha
<> but i've emotionally uninvested
<> another example of how true a fan you are
<> 3 and out
<> faggot
-!- nein [~nein@ideacomplex.com] has left #bears []

cubs fans: the giant whirlpool of suck that brings fatalism to such great heights. they live and die with every pitch, they go from exhalting the game's greatest players one moment to lambasting the piece-of-shite bum the next. because of their dubious distinction of being proud supporters of, arguably, the most underachieving team in all of professional sports (while they may not be the WORST franchise out of them all, in terms of having 40k people per game attending with the general idea being that the cubs are doing all they can to field the best team possible in order to accompany the so-good-it-sells-itself product that is "THE WRIGLEY FIELD EXPERIENCE", if you juxtapose that factor in with on-field performance clearly they are the most grand upper echelon of perennial underachievers)

these people take immense amounts of pride in being a cubs fan, seeing their weathering the perpetual shitstorm of mediocrity-at-best as a testament to their greatness as baseball fans. they derive their identity from being someone who ostensaciously displays sheer and utter faith in a team due to pure love, as opposed to thought-manifested-appreciation of the game of baseball.

as such, in their throes of PASHIN (pronounced like SASHAGE) they are liable to question, in this particular order, your fandom, your sexuality, and whether or not you are the masculine partner in said unorthadox sexual relations. yes, you are usually the feminine.

this leads me to one final example of cubdom, and more specifically its prevalent mentality in consuming sports in chicago these days, takes us back to may of 2002, a beautiful weeknight where star-phenom/future-bust mark prior made his MLB debut against the pittsburgh pirates. cubs fans were extra gregarious as this was their can't miss #1 draft pick from just a year ago, and he looked damn impressive on the mound s oas the beer kept flowin the bravado was just about as high as i've ever seen it at wrigley field.

i would like to take this moment to interject the seemingly random happenstance that i was wearing an expos batting practice vladimir guerrero jersey. blue with red letters and white name/#s on the back: megamerican.

around the bottom of the fifth, as i was walking to the concourse to go have a cigarette, i was grabbed by the throat and shoved up against a wall by a shorter white-trash lookin dude in a brian urlacher jersey. he proclaimed "hey faggot, this is chicago. you wear a cubs jersey, preferably sosa, you wear an urlacher jersey, or you go the fuck home. you got htat?"

before i could recriprocate there were a few chunky white guys with earpieces in cubs-logoed polo shirts who showed up to expunge that guy from the crowd, however, the damage was done.

why do i bring this up on I LOVES ME SOME BEARS, you ask? simple. because hanging out in #bears talking whilst the game was going on, from kickoff to the demise early int he 4th quarter i came across a bunch of seethign bears fans, which i believe to be representative of hte general swarth of emobearsfans. check out this exchange:

FuFu is FuFu@rrcs-67-53-139-242.west.biz.rr.com * FuFu
FuFu on @#greenbaypackers +#CheatingNetwork +#fw #chicagobears #bears

<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
<> hahahahahahaha the bears are fucking horrible
-!- FuFu [FuFu@rrcs-67-53-139-242.west.biz.rr.com] has left #bears []
<> catcha y'all next week
-!- MrZebra [neonmoose@abcdefg.look.mah.im.a.geenie.us] has left #bears []
<> BTW
<> for all of my fans.....
<> emessiah, we dont need analysts in this channel.. we need bears
fans.
<> and yes
<> you certainly are a faggot
<> hahahah
<> thanks guys

-------

basically, i was ridiculed for talking all concilatory near the end of the game, talking about how i saw some positives in this game, nearly that we did hang with teh chargers... the defense basically gave up 7 points, as the other 7 were giftwrapped. that's not a bad day.

grossman got rattled early, making a heap of inconsistent throws... however there were two fumbles from the RB position, 1 benson 1 peterson. rex did throw an interception, however at the time he threew it hte bears were in control of the game, even after having been outplayed for hte vast expanse of the ifrst quarter, and it was essentially a punt at this point.

so now fans are engaging in catharsis, calling up wanting to send rex and ced to the gallows... saying our offense is horrible we can't win the big game and this and that. fatalism. living and dying wiht every pitch: much like how hte cubs went from ebing a team of destiny to being a waste of $100mil to being that loveable rightful heir to the NL central all within the span of a month or two.

i need to add more detail later, but trust me peoples, the bears will be fines. a healthy dose of chiefs next week will be just what the doctor ordered... i predict htat the bears wills tuff hteir rushing game, exposing them as a very non-scary air attack team, and then we will strike.

if we lose to the chiefs next week something like 24-10, then panic away.

incidentally, i want to give a moment of respect to miek brown, whose career is probably over. another knee injury... he cried during a postgame interview. the bears have known that mike brown has an annual injury, and they prepared for it accordingly, drafting daniel manning and signing adam archuleta. they let chris harris go, and im sure htey knew brown would get hurt (he even got hurt in, um, either or or 05 in greenbay... first game, the one where he returned a ahman green fumble for a 99 yard TD)

seriouslky, he is the heart and soul of the bears defense... but unfortunately hes not an actual physical part of it... hopewfully hew sticks around to impart wisdom to d-manning and start off what i hope could be a nice career in coaching. i think he's smart enough to be a head coach someday.

0-1. a game mostly bleak and scary, but in the end hopeful as it wasnt like the chargers walked in and outclassed htem from the getgo. these were teams of an equal calibur, in that they're both elite NFL teams... and i reckon if hte bears get anothe rcrack at them the results would be quite different, if not a little more favorable for the beloved.

rex isnt a polished ranchise quarterback. he still has to learn. these are the growing pains... go whomp some chief ass next week and let's get back on the horse.

more late night (4-0) bearsing -- end of the first quarter edition/QB

start booking your hotel in miami because the chicago bears are undoubtedly headed there. WE NEED A NICKNAME FOR THE DEFENSE!! how does this compare to 1985?

these are prevalent thoughts amongst the consciousness of many chicagoans after the beloved took out last year's NFC super bowl representative, the seattle seahawks, in a triumphant 37-6 type fashion. while i'm definitely enamored with this impressive start to the season, being cursed with an analytical mind causes me to continually rack my brain trying to make sense of it all as we enter the second "quarter" of the season, according to lovie smith's method of viewing the yearly NFL schedule.

first and foremost, allow me to get in a few words about seattle: i'm not especially big on the mighty seahawks, even last year when they rode shaun alexander's career year to a super bowl berth. matt hasselbeck will always bring up a memory of his ill-fated proclamation after a coin toss in a playoff game with green bay two years ago: "we want the ball, and we're going to win" -- seattle's defense is solid but definitely not spectacular. it's good enough to complement a good offense and make them a formidable opponent to just about everyone when they're operating at full steam ahead, however i never exactly had the morbid fear of an amazing defense in my head at any point. nor does the bulk of their offense exactly terrify me. shaun alexander, when healthy, has the ability to be one of the top 3 running backs in the league. last year he topped priest holmes' still young record of 27 touchdowns in a season by amassing 28 of his own, therefore with that kind of dominance matt hasselbeck was able to operate with a passing game that benefitted from being the secondary concern of opposing gameplans.

with alexander out, the seattle koolaid factory churned out stories about the awesomeness of their newfound 4 wide receiver formations, to which backup running back maurice morris was well suited for with his smallishly quick running game. nevermind the fact that he was a NFL backup runningback for a reason, coming off of a week where hasselbeck threw for 5 TDs against r-dub mack-quarters and the reknown new york giants secondary the seahawks were geared to unleash a fearsome aerial attack against the vaunted bears defense, therefore the quicker/smaller/better-catchy-er mo morris was a better fit to come out and dismantle the bears.

their four receivers? darrell jackson (who at the time was technically the #1 fantasy football wideout, however this proved to be a fluke as his inconsistency showed up and fulfilled his MO), viking alum nate burleson, ageless wonder ex-bear bobby engram, and the new kid in town 2003-04's very own super bowl MVP deion branch who was only two weeks into the new system. none of these receivers really put the fear of god in anyone, especially hte middle two, therefore it would be up to hasselbeck to rise up and make them look great by systematically dismantling the bears defense... but a problem arose: their WR-happy formations left the o-line alone to tackle the bears d-line, which was problematic sans steve hutchinson, as the bears front four were able to apply constant pressure to hasselbeck and cause him to run and chuck for his life, resulting in a sub-50% completion rate with 2 interceptions. maurice morris finished with something like 35 rushing yards on 10-15 carries. their offense sputtered on national television.

and the vaunted seahawks defense was carved up by wonder bear rex grossman, who continued his impressive season by adding in another ~250 yards and 2 TDs, bringing him up to approximately 1070 yards and 8 TD / 3 INT on the season.

after falling behind 3-0, the bears manhandled seattle to the tune of 37-3 in a game where they systematically dominated the seahawks, thus giving them a "big win" that endeared them to many of the national pundits who had them penciled in as an automatic one-and-done or even second place finisher to the vikings.

with that said, here's my take on the sections of the bears throughout this first "quarter"

- quarterback - rex grossman has stepped in and realized a good deal of the potential that us "rex guys" had believed he always had, however was unable to show thanks to a series of freakish injuries to his legs over the last two seasons. while many were weary of rex's lack of gametime experience, something like 7 or 8 starts in three seasons prior to this one, there was one aspect of his situation that was never mentionedby any of the national experts: rex wasn't on vacation during the last three years whilst he was injured, he was with the team doing all he could to pick up as much as he could about the game and ron turner's system from week to week. he'd go over film, gameplans, walkthroughs, basically the whole nine yards short of actually going out and playing every week. rex seems to have a solid head on his shoulders, so while he wasn't in the ideal situation of learning on the job, he did have a lot of time to study the game up close and pick up on things that a true rookie or 2nd year quarterback might not have known. obviously all of that knowledge doesnt mean anything if he can't apply it on the field, but since he's come back and stepped up and lead an offense to the mark of approximately 29 points per game through the first four games of the season, suffice to say that he probably did gain some important knowledge/perspective whilst injured throughout the last few seasons.

rex still has a propensity to make stupid mistakes, such as desperation heaves off of the back foot under pressure that lead to interceptions returned for touchdowns, or even forced throws leading to interceptions in the other end-zone, however these are the growing pains that come with the territory... and if this is going to be the downside that comes with the obvious upside, we'll take it. the only team that really threw a wrench into rex's 2006 parade of dominance was the vikings, who had an impressive gameplan which featured a consistnet up the gut pass rush extraordinnaire that took advantage of one of rex's inherent weaknesses, his lack of height (6' even), by clogging up the middle of the field they could limit his view downfield some and cause him to have to either bail out or make questionable throws. still though, i have confidence in both rex and offensive coordinator ron turner to figure out ways to circumvent these sitations in the future.

as it stands, rex looks to be arguably the most exciting quarterback in town since the days of the legendary sid luckman, who i know nothing about. rex zips the ball down the field, having the ability to make just about every throw possible with a consistent quality about it. his play has elevated the games of muhsin muhammad, bernard berrian, desmond clark, and newcomer rashied davis to the point where the wide receiver position is no longer seen as a crisis as it was in preseason, moreover as a weapon that can legitimately go out and make gamebreaking plays.

so knock on wood say your prayers and take your vitamins that the injury bug doesnt get to rex this year, although it is very reassuring to know that should something happen there is a solid veteran quarterback in brian griese waiting in the wings. no more of the jonathan quinn craig krenzel chad hutchinson or even kyle orton experience. the bears have both quality and depth at the quarterback position, which leads one to believe that they stand poised to make a run at the super bowl even if their #1 quarterback has issues.

next subject for the post you'll prolly read sooner than this: running backs

late night bearsing gone wild!!#$@

hello and welcome back to the 2006 season of i loves me some bears. i am sporadic and/or quite lazy so i can only hope that i start making better use of this facility in order to establish my football writing credentials.

anywho, in approximately 41 hours the 3-0 beloved take on the mighty seattle seahawks (how many times has that phrase been used in the grand scheme of things?) in what has been called a "statement game" and a "NFC showdown" by the national media, who by and large dismissed the bears as a 9-7 or 10-6 one and done playoff team, or even #2 in the division behind the minnesota vikings (if you trust espn's "cold pizza")

allow me to disclaim early that i am indeed a "rex guy", meaning that over the last few years whenever there was a "controversy" at QB i have always sided with rex grossman. i believe that the wonder bear has that intangible "it" factor, many call it "moxie", which gives him a pretty solidly high cieling. when the criminally stupid pined for orton to keep on starting thanks to his 10-5 record, i yearned for rex. when chicago's very own windbag mike north kept making the case for griese in the preseason, i yearned for rex. so with that in mind, i would like to continue on with my potential bias duly noted.

thus far the bears look like a very solid contender-type football team. last year's playoff loss to carolina left many a bears fan, let alone an actual bear, with a foul taste in their mouth. the vaunted defense was exposed in the secondary by the combination of jake delhomme and steve smith, who connected for something like 12+ receptions and 210+ yards and 2 TDs, the touchdowns featuring either a burned bear or a fallen bear. evidently the gameplan was centered around stopping deshaun foster, which they did and thensome, however the defense allowed 29 points to a team which had managed only about 6 in a meeting earlier in the season. even worse was the fact that the offense looked pretty solid and managed to regroup after being down 16-3 and get within a TD/2pt in the fourth quarter, ultimately marching down the field in the last few minutes and ending all hope once rex threw an interception at the carolina ~25 with approximately three minutes left.

the defense was obviously sickened by their performance, which led to its pro bowl players from bowing out of the game in a symbolic gesture after their collapse. going into this year, jerry angelo decided on acquiring defensive depth in the draft and also adding in nickelback ricky manning jr from carolina in free agency. at the time of the draft i was set on the bears getting a wideout and/or tight end, however as time wore on i managed to understand the mindset of the draft. while the offense was suitably egregious at times, the logic was that if the bears could shore up the secondary and add depth to an already good defense then you'd fortify the team's strongest area and essentially make the defense that much more of a gambit for opponents to run. while offense was clearly an area where the team needed to improve in order to make them a more legitimate contender, you figure that you had to roll the dice somewhere and see what you have in terms of unheralded players.

welp, three games into the season and i can say that a healthy rex grossman makes a world of difference with this offense. rex throws a nice tight ball that zips to the target, he can hit receivers in stride, and he also has the confidence to pick himself up after a bad play and be ready to take advantage of his next opportunity. rex has a good assortment of tools for the quarterback position, however his downsides are that he's short (approximately six feet even) and slow/veritably-immobile in the pocket. he's pretty good about being nimble and agile in terms of ducking and sidestepping pressure, though this year he's shown a weakness in that he'll make some ill advised throws under heavy pressure, the prime example being antoine winfield's TD interception return in last week's contest versus minnesota. still, rex can make all of the throws that you'd expect an NFL starting quarterback to make, he's got a nice quick release, and he seems to be somewhat intelligent in terms of adapting to the flow of the game as its going on. the other glaring deficency with rex is his lack of experience, as this is his fourth year and i believe sunday's contest will be his 11th pro start. freakish injuries are the culprit here, but with that in mind, it's still really refreshing to see a bears quarterback have success so relatively early in his career. i believe that rex has the opportunity to improve considerably with experience, so if he's able to start the full slate of games this season i believe he'll be a noticeably better QB come playoff time than he is even right now, sitting pretty as the NFC offensive player of the month for september.

oh yeah and if rex is to get hurt again (knock on wood) angelo did bring in a very competent backup in brian griese. this isn't your older brother's bears team where a QB injury meant the carousel of jonathan quinn, craig krenzel, and chad hutchinson. you've actually got a Qb that could start for a decent # of teams in the NFL, so if the horrible is to happen once again at least you don't have to erase any and all hope for the season, although i think it'd be a considerable blow with the quality of QBing that rex grossman has provided thus far.

the running game hasn't been especially effective yet, other than still providing some ability to make the playaction work. it's sounding like the 2006 chicago whitesox rallying cry of "don't worry, it'll get going soon enough" which is troublesome. thomas jones is devolving into james allen before our very eyes, noticeably shuffling behind the line once he gets the ball, then usually running into a pile of men. thus far it takes a gaping hole to get jones some seperation, even then he's usually taken down by the secondary for a 15 yard gain at most. unfortunately, that doesnt happen often. whether he's hurt or just plain ol regressing has yet to be determined, but this is where the potential of cedric benson would come in handy.