Teams Chicago Bears - Monsters of the Midway

[Exe Gesis]

Bears hired Mark Helfrich as offensive coordinator.

This does not come as a surprise after 670 The Score's Mike Mulligan reported the two sides were close to a deal on Thursday morning. Helfrich served as Chip Kelly's coordinator at Oregon before being promoted to the lead job in 2013. New coach Matt Nagy will call the plays for Chicago, but Helfrich should help with game planning and work closely with Mitchell Trubisky. With DC Vic Fangio expected to stick around, the Bears have the makings of a quality coaching staff.

Source: Adam Schefter on Twitter

 

[monty1104]

Heading to the states and going to catch a couple of bears games. Anyone have an idea of crowd behaviour at games? I am going to the game @cardinals, just wondering whether it’s like euro soccer where there are distinct home and away sections of the crowd, and if so, whether I should pay attention to these.

 

[Kram]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...uilding/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.60ac6a0d3ea1

Players like Khalil Mack aren’t supposed to be traded. Not in the NFL. Not in a league in which drafting good players and then developing them always has been the surest path to success. Not under an economic system in which a team can extend a prized rookie’s contract to five years and then utilize the franchise tag for a few seasons after that.

But Mack indeed has been traded, in a once-unlikely deal that changes the on-field direction of two franchises and the playoff outlook in both conferences. The Oakland Raiders agreed Saturday to send Mack, the standout pass rusher and former NFL defensive player of the year, to the Chicago Bears for a package that includes two first-round draft choices, according to a person familiar with the situation who confirmed multiple reports of the trade.

 

[A11dAtP0w3R]

Mack, Floyd and Smith...

Scary

 

[Exe Gesis]

Ryan Pace: Khalil Mack fits what we’re building on the field, in the locker room
Posted by Michael David Smith on September 1, 2018, 8:29 PM EDT

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Last offseason Bears General Manager Ryan Pace made the biggest move of his career, trading up in the draft for quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. Today Pace made a bigger move. And he’s quite pleased with himself.

Pace pulled off a trade with the Raiders for Khalil Mack, a move that Pace sees as a game-changer for Chicago.

“We are excited to add a special playmaker like Khalil to our football team,” Pace said in a statement. “He brings a ton on the field, but he really fits what we are building in our locker room, too. Elite defensive players in their prime are rare so when we knew we had a legit shot to acquire him, we did everything we thought necessary to get him. I’m confident the compensation to Oakland, including the return draft picks to us, and the contract extension for Khalil are fair to all parties. We are anxious to get Khalil to Chicago with his coaches and teammates.”

Mack is undeniably a good player, but a bigger question facing the Bears will be whether Trubisky develops into the Bears’ franchise quarterback. If Trubisky does develop, he should lead a good Bears offense and Mack should lead a good Bears defense.

If Trubisky doesn’t develop, the Bears may wish they had those two first-round draft picks and all that salary cap space back. Of course, if Trubisky turns out to be a bust, rebuilding the Bears without those draft picks will be a job for the next general manager.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Bears signed NT Eddie Goldman to a four-year contract extension through 2022.

Per NFL Network's Ian Rapoport, the deal is worth at least $42 million with $25 million in guaranteed money. This makes Golden one of the highest-paid defensive tackles in football. It's a much-deserved raise for a player who had been entering the final year of his rookie deal. Now equipped with former Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack along with first-round linebacker Roquan Smith, Chicago's defense is going to be a weekly test for opposing offenses.

Source: Ian Rapoport on Twitter

 

[monty1104]

I’m in the nosebleeds for today’s game. Dead set there are more bears fans than cardinals here.

 

[Kram]

Defence looking like a monster this year.

QB and offense need to lift their game.

 

[monty1104]

My view of today’s demolition job. So stoked I was able to be there.

 

[MITSUHIRATO]

Well played today Bears ... completed shredded our inexperienced secondaries.

Seems like the best remedy for a struggling NFL QB is to play the Bucs defense. Last week Tribusky was a hack and Chicago fans wanted to run him out of town.... yet today he looked like Tom Brady.

 

[Kram]

Only just caught the game after being away, man how good was that.

 

[Kram]

Managed to get the job done without MT, will take that.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Bradley Sowell’s big touchdown was called “Santa’s Sleigh”
Posted by Darin Gantt on December 10, 2018, 1:36 PM EST

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Bears coach Matt Nagy made a list. He checked it twice. So when they got to the goal line and needed a play, he reached deep into his bag.

The touchdown pass to offensive lineman Bradley Sowell was named “Santa’s Sleigh,” and was the gift they needed at the right time.

Via Cam Ellis of NBC Sports Chicago, the defensive staff gave the play its seasonal name last week, since it featured four defensive linemen on the field as well as the six offensive linemen out there with quarterback Mitchell Trubisky (making him look like an elf).

Trubisky faked the handoff to defensive tackle Akiem Hicks (who ran “Freezer Left” last week), and Hicks sold it well enough while Sowell was peeling off into the flat at the goal line.

“We needed a play, so they gave it to the playmaker,” Sowell said. “It was one of those things that I’m glad Nagy trusts me to do. He tried it with me earlier in the season and got flack for it but gave it back to me and it worked out great.”

Sowell scored during his freshman year at Ole Miss, but that was a decade ago, so he had to lobby a bit for his chance. But Nagy praised his hands and his ability to make the textbook catch.

“It’s cool having a coach that’s willing to do that,” defensive end Roy Robertson-Harrissaid. “It shows how fun he is. Not a lot of coaches do stuff like that, so it’s fun to be around a coach that wants to do stuff like that, having defensive players get in on the plays. You know, have fun. We’re not here to be robots, we’re here to have fun. It’s a job, but we’re having fun with it right now.”

Having that kind of fun with goal line plays has become part of the Bears’ formula, and the reason they have to be considered a dangerous playoff team, along with a defense that does the conventional stuff so well.

 

[Pardon me]

Thanks for that Bears - From a Saints fan

Also, the '85 Bears is one of the best 30 for 30 films ESPN has ever done and my favourite. Nature Boy is another.

 

[Kram]

Umm why is that big fat guy running with the ball? oh..

 

[Exe Gesis]

Umm why is that big fat guy running with the ball? oh..

X&O nuances for nuances sake.

 

[monty1104]

Statistically a better defence season than 06 and 85. Wasn’t watching NFL at that time so I can’t actually compare, but regardless, this season has been so bloody fun to watch

 

[Exe Gesis]

Statistically a better defence season than 06 and 85. Wasn’t watching NFL at that time so I can’t actually compare, but regardless, this season has been so bloody fun to watch

seeing as these days defenses cant do anything without getting flagged etc, its probably a better defense even if the stats are close to the 85 bears

 

[Exe Gesis]

Bears’ defense setting back opposing quarterbacks by 30 years
Posted by Michael David Smith on December 22, 2018, 6:36 AM EST

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NFL passing offenses have steadily improved for decades, making statistical comparisons between today’s quarterbacks and those of the past almost meaningless. In 2018, quarterbacks are playing at all-time high levels: The league average in passer rating, touchdown percentage and completion percentage are all the highest in NFL history.

But that changes when quarterbacks are playing against the Bears. Against Chicago, passing numbers have been set back 30 years.

The average passer rating of quarterbacks facing the Bears this year is 73.0. That’s by far the lowest in the league and well below the league average passer rating of 93.1, and to find a year when all quarterbacks played as badly as quarterbacks play this year against the Bears, you have to go back 30 years: 1988 was the last season when the league average passer rating was below the 73.0 rating the Bears are allowing this season.

The most impressive fact about the Bears’ defense is that they have 26 interceptions and have allowed 21 touchdown passes. The Bears are the only team in the league with more interceptions than touchdowns, a remarkable achievement when the league average touchdown-interception ratio is more than 2-to-1. The 31 other defenses in the NFL have given up an average of 23 touchdown passes while intercepting an average of 11 passes.

In the playoffs, the Bears will likely need to beat some combination of Drew Brees, Jared Goff, Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson and Kirk Cousins to get to the Super Bowl. That is not an easy schedule. But if any NFL defense can shut down quarterbacks like that, the Bears can.

 

[Blue Boulevard]

I’m a bit nervous about the Philly game. Our defence will turn up as usual and if the offense can stay as efficient as they’ve been the last month then we’ll win. BEAR DOWN!


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[Kram]

I've been waiting for this upcoming game for 4 years.

 

[Big Unit 30]

 

[Helfarch]

Gould would have kicked it

 

[Exe Gesis]

Since Bears cut Robbie Gould, they’ve missed 19 field goals and he’s missed 3

Posted by Michael David Smith on January 7, 2019, 9:22 AM EST

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Bears General Manager Ryan Pace’s decision to cut kicker Robbie Gould has always been questionable, but never more so than now, after a missed field goal cost the Bears a playoff game.

Gould had played 11 NFL seasons, all with the Bears, and was the team’s longest-tenured active player and all-time leader in points, total field goals and 50-yard field goals, when Pace cut him just before the start of the 2016 regular season. Since then, Gould has played for the Giants and 49ers and gone a combined 82-for-85 on field goals, the best accuracy rate in the NFL over three years. The Bears’ kickers, meanwhile, have gone a cumulative 60-for-79 over the last three years, worst in the NFL — counting Cody Parkey‘s 3-for-4 day yesterday.

There’s been some revisionist history that actually Gould wasn’t good in 2015 and so it was smart for Pace to cut him. That just isn’t true. It’s true that Gould wasn’t quite as great in 2015 as he has been in the three years since then, but he was still an above-average kicker in 2015, when he went 33-for-39 on field goals with a long of 55 yards. Pace just calculated that the kicker he signed to replace Gould, Connor Barth, would be better. And that turned out not to be the case.

Nor has Parkey been better, nor were Mike Nugent nor Cairo Santos, the two kickers the Bears had between Barth and Parkey, better than Gould. The Bears had a good kicker, they cut him, and they’ve paid for it.

 

[AmericanAFL]

That D is the real deal.

That one will sting for a bit for Bears fans, but the Bears have a really bright future if they continue to develop Mitch.