Panthers @ BEARS

[RME JICO]

Sorry Los, not agreeing here.  What adjustments is the offense supposed to make besides scoring more than 29 points?  Carolina was scoring at will, and the Bears didnt have the time to adjust to a better running game.  Rex got into a shootout because Tillman fell on the second play of the f***ing game.  Then Tillman gave up an interception to someone 3 inches and 20 pounds smaller than him.  Then Tillman let Mangum sneak into the corner uncovered for a touchdown. 

Dont tell me our offense let us down when they scored 21 points on the 3rd best defense in the league, and were pressing for more in the last two minutes.  The defense had two important chances to hold Carolina, after the bears pulled within 2 (16-14) in the third and in the 4th(23-21), and they didnt.  What sort of adjustment would you ask for?  After Carolina extended the lead to 9 should the bears have run the ball more and eat up more time ?  The Bears were on the clock, they needed quick points. 

 

The defense let the Bears down, plain and simple.

I agree 99%. I also think you have to blame some other components of the team, like the coaching and special teams. The Defense is mainly to blame, but the coaches cannot put single man coverage on the best receiver in the game. What if that one defender falls down? Oh yeah, 14 points. There were some horrible decisions from the coaching staff. When they were down by 2 both times, they abandoned the run which allowed CAR to pressure Grossman into bad passes.

 

The other failed part was the special teams. Maynard killed the team in the 1st half. If he punts to his average on some of his shanks, CAR would have had some pretty bad field position, but instead the Bears had to work from their end zone most of the 1st half. The coverage team did ok, but the Bears did not get one above average play out of them.

 

The only other aspect that I thought was part of the problem was the officiating. There were so many missed calls that went the Panthers way it was ridiculous. Not all of them went the Panthers way, but most of them did. I think that the 1st Tillman call was a blown call and could have went to Smith just as easy as it went to Tillman. Moose was getting raped all game without calls and there were 3 or 4 blocks in the back on those WR screens that were not called. On the Mangum TD, the ball hits the ground in his hands which is an incompletion. Even on the Jones run, it was clear he was about a yard and a half short, yet the on field call was a TD. Lucky for the Bears that there was a face mask on the play. How about the play clock running out before the Grossman interception. How does every single official on the field miss that one? Again, who knows what happens if the Bears get penalized and stay alive that drive.

 

It just seemed like the luck was on the Panthers side last night, fumbles bouncing right back to players (Foster, Delhomme), players falling down, missed tackles.

 

Hopefully the Bears can put this behind them and learn from it. I almost hope they try some other schemes like the 46 instead of the vanilla Cover 2. There are some obvious flaws in the coverage that was exposed last night.

[JimJab]

I'm disappointed that we lost. But, we made it farther then many people said we would. We turned around from being 1-3 and made it into the playoffs. Our defense was awesome. I think if Rex never got injured during the preseason, then, we would have had a pretty good offense. Rex came alive in that game. As long as we get good draft picks, we'll be good. Our defense just didn't play the way they usually do. The only problem I have is with Mushin Muhammod. He would talk crap about Orton and now that Grossman is throwing good passes to him he can't pull them in. We need one more good wr and I think we're good to go. You'll see us again next year.

[nitetrain8601]

The saddest thing is Sean Salisbury was right on. Tillman got caught looking in instead of looking at the #1 WR in the game. Smith didn't even make any moves to get free. He just ran straight like when you play in the parking lot and let that one kid who's slow as heck and who has butterfingers just run around. To think Steve Smith was a 3rd round pick and the Bears instead took David Terrell, Anthony Thomas and Mike Gandy. Talk about a bad draft.

[Kyyle23]

On the Mangum TD, the ball hits the ground in his hands which is an incompletion.

 

What?! I didnt see that, and you would think that this would have been shown on the replays and noticed by the announcers.

 

Im callin "Da Bearsss" fan on this one.

[whitesoxfan101]

What?!  I didnt see that, and you would think that this would have been shown on the replays and noticed by the announcers.

 

Im callin "Da Bearsss" fan on this one.

 

The ball didn't hit the ground, and even if so....they'd have had 2nd and goal inside the 1, so I highly doubt it would have mattered.

[Felix]

What?!  I didnt see that, and you would think that this would have been shown on the replays and noticed by the announcers.

 

Im callin "Da Bearsss" fan on this one.

It didn't hit the ground. He bobbled it for a bit on the way down, but then got complete possesion of the ball before hitting the ground. The ball was in his hands the whole time, it was a great catch (well, it was made to look much harder than it should have been at least )