the Bills were in game 2 and the Bears in game 1, the Bills looked a bit crisper in all aspects of the game. I noticed the Bears were very basic in their defense play calling. They did a few blitzes, but for the most part kept it simple, content with containing the Bills receivers. Briggs and Urlacher looked to be playing pretty fast out there.

How about Gould hitting from 50, piece of cake…

All in all the 1st practice game was good.

Shaffer got burned really bad playing RT with the 2nd string, on the play that caused Hanie’s lost fumble.

Turenne (dreadlock boy) helped his cause with a pass breakup in the corner of the endzone and a fumble recovery.

Kellen Davis is moving ahead of Michael Gaines, who was brought in to compete with him for the 3rd TE spot. I’d find it odd if they kept 4. Davis is such a HUGE athletic target… would love to see him make the team again.

Basanez, as I suspected the day we signed him, is junk. Just go with 2 QBs for the regular season. It might be better for Hanie’s development anyway, except he’ll have to run the scout team for game prep.

We let them complete 85% of their passes. God damn horrendous…. I don’t care who’s on the field. That’s awful.

Afalava will be starting on opening day. Mark it down.

Find a way to keep Will Ta’ufo’ou. He’s a good football player.

Henry Melton, returning a kickoff. Awesome.

Get this guy in the backfield on short yardage.

Woody Turenne can not cover at all.

I still maintain that Wolfe is simply too small; no amount of heart (of which he has a ton!) can change that. He cannot break tackles, thus his short and speedy thing never gets him very far. If they would get him on reverses and sweeps, he might have a chance, but too many D-linemen can run him down and he cannot break CB tackles.

Knox looked more polished than Iglesias. I just do not see the effort/intensity from Iglesias.

Omiyale looked worse then Shaffer; he’d better step it up or he might be an expensive bench anchor.

Gaines has been working on pass catching with Rasheid Davis. I think Jason Davis gets Gaines spot on the 53-man. Kellen Davis has much better upside.

And last, Steltz was too often out of position. He needs to stay at SS, he simply cannot cover enough ground to be a FS. This means that he is 3 or 4 on a team rife with SS talent. Sorry Geaux!

All in all I think the Bears have the pieces in the puzzle box. They need to start assembling them and get some freakin’ continuity.

“hurt themselves”. I understand he juggled the one pass that went for an interception, but outside of that I thought he played very well. He not only runs fast, he plays fast and is exciting to watch. I was, on the other hand, disappointed in Iglesias. He seemed to be running three quarter speed and often was trailing plays and watching like a kid during a Pop Warner game rather than running to the ball to see if he could block or be around if the ball was fumbled, etc.

I saw some things I didn’t like. However, I think we’ll go back and get better from here on out. Also I hope this is preseason for Cutler talking to the media because everyone (me included) is going to scrutinize his Hester comment for the next few days. I didn’t like it when I read it but from what I heard everyone’s blowing it out of proportion. Hopefully they can move on and they’ll be no hard feelings. IMO Cutler needed to take the blame for it as most all great QBs do, regardless of who is really at fault just to be a good teammate.

- Devin Hester ran several really good routes. Looked very crisp several times.

I disagree Hester still needs a lot of work. He also needs to become a defensive back when the ball is under thrown. Now not all of it was his fault but he did make some mistakes. He just still has a lot to learn IMO. He seemed to stop on one route when he was wide open and once in the end zone he kinda slowed down. He needs to be more aggressive when the ball is a toss up. Maybe watching tape of Steve Smith would help him.

I only watched the first half of the game, but was disappointed in the way the offense looked. From my perspective it seemed like the same old Bears offense. Throwing the ball into tight spaces, running the ball right up the gut or a basic predictable toss to the outside. Where’s the creativity in the middle of the field? I realize Olsen, Forte, and other essential Bears were not on the field, but where was Rideau last night? Typically, a standout training camp performer doesn’t mean anything. There’s a ton of work to be done at WR, and hopefully a veteran is brought in very soon. Why isn’t Matt Jones on a plane to Halas Hall immediately?! It’s more than obvious that Cutler needs an established target heading into the season. Defenses will key on Olsen and Forte all year long like last season, and Hester isn’t quite the force he needs to be to help offset this strategy.

On the defensive side, it was more of the same. If the Bears DEs can’t beat inexperienced OTs what’s going to happen when they go up against the best in the league? The middle of the field looks to be wide open as usual in pass-coverage (why is Steltz on the field?) The LBs feigning blitz at the LOS….it only worked for one game last season, and won’t fool any offense this season. The slant killed us then, and will kill us now! On a positive note, Alex Brown looked sharp along with Urlacher and Briggs. Alfalava looks to be a player, and I was fairly impressed with McBride’s aggressive play in tackling the ballcarrier.

With all that said, I’m a bit subdued from this game cause it seemed like nothing new was learned from our personnel. It’s only one preseason game, so hopefully things come together and not everything is so “vanilla” when we head up the road to Lambeau.

I wish Kellen Davis would use his size to be a better blocker. We have a bevy of pass catching TE’s but none that block and help us convert a 3rd and one. I think Gaines sticks instead of Davis just for blocking..

Its his first real game with this offense, he still needs some time to get used to it. At least Orton did worse in Denver…

he showed great tackling skills. should be a keeper. Rutgers is starting to dish out Great NFL talent.

Our secondary was atrocious. We allowed the Bills first two QB’s to go 23 of 26 including Edwards 10 for 10. We knew this secondary had some question marks, now I wonder if they have any starting caliber DB’s period. We will get picked apart all year if this is how we continue to defend the pass. It wasn’t due to a lack of a pass rush either. Almost every completion was a quick slant for 8-12 yards per. That’s just poor coverage. I know we played “vanilla” on defense, but vanilla doesn’t have to equal pathetic. This game scared me badly.

If we continue to play our CBs 10 yards deep, then we’re not gonna win many games.

Why are we still conceeding the 8 yard pass play on every single down!? It’s one thing if it’s 3rd & 20, but we give opponents that play anytime they want it. As long as we continue that, teams will continue to complete 80% of thier passes against us.

Couldn’t draw many conclusions from it. I do agree with those who said Urlacher looked like Urlacher (I don’t know who that impostor was in the 54 uniform last season), and Afalava really popped out at me a couple of times. DJ Moore, too. And Hanie has something going for him.

But in general, all I can say is the the vanilla defense didn’t produce much pressure on the QB and the starting offense didn’t have any rhythm to it.

We’ll see if anything gets cleared up on Saturday night.