It's not enough for the Bears to win

We get so focused on our team, that I believe we think good teams consistently just walk through games. For the most part, most games are tough in the NFL.

Even if the Bears run off a string of W’s, these same people will find an issue with something. But if they get tripped up and lose some games in the coming weeks those same people will break their arm patting themselves on the back for being so right.

That’s Terry Boers in a nutshell.

Some of it’s valid concerns taken to the ionosphere at Warp Factor 6.

Speaking as a Lions fan, the defense you guys have is good. Cutler can be a good QB, but it’s going to take him a year or more to finally get Martz’s system – it took Kitna about a year himself. (I make the assumption the OL doesn’t finally just kill him themselves.)

The WR corps is solid if unspectacular, and will have the same problems as Cutler will have. Fix the OL and then determine if you have a problem with the run game or the QB.

Not as pretty and dominating against a winless team as you’d like, but all in all, the Bears won the game. We’re 5-3. I’ll take it.

So 5-3 is all right with me.

Everything you said, in my opinion, is accurate except you need to consider the track record of this team over the last 2 decades. I think the reason that most of us who criticize them even after a win is that we’re tired of the “positive spin” that Lovie and Jauron before him put on the situation when their result is missing the playoffs way more than they make it.

Speaking for myself, if I heard something from the coaches that acknowledge that there are issues or weaknesses, I might feel like they had a clue as to how to fix it. We just haven’t seen enough evidence of that over the last, almost 20 years. Taking the current regime, we were one of the younger teams in the league when we went to the Super Bowl but haven’t even made the playoffs ever since. We were one game away two years ago and JA made his famous proclamation that the QB is what does it for you. They go out and get Jay Cutler, don’t put the pieces around him (including a good coaching staff) and we actually go backwards the next year. We also signed “the best D-line coach” in the business and our sack total got worse. This year we sign the biggest free agent out there in Peppers, who has played great, but the rest of the D-line hasn’t really distinguished themselves (Izzy is starting to come around but nothing spectacular). We also sign a RB who isn’t a whole lot different from the one we already have and then hardly use him. We start out with a tight win over the doormat of our division, then play a decent game against the Cowboys and Packers but then lose 3 of the next 4 and don’t really look good in any of those games.

No one really expects perfection and the rest of the “good” teams in the league have warts as well but our history shows that our management and coaches don’t really know how to overcome those warts in the long run. They have set the expectations for us fans, not the other way around. I think what you’re reading as negativity, is just us fans who have been slapped in the face too many times by the ineptitude of the organization, waiting for another smack because history tells us it is coming.

I think as Bears fans sometimes we love our team a little too much and set a pretty high standard. Instead of being satisfied with a win we want to dominate. And as you stated, this applies to a few Bears fans. I just think maybe we’re too passionate and less logical and reasonable. We cheer with out hearts, not our heads.

So far most of our wins have been flukes, we got lucky here and there and the stats keep saying we’re just not dominating unlike other NFL teams. Plus our O-line is horrible and that means even bad teams can make it a close game.

I would say this is why most of us aren’t happy, we’re playing just enough to win and that won’t be enough to get to the playoffs or the SB.

.. is that this team plays a lot better when they are the underdogs… More they are scrutinized, more they put they hearts on the play, so, if the Bears Fans are somewhat negative, this can be a good thing to our Bears!

By now, I was hoping to see a Mike Martz offense with a Jay Cutler era in full swing. I haven’t give up on the team, but the lack of development on the O line – the lack of a game where they put everything together, is disheartening. Am I going to watch a 7-9, 8-8, or 9-7 team not make the playoffs and feel complaclently like.. “it is what it is”. In some ways, ire is hope in disguise, while telling people not to get angry about a bad product is telling them not to hope for, or expect,, much better. If I were I coach, I’d much rather have a bunch of players that were pissed off at their performance than a bunch of players that were complacently saying “take it easy on is..we’re not doing too bad.”

if all of the things we’ve blogged about this season become irrelevant with a Super Bowl victory? In this years league, anything can happen.

Look at the league this year! I am happy to be a Bears fan right now! We do have our offensive line woes, but we are 5-3. We dont always look like the best team in the NFL, but did we the year we went to the Superbowl? Nope! Bear Down!!

And we have a right to set high standards. Because we pay the McCaskey’s salaries. Not the players, not Roger Goodel, and not even the advertisers.

This franchise is currently one of the biggest under-achievers in all of sports, which is ridiculous. This team should be one of the most successful in sports. The Bears own the second-largest market in the NFL. And (unlike the Jets/Giants) they have it all to themselves.

The reason the franchise is underachieving is because the McCaskeys are essentially lazy owners, who have very little interest in running an NFL football team, and are content to lay back and “cherry pick” the easy sales from die-hard, passionate fans (like us). I for one, am not going to lay down and be silent while the McCaskeys continue to sell this great city short and rob the fans of what they deserve – a consistent, quality product – every year.

Fair or not, his placid demeanor, unwillingness to acknowledge his shortcomings in leadership and apparent willingness to accept mediocrity is maddening to the fans. Lovie is exactly like many of the players on the team, he got his big payday and has lost the hunger. Wade Phillips has paid the price for a very similar nature and I hope Lovie does too.

You’re upset because not everyone feels the same way as you ? Wow. Of course we find things to gripe about. Our O-line and receivers are sub-par. Our QB isn’t as advertised, or maybe he is exactly as advertised if you listen to what the Bronco fans said at the time. It’s not all doom and gloom on defense though:

• We are the best in the league at stopping opponents on 3rd down.

• We are the best in the league at stopping opponents score passing TDs.

• We’re 3rd best at reducing opponents rushing yardage.

To counter that, we’re 3rd worst in the league at allowing rushing TD’s. The massive investment in Peppers is not showing up in overall sack totals – and he only has two for the year himself. He’s also tied 317th in the league for overall tackles.

It’s never all bad or all good, but without an offense, we’ll only ever beat bad teams.