Oh, sometimes I love a play on words, and sometimes I really love a play on words. (And I wish the Bears had some playoff words. Hey-O!)
As many of you know, the Bears offense was not exactly stellar this season. New personnel didn't "gel" with other new personnel, and there were a lot of problems with signals, playcalling, route running etcetera. And it seems increasingly likely that the offense is indeed going to be the scapegoat.
Let's look at that below.
As was announced yesterday by the team, and reported by many, Lovie Smith didn't meet with the press today like he normally would the day after game, in preparations for double secret organization meetings today, as Brad Biggs wrote about this morning.
Biggs goes on in another article to discuss how he feels that Lovie Smith will likely return, though there may be some changes. (He won't be allowed to call plays on defense, perhaps.) This largely suggests that while they may retain him, he's on a particularly short leash, and may even be acting largely as a "warm body" coach, with his abilities severely reduced. Many of us would argue that his abilities have been "severely reduced" for a long time, but that's neither here nor there.
As it stands, the offense looks likely to be the scapegoat here, and with good reason. The past few seasons have been a spectacular mess of offensive play, highlighted by the particularly piss-poor play by many.
But overall, this has never been a good offensive unit.
A large part of it, I believe, is Ron Turner's false belief in his own system. How many times have we heard that he had to "scale back" his offensive playbook, because Grossman couldn't handle it...Orton couldn't handle it...Jay Cutler couldn't handle it? Too many. That being said, We've seen the quarterbacks have moderate levels of success with it, and it was when the coaches called plays to the strengths of those players. These coaches seem incapable of understanding the strengths of those players. I'm starting to believe that the number of young guys on the offensive field is for the coaches to have their own personal scapegoat. It must be nice as a coach to be able to say, "I believe in my system, and unfortunately these guys just haven't learned it yet."
That's ridiculous---your title is coach. You coach your players. You are the one who teaches them. You coordinate the offense--that means you put the pieces together, and make them work. If they don't--try new pieces.
So on the eve of someone getting fired--and I'm pretty sure someone's getting fired, I say, "Goodbye, Ron Turner." Because I'm convinced he will be the one to go, I won't feel too bad about it, and I'm sure you won't either.
And on two side notes:
Tim Shaw is just f'in awesome to watch on special teams. Is he the new Ayanbadejo? I don't know, but I really don't want to see him anywhere but on special teams.
The commentators on yesterday's game were the worst I think I may have ever heard. Ever. I can deal with saying something that's common sense--it's part of the job, but some of the stuff they said yesterday was just ridiculous.
Sound off below--I've been away a bit, and I missed you guys.