After my freshman yr at Evanston Township High School, the place my ultimate deal with soccer expertise was beginning heart on the “B” crew, I froze my 15-year-old behind off on a 50-yard-line wood seat in Wrigley Field’s higher deck on a 5-degree Sunday in December 1963. I watched because the Bears beat the New York Giants 14-10 for the NFL championship, the crew’s final till the wonderful 1985 Super Bowl yr.
(The single rest room in our concourse was completely inadequate, I’d add.)
My household had these implausible season ticket seats with a dwell, sightline equal of at the moment’s TV view courtesy of my grandfather, who bought them within the Thirties. I accompanied Gramps and my dad to each house recreation from the time I used to be 10 till I headed off to varsity eight years later.
After that, I went to house video games at any time when I used to be in Chicago up till 2003, when a field workplace snafu after the Soldier Field makeover relocated us to an finish zone, prompting me to surrender my season tickets. Since then, I’ve joined the multitude of addicted TV viewers, hardly ever lacking a recreation and sometimes traversing difficult overland routes to catch December playoff video games in distant, heat climate trip spots with poor reception.
So why am I boring readers with one fan’s expertise? Because, like most die-hard followers, I feel I do know what’s good and unhealthy, sensible and dumb, proper and incorrect, about this yr’s crew. And as a result of I care, I wanna share, as Bears administration heads right into a postseason full of promise and peril.
I’m not an insider like Tribune reporters Brad Biggs, Dan Wiederer or Colleen Kane, who do an important job protecting this storied franchise, however I’ve watched sufficient video games, and thought sufficient after their outcomes, to have opinions that is perhaps value contemplating.
I’m not going to speak about draft decisions, free brokers, cap house or who on the present roster needs to be re-signed, launched or developed. I’ll depart these deep dives to the consultants who dwell with the crew daily.
I’ll merely give attention to the primary facilities of controversy: quarterback Justin Fields, head coach (and unintended defensive coordinator) Matt Eberflus and offensive coordinator Luke Getsy.
Fields is probably the most athletic Bears QB since Bobby Douglass a couple of a long time in the past: an important runner with a robust arm and good unscripted freelance means, however a mediocre pocket passer who lacks the preternatural endurance and field-scanning instincts of a Tom Brady or Aaron Rodgers.
So what to do? Work on pocket enchancment? Of course, but it surely’s already occurring and can proceed, given higher move receivers, higher move routes and Fields’ estimable work ethic.
But within the meantime, he ought to play to his strengths, with extra rollout run-pass choices and frequent use of a no-huddle, hurry-up offense that prime schools use to maintain defenses off steadiness.
If Getsy will get it, he hasn’t proven it, so it’s most likely time for an offensive coordinator who does, particularly late in video games, when poor play choice this previous season contributed to a number of inexcusable meltdown losses, costing the crew a playoff spot.
I additionally blame Eberflus’ defensive strategy for those self same meltdowns, and right here’s why. Stellar defensive items — and the Bears have one more often than not — get drained within the fourth quarter. The move rush penetrates much less, and the defensive backs cowl a bit much less assuredly, so opposing QBs safe within the pocket full passes and transfer their groups down the sector.
The apparent treatment, when Cover 2 is susceptible, is extra aggressive stunts and blitzes to throw these QBs off steadiness. That was missing in these late collapses, together with the shoddy offensive play calls.
There you will have it — one actually outdated fan’s perspective.
I don’t understand how basic supervisor Ryan Poles and crew President Kevin Warren plan to handle these three key items of the puzzle, together with the remainder of their offseason alternatives.
But my hope, and I really feel it from the underside of my lifelong fan’s coronary heart, is that they hold Fields and help him with offensive teaching that may maximize and elevate his unbelievable expertise, and defensive recreation plans that make opposing quarterbacks run scared as a substitute of sitting again and calmly selecting the secondary aside.
On to 2024!
Andy Shaw has been a lifelong Chicago sports activities fan, along with holding down day jobs as a journalist and good authorities advocate.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com