Preseason Game#2: Bears @ Giants 7pm

[Chewie]

Well I'm stil waiting for Van Horne, Covert, Thayer, Hilgenberg, and Bortz to show up.

Raise your hand if you had this poster growing up :

[Icness]

Back to the Martz offense:
Jon Kitna once broke it down from the POV of the QB running the show. They do not have audbiles but each receiver has several options on every play. Kitna (or the QB) calls out what he sees and the receivers have to know what route to run based on that. If they see something slightly different they can signal it to him.

Kitna said the biggest problem he had was that the plays from the sideline come in a few seconds slower than in other offenses, which led to many rushed snaps and delay of game penalties. IIRC his exact quote was "The defense figures it out when you have to go on one every time". They hold off on the play call until they see the defensive personnel grouping. It takes a very organized huddle and a QB that can quickly read a defense to make it happen. The wideouts also have to be smart and able to read coverages instantly. Kitna also talked about how Martz believes that every run play can be successful if it is blocked well, and that's why they never switch out of a run call even with 9 in the box. I can attest that this is valid from Martz's days in Detroit.

One of the reasons Kurt Warner threw so many INTs was that he read one thing and the receiver read something else and the throw went to where Warner thought the receiver was going to be. I saw that a few times with Cutler last year, and almost every time Hester was the guilty party on the other end. The fun part is figuring out who read it right.

[emperorjones]

Well I'm stil waiting for Van Horne, Covert, Thayer, Hilgenberg, and Bortz to show up.

Raise your hand if you had this poster growing up :

Had?? Still have it framed in the basement! Best thing about that poster is the listed weights for each guy. They MIGHT be able to play tight-end in todays game.

[Chewie]

Good stuff as usual, Icness - thanks.

Somehow I knew you'd have that poster, emperor. I still have mine in a tube somewhere but I'm sure it's riddled with thumb-tack holes. And you're spot-on about the weights. A different time....

[heir_jordan22]

J'marcus Webb played a good game. That first false start was on Carimi, the ref called the wrong number. I saw Carimi twitch and was very surprised to hear him call number 73 so i rewound to make sure and it was definitely Carimi. Webb was in control of Pierre-Paul the entire first half.

Louis on the other hand had another bad game. If Garza doesn't move to RG to allow Spencer to take the starting C spot then I will actually be slightly pissed off. Spencer played really well, albeit against second string players, he knew what he was doing and Louis did not.

Roy Williams..... at this point is crap. Two drops. Stepped back into Hester on a play that was clearly designed to put Hester in motion behind Williams to allow for a clean path... How do you mess that up? Don't step back!!!!!!

The lack of running success doesn't bother me because the Bears were clearly intending to work on their overall passing game. I'm not exactly sure how many pass vs run plays the #1 offense ran, but there was a large disparity.

Overall I'll be happy once Spencer moves into the starting lineup and Louis is benched, and the Bears figure out who will play the #1 receiver position opposite Hester (Lions Roy Williams, Cowboys Roy Williams, or Jonny Knox?).

[Icness]

Just watched it for the second time.

I agree with heir jordan; Webb looked good against JPP, who is similarly green but man can that dude get to the QB. He still can rock back too far in his stance but I like the progress he has made. He will not be the problem. Carimi had some good plays and some bad plays. My biggest knock on him pre-draft was that he wound up on his knees way to often, and I counted 6 times in this game where he was on his knees before the whistle. He was still involved in blocking on 4 of them, so it's not like he's getting beat and trying to recover. Perhaps his style is to go down to a knee and keep fighting when he feels his leverage slipping. Strange, but he actually seems to be competent at it. I have to believe Mike Tice is working with him on that.

Also agree that Spencer probably needs to start at C though I think it's more for his experience than that he's actually better than Louis. Neither of them are as good as Kreutz was last year and Kreutz was clearly slipping too. IMO you will notice it more in the run game, where Olin could still at least get out to the second level and engage a LB. Spencer has lost all his range in that regard.

I thought Earl Bennett looked good running routes. Is it my imagination or has he dropped a few pounds?

The talk about Cutler's weight loss made me think of his diabetes and how he might be managing it differently. There is a story to be told there. IMO it's a good thing.

Major Wright had a major problem in the game. I'm not a big Danieal Manning fan but at least he wanted to hit; Wright sort of curls up and hopes for the best. Somewhere Adrian Peterson and James Starks watched Wright trying to tackle and smiled.

Bad night for Hanie, who looked unusually affected by pressure and unsure of his arm. I'll chalk that up to an off night. He gets one of those and only one.

[BIGGIEsmalls 23]

Roy Williams..... at this point is crap. Two drops. Stepped back into Hester on a play that was clearly designed to put Hester in motion behind Williams to allow for a clean path... How do you mess that up? Don't step back!!!!!!

He's not in football shape yet, Heir. Yea, I know it's shameful that he isn't.

Roy Williams was inserted into the starting lineup, replacing Johnny Knox for a variety of reasons. But Williams admits he is not in shape at this point, and that has been increasingly apparent watching the veteran go through practice at sometimes less than peak speed.

Williams acknowledged that the biggest thing for him to work on at this point is “my conditioning. Getting my wind right. You have to be able to run in this offense. Run all day long.”

The problem with this is that he is working with a new quarterback and Cutler does not have the familiarity and comfort level with Williams that he had with Knox, even with Knox’s occasional strayings from the plan.

As far as being in game-ready shape: “Ooh, yeah…About that. How many more weeks have we got?” he joked. Told that there were still a couple of weeks, he smiled: “Yeah, I’ll be ready by then.”

http://www.csnchicago.com/08/18/11/Will ... kID=550554

[heir_jordan22]

The fact that he isn't in game shape really is shameful because the Bears gave him the #1 receiver spot. More shame on the Bears than Williams in that case. But he just isn't putting forth any effort. He should've caught those balls, and he should not have stepped back into Hester's path on that goal line play.

Getting into shape is one thing, but just not doing anything is another. One of the reasons the Bears claimed to put him in as the #1 receiver is his reliability.