Bears PG: Team of Destiny

[Bernman]

I saw Nelson get knocked down on the replays this morning too. That was an egregious faux pas by the refs. It was a blatant foul past 5 yards. It shouldn't have had to come down to Kuhn getting a last millisecond chip, and Rodgers taking advantage of a blown assignment for a deep shot, or risking trying to get the 1st w/ his legs. We should have gotten the freebie pass interference if all else failed, and probably would have won anyways.

As far as the point that McCarthy not going for 2 set up 4th down tries that we converted, it's a ludicrous one. Converting on the 2 would have provided us the security of at least going into ot without doing anything else, and there was no rule we couldn't have gone for it on 4th anyways, even though we in all likelihood wouldn't have. Any coach would take the security of a tie before their final drive of potential death, instead of being prompted to try for fourth downs, including Mike. It was a major screw up. One that should have put him under consideration for termination, in conjunction with mental mistakes he and his players had made this season (the football i.q. on this team was atrocious).

And I don't get what's lunacy about making the same suggestion with TT. El Dude brought up the point last night that the 9ers might have us beat at every spot but qb and wr. Well, shouldn't that be an indictment of Ted? He got the most important one right in QB to put us in good positions still, but that to me doesn't necessarily warrant keeping him around. We wouldn't need him to get it right at that spot for another 7 years or so. Aaron is here for the long haul. So what MUST we keep Ted around for? Principle? A lifetime achievement reward? Because we don't want those with a vendetta against him for casting aside Favre to have a little satisfaction? I don't get what's so unreasonable about starting to look at the job Ted is DOING and think somebody reasonably could do it better for the next several years, depending on what's out there. He's better than Sherm (which is not saying much), but he's worse than Wolf. I think it at least shouldn't be taboo to talk about. I really think it's because the original fire TT suggestions were made by nutjobs so we can't acknowledge the truth 6 years later that the rest of the roster assembled besides Rodgers is mediocre and that's cause for due scrutiny.

[WeekapaugGroove]

Btw, I'm surprised a few coaches haven't tried to be bold and go for two when up 7 after a TD, to make it a 9 point game. I think the benefit of making it a two possession game outweighs the negative of them potentially simply tying it.

.

IMO it's a great strategy if you feel more confident in your o picking up a 2 than your d stopping one.


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[MartyConlonOnTheRun]

It wasn't late in the game, there was still almost 12 minutes left in the game. And he didn't do it because it would be dumb, something he realized from our tie with the Vikes.

What would be dumb about it? If you miss you are down 2, if you make it you are tied. I can't think of what the negative are. It ended up working out, b/c it forced MM to go for it multiple times on 4th during that last drive though. Had we got it and it had been tied, we may have punted.

Because if you miss and they score a TD, it is a two possession game.

With the Packers red zone offense being as bad as it has been, the odds aren't that great that they convert.

With our defense being as bad as it has been, the odds aren't that great that we stop them.

I'm ok with not going for 2, but the whole "if you don't convert" is kind of lame since in your scenario they would need to convert later on anyways. I would rather fail early and no your down 2 scores than fail to convert later with no time to react.

[El Duderino]

I saw Nelson get knocked down on the replays this morning too. That was an egregious faux pas by the refs. It was a blatant foul past 5 yards. It shouldn't have had to come down to Kuhn getting a last millisecond chip, and Rodgers taking advantage of a blown assignment for a deep shot, or risking trying to get the 1st w/ his legs. We should have gotten the freebie pass interference if all else failed, and probably would have won anyways.

As far as the point that McCarthy not going for 2 set up 4th down tries that we converted, it's a ludicrous one. Converting on the 2 would have provided us the security of at least going into ot without doing anything else, and there was no rule we couldn't have gone for it on 4th anyways, even though we in all likelihood wouldn't have. Any coach would take the security of a tie before their final drive of potential death, instead of being prompted to try for fourth downs, including Mike. It was a major screw up. One that should have put him under consideration for termination, in conjunction with mental mistakes he and his players had made this season (the football i.q. on this team was atrocious).

And I don't get what's lunacy about making the same suggestion with TT. El Dude brought up the point last night that the 9ers might have us beat at every spot but qb and wr. Well, shouldn't that be an indictment of Ted? He got the most important one right in QB to put us in good positions still, but that to me doesn't necessarily warrant keeping him around. We wouldn't need him to get it right at that spot for another 7 years or so. Aaron is here for the long haul. So what MUST we keep Ted around for? Principle? A lifetime achievement reward? Because we don't want those with a vendetta against him for casting aside Favre to have a little satisfaction? I don't get what's so unreasonable about starting to look at the job Ted is DOING and think somebody reasonably could do it better for the next several years, depending on what's out there. He's better than Sherm (which is not saying much), but he's worse than Wolf. I think it at least shouldn't be taboo to talk about. I really think it's because the original fire TT suggestions were made by nutjobs so we can't acknowledge the truth 6 years later that the rest of the roster assembled besides Rodgers is mediocre and that's cause for due scrutiny.

Agree on McCarthy not going for two. I honestly can't grasp how some here are making the decision to be basically a coin flip. That said, i by no means would be for getting rid of him. Being a good NFL head coach is so much more than about in game decisions and i think he's great at running a locker room, is a good offensive mind overall except on 3rd and 1 situations, and is a good mix of being both tough/demanding while at the same time the players can still like him. Not all coaches can pull that off.

As for Ted, i'm with you that some here have almost made criticism of him being off limits. That to do so makes you an idiot. Yet, his drafts in 2011 and 2012 weren't very productive compared to other good teams and that's one big reason for the slippage of the defense, especially since Ted doesn't use any other avenues than the draft to add new talent. Thankfully the 2013 draft looks to be a lot better than the previous two. I wouldn't go as far as you though in seriously considering replacing him. I only think more Packer fans should look closer at the results of the 2011 and 2012 offseasons instead of just automatically praising him as near a GM savant like happens here often.

There are a variety of reasons why the defense has regressed for three straight years since winning the Super Bowl, with injuries being one aspect and it's probably time for a new voice at defensive coordinator. That said, even with a fully health roster on defense, IMO only Clay and Shields are clearly above average talents at their positions, and Shields very well could be gone given he'll rightly so demand a big contract. Big enough that TT maybe balks at. Other than those two, Daniels is an above average interior pass rusher, but he can't be used much on early downs because he's to small. Hayward was great as a rookie and if he can play like that going forward, he could be an above average slot corner. That's about it. The rest of the defensive talent is mostly full of average, a little below average, and crappy players.

[LikeABosh]

And I don't get what's lunacy about making the same suggestion with TT. El Dude brought up the point last night that the 9ers might have us beat at every spot but qb and wr. Well, shouldn't that be an indictment of Ted?

Why would we even be comparing the draft history of the 9ers and the Pack? The 9ers have an entire of decade of suckage where they were able to completely rebuild and stack up on defensive players who fortunately managed to stay healthy. Acquiring Harbaugh and Aldon Smith 2 years ago was perfectly timed. If TT was the one with a high enough pick to draft either Smith or Watt or Von Miller, would we even be having this conversation? Seems silly to criticize TT because of how successful the 9ers rebuild has been

[humanrefutation]

I don't think anyone here - at least most of the posters I've read and respect - have any issue with critiquing Ted. I think it's very fair to judge him like any other GM. I do agree with Bern that there is a reflexive tendency to defend him because his critics are often batsh*t insane in their criticisms. It's not much different than what I've seen in political debates. When you have posters starting stupid threads like Wilford Brimley, it makes it difficult to have genuine conversations about his performance without being put in the same category as some of those fools.

As for TT, I think he's a very good GM. I think he's done a very good job maintaining a young roster with no real cap-destroying contracts. He's added some excellent pieces to this roster over the past near-decade.

I also think this roster has been hit by an incredible injury bug at several key positions, and that's outside of Ted's control. That doesn't excuse his mistakes, but it has to be factored in when analyzing him.

But I'm fine critiquing his failures at certain positions as well. I think that's very fair.

[midranger]

What would be dumb about it? If you miss you are down 2, if you make it you are tied. I can't think of what the negative are. It ended up working out, b/c it forced MM to go for it multiple times on 4th during that last drive though. Had we got it and it had been tied, we may have punted.

Because if you miss and they score a TD, it is a two possession game.

With the Packers red zone offense being as bad as it has been, the odds aren't that great that they convert.

With our defense being as bad as it has been, the odds aren't that great that we stop them.

I'm ok with not going for 2, but the whole "if you don't convert" is kind of lame since in your scenario they would need to convert later on anyways. I would rather fail early and no your down 2 scores than fail to convert later with no time to react.

So much yes.

You have to think that the odds of converting a 2 point play don't get any better in the last minute. If I need two scores to win, I want to know with 10 minutes left rather than 35 seconds.

[El Duderino]

And I don't get what's lunacy about making the same suggestion with TT. El Dude brought up the point last night that the 9ers might have us beat at every spot but qb and wr. Well, shouldn't that be an indictment of Ted?

Why would we even be comparing the draft history of the 9ers and the Pack? The 9ers have an entire of decade of suckage where they were able to completely rebuild and stack up on defensive players who fortunately managed to stay healthy. Acquiring Harbaugh and Aldon Smith 2 years ago was perfectly timed. If TT was the one with a high enough pick to draft either Smith or Watt or Von Miller, would we even be having this conversation? Seems silly to criticize TT because of how successful the 9ers rebuild has been

When i posted that the 49ers had better players players at most positions on the field, it wasn't just some bashing of Ted. Instead, it was to show why beating them has been such a chore. They clearly have a better overall roster, so when some fans try blaming mainly just schemes, play calling, or whatever tangent fits their thinking at the time, the talent on the two teams can't be ignored either, especially on defense. Among the front seven and safeties, only Clay would likely be able to start on San Fran and he won't even play on Sunday.

My criticism towards Ted was more about the 2011 and 2012 offseasons where he just didn't hit often enough and that's a sizable part of the reason why the defense consists of so many mediocre to below average players, while also only having Clay/Shields as clear above average players at their positions. The NFL draft isn't like the NBA draft where it's very rare to land high quality players outside of the top 5-10 picks in a draft. Hell, the Seahawks elite secondary has three starters drafted in the 5th/5th/6th round and very skilled nickle corner Jeremy Lane was also only a 6th round pick. Linebackers Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright were 2nd and 4th round picks.

So while i'm by no means calling for TT to get replaced, he acquired the players on a defense with quite a few talent deficiencies among the front seven and at safety, and handed extensions to guys like Hawk/Jones/Burnett, yet most posters here mainly just blame Capers as if he's mismanaging some really talented defense.

[LikeABosh]

When i posted that the 49ers had better players players at most positions on the field, it wasn't just some bashing of Ted. Instead, it was to show why beating them has been such a chore. They clearly have a better overall roster, so when some fans try blaming mainly just schemes, play calling, or whatever tangent fits their thinking at the time, the talent on the two teams can't be ignored either, especially on defense. Among the front seven and safeties, only Clay would likely be able to start on San Fran.

My criticism towards Ted was more about the 2011 and 2012 offseasons where he just didn't hit often enough and that's a sizable part of the reason why the defense consists of so many mediocre to below average players, while also only having Clay/Shields as clear above average players at their positions. The NFL draft isn't like the NBA draft where it's very rare to land high quality players outside of the top 5-10 picks in a draft. Hell, the Seahawks elite secondary has three starters drafted in the 5th/5th/6th round and very skilled nickle corner Jeremy Lane was also only a 6th round pick. Linebackers Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright were 2nd and 4th round picks.

So while i'm by no means calling for TT to get replaced, he acquired the players on a defense with quite a few talent deficiencies among the front seven and at safety, and handed extensions to guys like Hawk/Jones/Burnett, yet most posters here mainly just blame Capers as if he's mismanaging some really talented defense.

Okay, then I pretty much agree with everything you've said. TT hasn't been particularly effective in these last 2 drafts and it's really shown when we play teams like the 9ers.

[beyond_the_arc]

From Barnwell today:

Had Peppers made it that one final step or gotten just enough on his lunge to trip up Rodgers, we would be sitting here talking about what a great call the blitz was and how Mike McCarthy's mental mistake cost the Packers the game.
(That would be kicking the extra point down two with 11:30 to go in the fourth quarter. There's no TYFNC this week because of the holiday, but that's an astoundingly bad decision against a great defense, let alone the horrific Bears run D with Aaron freaking Rodgers as your quarterback. The two-point chart at Footballcommentary.com suggests that the Packers should have tried the two-point conversion if they had a 14 percent chance of succeeding. 14 percent! The Packers ended up needing to convert three fourth-down plays on that final drive to win the game, including the fourth-and-8 that produced the touchdown pass to Cobb. It worked out for the Packers, but trust me: The two-pointer would have been the right call.)

Aaaaaaand that's settled. Like I said, we hit on 14 against a 6 showing and won anyway. It's great that we won, but it doesn't make our coach not a dumba*s for a terrible decision...

And Barnwell consistently has shown he doesn't understand how statistics and probabilities pile up in a game. 40% conversion rate on 2's and then chasing it after a failed conversion makes it even less likely since teams only have 3-4 plays set aside for conversions and are dependent on personnel being available. In fact, his method is a great way to turn a 10% chance into 0% needing a possession that can't exist. It also effects how the other team calls plays on offense and defense. You need to keep it a one possession game and that is not dependent on believing the other team is guaranteed to score as some here seem to believe.

[bearadonisdna]

LOL man didnt their defense suck?