Da Dos

Tag: September

  • Victory Monday! Bears Save Season

    Victory Monday! Bears Save Season

    What an ass-whooping! For some reason, Bears always lay points on Cowboys since 2010:

    2010. Bears W. 27 points
    2012. Bears W. 34 points
    2013. Bears W. 45 points
    2014. Bears L. 28 points
    2016. Bears L. 17 points
    2019. Bears W. 31 points
    2022. Bears L. 29 points
    2025. Bears W. 31 points

    That means Bears avg 30 points/g vs Cowboys in last 8 clashes; wish Bears could play them whenever they need to kick-start sputtering offense.

    Few quick observations.

    1. The oline held up vs rush. This is the first game Caleb hasn’t been sacked. That’s both a testament to this oline’s strength as well as Caleb’s mobility, pocket awareness, and frankly, piss poor Dallas pass rush.

    On the flip side, the pure run game struggled once more. It wasn’t really ’til late that it began gaining traction.

    This was a strange game in the sense that Dallas was avg 6yds/rush at one point, yet somehow failed to score more.

    2. Caleb stats were fantastic

    But to quote the Wolf from Pulp Fiction, ‘Let’s not start sucking each other’s d*cks quite yet.’ Two things I noticed.

    1. It seems Caleb sails when his release point looks premature and high. Is this related to height? He does it even when he has a clean pocket, so it’s a matter of consistency. Dunks are great, but gotta make the free-throws as well.

    2. Maybe because of #1, Caleb continues missing. In this game, Caleb did hit most of the wide open receivers, yet struggled more with the contested throws. I would love to see his comp% with contested plays vs when the receivers are 2YDs open. At one point the broadcast counted 4 ‘off’ throws. Granted, this happens to all QBs. I watched Mahomes miss Kelce badly vs Gmen, and that’s about as solid a duo as you’re going to find; nevertheless, an issue to track going forward because Ben Johnson specifically addressed improving Caleb’s accuracy during preseason.

    Speaking of Ben Johnson, his O has scored 30+ points on Eberflus 5 out of last 7 games.

    Reality check:

    We’ve been through “turning the corner”, “finally arrived” “at last we got a franchise QB!” with Cutler, Trubisky and Fields: all turned out to be fugazi.

    This could be Caleb’s “Tampa Bay Christening.” Dallas’ D could simply be that dreadful.

    That being said, if you’re given a gift, you take it. Caleb is trending in the right direction, and that’s priority numero uno.

    On D, well, raise your hand if you predicted the Bears’ D to hold Dallas to 14 points!

    The start of the game continued to look like a horror show. Cowboys were just shredding the D, then, the unthinkable occurred.

    Arguably the worst starting CB in the league, Tyrique Stevenson, made a play that completely reversed momentum.

    FINALLY, somebody on the Bears’ D made a play like a blue-chipper. Apparently, a player’s only meeting was called that I missed.

    Whatever was said WORKED. I frankly wasn’t expecting a win. I only wanted Bears to play with some pride. They did, and then some. Defensive game-ball went to Tremaine Edmunds who made not one but TWO plays when badly needed. Don’t think we’ve seen that from a MLB since Lach.

    Also, tip-o-the-hat to Dennis Allen who called a great game. Look at that 2nd pick. Allen had Sweat peel off into flats to essentially bracket TE Ferguson [who I think was 10/10 at that point] PLUS prevent Dak from booting.

    Dak was trying to look-off coverage by feigning the middle, turned right to his true target in Ferguson, spotted a 6’7 monster staring right at him with secondary over the top, quickly shifted left with Dexter right in his face, finally chucking an INT in desperation.

    Truly a team effort. Scheme, execution, and playmaking.

    HOWEVER, this D still concerns me bigly. Those DTs were on skates; defenders taking bad angles, and seemingly confused [look at how late they were lining-up on several snaps]. CB Nathon Wright specifically played nightmarishly. I feel like a major part of their opportunism was pure Dallas incompetence. No doubt CeeDee Lamb getting INJed helped Bears’ D, but how the heck do you lose a game when you’re basically getting first downs at will and AVGing like 6-7 per rush while the D was ailing giving up 52 previously, with a 2nd string LB, 4rth string CB, and little to no pressure/sacks ’til late?

    But hey, that’s a COWGIRL problem. For once it feels fantastic playing a team that chokes more than…[fill in the blank].

    A wins a win.

    Let’s celebrate Ben Johnson’s first victory. May it be the first of countless. Every journey starts with a step. Let’s go!

  • Cowboys@Bears Game Thread

    Cowboys@Bears Game Thread

    Everything in me says Bears’ D will be a sieve. That Dak will look like an MVP and sitting by the 4rth.

    But if the “soft” Dolphins can put up a game on a short week @ Buffalo, here’s to hoping they have 3AM grit.

  • Da Miami Bears

    Da Miami Bears

    Watching TNF MIA@BUFF felt eerily familiar. I know a guy whose first two wives were Asian. Met the 3rd, déjà vu, also Asian. To his credit, 3rd time seems to be the charm. Will that be the case for Da Bears?

    It wasn’t for the Miami Dolphins.

    Dolphins were 0-2 playing some horrendous football; they lost to the Colts and Pats. Not exactly SB favorites.

    On a short week travelling to Buffalo, everyone expected them to get curb-stomped; however, they put up a fight, and the score was tied at 21-21 with 10 mins left. Dolphins made a crucial stop, forcing Bills to punt on 4rth and 7.

    Then, Fins Finned, as once the Chargers Charged and the Lions Loined.

    Fins ran into the punter, giving the Bills a 1st down [can you imagine how the schmuck who put down $37K on MIA to win felt?].

    Predictably, the Bills marched down the field and scored a TD.

    Fins clawed back only to end on a Tua INT just the way the universe scripts it.

    Despite the close score, the game felt pre-determined from that start.

    Somehow, someway, I knew MIA was going to lose. The details were nearly irrelevant to anyone outside bettors and FFers.

    Everyone knew MIA would find a way to sabotage themselves, because, well, that’s what atrocious teams do.

    Now they’re 0-3.

    Sound familiar?

    I’m at the point where I simply don’t want the Bears to embarrass the city any further. It’s gotten Trestmanesque, pronto, and if BJ flops, he’ll be the last ‘nerd’ to ever HC the Bears in our lifetime.

    I’ll settle for a MIA-type effort where they come out showing some fucking pride and professionalism, even if I know they’ll find someway to blow the game.

    #MUSH

    Around the twitters…

    The booth showed how Allen changed his mechanics from his rook year. Can get all technical, but essentially Allen’s shoulders are more square while trusting the torque over rifling. He is taller than Caleb, so I wonder if that factors? Also, it’s not as if Prime-Rodgers had picturesque tech, and he’s about the same size as Caleb.

    Here, next time PFF tries to gaslight you that Braxton is actually an above avg LT. I wouldn’t be shocked to see Benedet start over Braxton and Monangai over Swift to send a message.

  • Bears: Subpar, Soft & Stupid

    Bears: Subpar, Soft & Stupid

    I can go into a Dataeque deep dive citing PFF, Next Gen Stats, charts, twitter clips and still-shots, all sorts of links to former players/coaches dissecting every Bear minutia, but frankly, they’re not worth the effort.

    My only take away: the ’25 Bears are subpar, soft and stupid.

    1 Subpar. Or more accurately, substar in that the team rosters no real blue-chips. MAYBE Jaylon Johnson who is INJed. Maybe Thuney who is on the downslope of his career. That’s about it. In a franchise that boasts the most HOFers full of players like Butkus, Sayers, Sweetness, Dent, Hester…studs who made plays especially when the game was on the line; this current Bears’ incarnation of JAGs is the main reason I predicted Bears would finish last in NFCN. What I didn’t expect that they may finish last in the entire league. This mostly falls on Ryan Poles whom naturally the McCaskeys, in their infinite wisdom, decided to extend.

    2. Soft. This is something I suspected but didn’t want to manifest into existence. This team is mentally SOFT AF. I’ve never witnessed a team fold like a cheap tent after one loss like this team did after the Washington Hail Mary. That wasn’t anomalous either, but fast forward to this year. Week 1 they were very much in that game until that bogus Wright holding call. After that obstacle, they never recovered. This week again, very much in it, until that bullshit ending to the half where the Viking should have been ruled down and clock expired. Instead, he was ruled out – Vikings rewarded six seconds back. Predictably they scored a TD, and once more, self-implosion. This team can’t handle adversity or setbacks which is a lethal mix with being…

    3. Stupid. They just keep shooting themselves in the foot, whether it’s drive killing pre-snap penalties, holding, pass-interference, terrible time management, angles, situational awareness, challenges, blown coverages, going for 1st downs instead of kicking easy FGs, not kicking it out of bounds, seemingly NO professional game plan or counter-punch, and that’s not even considering the lack of execution like killer drops, missed running lanes and big plays [see #1].

    This team reminds me of Mush from “The Bronx Tale.”

    We all know a Mush. I have a friend who seemingly gets-off on complaining: work, family, relationships, sports, car, traffic, everything and anything. Just always self-pitying, whining, and somewhat permanently disgruntled. I love him, but I can only take so much before my Boomer-itis kicks-in, “Snap the fuck out of it!” [and he’s OLDER than I am].

    I introduced him to the girl I’m dating at a happening club with plenty of skimpy clad women; he proceeded to spend half the night relaying to her his last 3 breakups. At some point she turns to me like ‘is this guy forreal? I just met him’ I just shrugged and went over to save her. We danced. He hit the bar.

    He expects life to kick him in the balls, and somehow, life obliges.

    “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, in both instances – you’re right.”

    This team is like that. I get it, TBH. I’ve been on some terrible teams where losses completely demoralize players. Everything transforms to doom and gloom. At the beginning of each season, everyone is angelic shining with radiant hope. After a chain of brutal beat downs, that locker room disfigures into “Paradise Lost”. Sometimes a team climbs out of the fall. Often it doesn’t.

    This team can’t apparently. They expect for something in the game to go south, and when it does, they quit. No 3 AM grit. No Lach in Zona refusing defeat. No coach at halftime losing his shit, throwing objects around, calling players out as men.

    Nope, instead we get the same ole same ole

    Mush.

  • Bears@Lions WK2 Thread

    Bears@Lions WK2 Thread

    Photo courtesy of our very own I Bleed Navy+Orange. Like I messaged him, hope it was super-zoom!

    Bears are going to need a minor miracle to defeat the Meows, but luckily they now have a Pope.

    Bear Down.

  • Twitter Tues. New Bears, Old Results

    Twitter Tues. New Bears, Old Results

    I’m not sure where to even begin.
    This was a true team loss.

    1. Ben Johnson
    BJ decided to go for it instead of settling for a relatively easy FG. He could’ve tried to draw them offsides for a cheap 1st down, but instead BJ let the playclock expire, called a TO, allowed their D to regroup, then left 3 points that would return to haunt them.
    That wasn’t BJ’s only blunder. Apparently the ball is part of the player in the process of the catch. yet he challenged the play. It was never in question that Sewell touched the ball, so in effect it was a totally wasted challenge/T.O. that again, Bears could’ve used later.
    BJ also screwed up with the final kickoff. Apparently, he said he did tell Santos to kick it out of the back of the endzone, but it wasn’t even close. He either failed to realize Santos was too limp-dicked to do so, or he never even considered maybe Tori could do it. At the very least kick it out of bounds. Sure, they’ll move the ball to like the 40, but who cares by then?
    Finally, BJ seemed to make no adjustments while O’Connell DID make adjustments.
    Wunderkind my ass.

    2. Caleb.
    Even more concerning was Caleb. Sure, he started off ‘hot’ 10/10, but a lot of those were on scrambles to checkdowns. Not exactly Joe Montana highlights.

    Caleb looked gun-shy or oblivious. I would like to see his QBR when he stayed in the pocket and threw to WRs. Couldn’t have been better than Fields this weekend.

    He still held on to the ball for too long; the only difference is that this year the Oline isn’t complete dogshit, so it bought him more time to escape instead of getting crushed.

    But Flores caught on, and in the second half started blitzing more once he saw that Caleb morphed into Chase Daniels.

    Then when Caleb did throw beyond 10 yard, he seemed erratic. None more so than missing a WIDE open DJ for a big play.

    This is frustrating because Caleb in the same game makes these types of throws.

    Still, as Kurt Warner often says, if a QB can’t make the layups consistently, then he’s not a good QB. Can’t win a SB with a QB like that, and I don’t know if Caleb has ever put an entire game together where he was consistently good from start to finish. He simply cannot throw in rhythm from the pocket for 4 QTRs.

    It’s like he’s good Rex/bad Rex, but not from game to game, rather half to half.

    3. Specials.
    Santos was terrible. Those 3 points he flopped also could’ve helped tremendously. Then he was too weak to drive it through the back of the endzone in that last KO.

    Tori got blocked. The gunners sucked.

    Specials were a liability all-around.

    4. Defense.
    They actually started off strong, Dayo specifically while the JV secondary punched above their weight climaxing with Wright’s pick-6

    However, Byard kept taking bad angles, Sewell as we all know couldn’t cover, and they ran out of gas and failed to stop the run in the second half despite knowing it was coming.

    Add some bullshit reffing, and voila, another abysmal Flusian chokejob.

    Tweets.

  • Bears in the Age of Covid

    Bears in the Age of Covid

    As a long-suffering Bear fan, it’s become a semi-tradition to dust this gem off every September as kick-off nears.

    Maybe it’s to try to hype myself up like a haka dance – maybe it’s to steel myself  – maybe it’s so I just don’t check out entirely in order to do something more “productive”, or at least, far less infuriating, than watching yet another Bears’ season.

    I glance at IG stories with a hint of envy. There’s my buddy on top of a Malibu hiking trail overlooking the Pacific; there’s my other friend training for a marathon and MMA; another smoking a blunt at a BBQ or open air festival; there’s that chick I’m trying to bang sipping mimosas poolside.

    And here I am in my mancave screaming at pirated-pixelated Bears while venting online to some internet Fight Club support group.

    Yet, I keep doing it…week after week, month after month, season after season, year after year, decade after decade…

    My step-dad, a hard working earnest man, always asks me every September with a shit-eating grin, “You ready for a new season?” It’s a question tinged with a mixture of pity and admiration; then he simply drawls off, “I dunno how you do it” before returning to work on his ’57 Studebaker truck which will likely never run.

    Honestly, I never used to think about it. It just became habit – like being stuck in a bad marriage. Aristotle once observed that most don’t even recognize the best times of their lives until much later; well, the same can apply to the worst times.

    Or as a proverb goes, “Habit is greater than love.”

    Ironically, it wasn’t even until the Cubs FINALLY won the World Series that emotions I never even knew existed stirred up. See, I was jubilant like many, but my elation was infused with a languid sorrow. I thought about my uncle, who loved the Cubs since Ernie Banks, not being able to rejoice in their once in a century triumph because he died some years ago. Sadly, he was not alone.

    I thought about how passionate Doug Buffone expressed all our outrage, contempt and frustration after every post-game; I envisioned the spittle flying as his face reddened with righteous indignation.

    Then he died.

    Trestman was the last Bears’ incarnation he witnessed before leaving this earth. Imagine that.

    Do I want to be like that? Like my uncle, Buffone, and countless others, expending my psychic energy on a team that has been incompetent since “The Breakfast Club,” “The Goonies,” and “Commando” played in theaters, since “Sussidio,” “View to a Kill,” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” blasted from radios?

    Remember radio?

    Moses Christ that’s like a tragic Cohen Bros’ vignette.

    MB retreating to surfing and a jacuzzi becomes more and more appealing.

    “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

    Then I cast myself as a 1940’s Brit stoically shuffling to the underground both resigned and rebellious, both acknowledging reality nevertheless not entirely accepting nor submitting, both cautious yet optimistic in that strange netherealm of foggy uncertainty.

    The act itself is a reaffirmation of belief, a defiance to not surrender to the dark cynicism that rattles in every heart –

    As such, out of some ridicules sense of loyalty, Pavlovian conditioning or sheer stupid stubbornness, I will once more march into another September with all the bitching, yelling, bemoaning, rooting, cheering, whooping, booing, throwing of random objects, scaring of pets, all the ecstasy and agony which another Bears’ season entails.

    Maybe one Sunday my circle will catch me on an IG story on top of a hill overlooking the Pacific, smiling and basking beneath a breeze, sunburnt forehead and shimmering beard….

    But not this season.

    If this shitty year has taught us one thing and one thing only – it’s this:

    Never take anything for granted.

    Not a concert, not a haircut – not a seemingly trivial sport. NOTHING.

    I’m throwing on my Sweetness, Jimmy Mac, Butkus, Peanut gear, cracking open a beer, flipping over a brawtz… prepping for Bears’ ball.

    Gentlemen, once more into the breach.

    Let’s roll. Bear Down! 🐻👇