Yeah, calling for a pass while up 21-17 late in the 4th quarter makes no sense. Then again, our coaching staff makes a lot of calls that leave you scratching your head.
Lovie Smith just like twinky Jauron is NOT a good motivator. I want a coach that will motivate his players.
The conundrum we all face now is that of the borderline playoff team. The Bears may likely finish 10-6 and depending on the Giants/Raiders/Eagles will either make the playoffs or not but in either case.........will 10-6 produce changes in coaching staff and philosophy? I doubt it. Personally I think both Babich and Turner need to find new jobs but..........yeah given the Bears record I think Lovie will be able to justify no changes. If I had to pick which coordinator to dump first, I'd pick Babich. Simply because the majority of our cap is sunk into defense and as such, that side of the ball needs to be stronger than it has shown in 2008. I think Babich has essentially neutered Urlacher with his stupid defensive calls.
I agree with you 100% DBR....how many times have we seen Lovie on the freaking side lines looking lost..half the time he looks like he is taking orders at a Wendys drive thru...IMO it seems that Rivera was the one that motivated the players and you can really see that he is missed.
he did seem to know what he was doing...and seems to be doing a good job at the Chargers. oh well we got him then LAKE FOREST, Ill. The Bears on Saturday agreed to terms with Rod Marinelli to serve as their defensive line coach/assistant head coach. Marinelli and Bears coach Lovie Smith worked together for five seasons with the Buccaneers as defensive assistants on Tony Dungys staff from 1996-2000. The two roomed together for part of their tenure. Marinelli also worked with Bears general manager Jerry Angelo in Tampa. Marinelli agrees to join Bears coaching staff - Chicago Bears
On its face I like the Marinelli signing. I don't have the time right now to detail the reasons why I didn't like Rivera (URL knows them all and I think he agrees too) but I always thought he was overrated and got too much credit for the performance of those teams. The current state of the Bears' defense has more to do with Babich being bad than with him not being good, if that makes any sense. And on the underperforming players. The D-line was lights out for Rivera, it sucked this past year. But under Rivera, when the line wouldn't get pressure, he looked just as helpless as Babich because he had some dull, unimaginative blitz packages and would do things like send Urlacher in straight up the middle undisguised then wonder why he didn't make it to the QB. He didn't make any meaningful adjustments to his game plans either, for 2 glaring, painful examples see the '05 playoff clusterheck and the Super Bowl. That's it in a nutshell. If this line can get pressure again and we can get someone to be creative with the LBs then the D can be dominant like it was until recently. In my fantasy world, Gregg Williams somehow becomes the Bears' D coordinator and runs things his way independently of Lovie, but that will never happen. Currently, the Chargers' D has as much talent as those Bears teams did, and I'm sure that Bears fans all over are going to be giving him credit for the double-digit sacks Merriman will put up when he's healthy again and wish they had him back just for that.