Time to see our whole def plan

[noonthirtyjoe]

Once again? When was the first time?

And this is one time I was happy to be wrong.

Last week when I said we would play a plain def against Buffalo and add more tonight.

 

[Beengay fudgepackers]

Last week when I said we would play a plain def against Buffalo and add more tonight.

I didn't see much difference in anything but execution to be honest.

 

[Dirk]

I didn't see much difference in anything but execution to be honest.

Yeah, D executed much better this week. It was the ST that took the "wow WTF?!?" performance this week.

 

[richig07]

I didn't see much difference in anything but execution to be honest.

^^^THIS

Same scheme. Just better execution.

 

[Wounded Bear]

I owe you an apology, ntj....agree whole-heartedly on their play, nothing fancy, just guys that filled their gaps and looked like they've been on a football field before. Very dramatic turnaround from week 1 to week 2.

Let's hope they can maintain a reasonable amount of consistency.


On the flip side, Jay didn't throw any INT's to put them in a bad situation. Hats off to Jay Cutler.

 

[richig07]

I owe you an apology, ntj....agree whole-heartedly on their play, nothing fancy, just guys that filled their gaps and looked like they've been on a football field before. Very dramatic turnaround from week 1 to week 2.

Let's hope they can maintain a reasonable amount of consistency.


On the flip side, Jay didn't throw any INT's to put them in a bad situation. Hats off to Jay Cutler.

Jeez… the guys plays brilliantly and almost singlehandedly wills this offense and team to an improbable victory on the road vs a tough team.

Then all he gets is; "Jeez… at least he didn't fuck up."???

Come on...

 

[Wounded Bear]

Jeez… the guys plays brilliantly and almost singlehandedly wills this offense and team to an improbable victory on the road vs a tough team.

Then all he gets is; "Jeez… at least he didn't fuck up."???

Come on...

"Almost singlehandedly?" Really? I don't think so.

Without the outstanding defensive plays by Willie Young and the two Kyle Fuller interceptions that gave our offense the short field, I don't think we win that game.

But if your simply saying Jay played a great game, I agree. Four TD's is awesome. But what I'm saying if he threw 1 or 2 interceptions, I don't think we come away with a "W."

So I'll say again, hats off to Jay Cutler for not throwing interceptions and putting our newly put together defense in some unnecessarily tight jams. I think it only helps them in their confidence as a unit.

 

[richig07]

"Almost singlehandedly?" Really? I don't think so.

Without the outstanding defensive plays by Willie Young and the two Kyle Fuller interceptions that gave our offense the short field, I don't think we win that game.

But if your simply saying Jay played a great game, I agree. Four TD's is awesome. But what I'm saying if he threw 1 or 2 interceptions, I don't think we come away with a "W."

So I'll say again, hats off to Jay Cutler for not throwing interceptions and putting our newly put together defense in some unnecessarily tight jams. I think it only helps them in their confidence as a unit.

You're beyond nuts. The point is, he was great and didn't. As long as were talking about hypotheticals, what if he threw 17 touchdowns last Sunday? Would that have put us in a nice position? Gee…

Yes, the team was FINISHED, down 17-0. It was OVER. His two best players are limping around looking like shells of themselves, injuries are hitting the defense, the run game is beyond non-existent, and then he takes a BONE CRUSHING hit to the sternum. What does he do? He gets up and fires a LAZER to BMarsh for a first down the next play, then throws a TD to BMarsh. Hell of a catch too, obviously.

Sure, the defense made some great plays, NO DOUBT. But that rally all started with Cutler. He stayed completely poised, never got frustrated when it was perfectly reasonable to be, and he willed that offense down the field.

He went 15 of his last 16 for 140 yards, along with 4 TD's 0 INT's and a PERFECT passer rating.

Give me a break here. Wille Young can bring the QB down and do his fishing dance all he wants, but if there's nothing happening on the other end. It's useless. Cutler (as you can see by his numbers) was virtually unstoppable in the second half against a top defense, DESPITE the fact that they KNEW HE WAS THROWING… almost every time.

Maybe I'll rephrase, Cutler certainly didn't win the game singlehandedly. He wasn't intercepting balls, and sacking Kaep. However, he was absolutely THE vital piece to all of it. He was lights out in the face of GIGANTIC adversity. He absolutely led that team tonight.

And all he gets is; "Meh… nice job… way to not be a dick".

Fuck that. Acting like he managed the game. That's complete and utter bull shit.

 

[Wounded Bear]

<<<<\

 

[Wounded Bear]

You're beyond nuts. The point is, he was great and didn't. As long as were talking about hypotheticals, what if he threw 17 touchdowns last Sunday? Would that have put us in a nice position? Gee…

Yes, the team was FINISHED, down 17-0. It was OVER. His two best players are limping around looking like shells of themselves, injuries are hitting the defense, the run game is beyond non-existent, and then he takes a BONE CRUSHING hit to the sternum. What does he do? He gets up and fires a LAZER to BMarsh for a first down the next play, then throws a TD to BMarsh. Hell of a catch too, obviously.

Sure, the defense made some great plays, NO DOUBT. But that rally all started with Cutler. He stayed completely poised, never got frustrated when it was perfectly reasonable to be, and he willed that offense down the field.

He went 15 of his last 16 for 140 yards, along with 4 TD's 0 INT's and a PERFECT passer rating.

Give me a break here. Wille Young can bring the QB down and do his fishing dance all he wants, but if there's nothing happening on the other end. It's useless. Cutler (as you can see by his numbers) was virtually unstoppable in the second half against a top defense, DESPITE the fact that they KNEW HE WAS THROWING… almost every time.

Maybe I'll rephrase, Cutler certainly didn't win the game singlehandedly. He wasn't intercepting balls, and sacking Kaep. However, he was absolutely THE vital piece to all of it. He was lights out in the face of GIGANTIC adversity. He absolutely led that team tonight.

And all he gets is; "Meh… nice job… way to not be a dick".

Fuck that. Acting like he managed the game. That's complete and utter bull shit.

And after reading through all of your incoherent bullshit, I don't see how my statement that Cutler did a nice job by not throwing any interceptions that put the defense in a bad position to perform is invalidated.

And after reading through all of your mindless spazz attack, I don't see how my point about Willie Young's two crucial sacks that prevented San Francisco drives from yielding any potential points in an 8 point game is invalidated.

And after reading your psychotic breakdown of a post, I don't see how my point about Kyle Fuller's two interceptions that ultimately yielded 14 points in an 8 point game is in any way invalidated.

You're the definition of a fan because you exist in a world devoid of logic.

"Singlehandedly".....do you even know what the fuck that means?

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

It takes a village. It's a team win. Both sides of the ball showed up. LoL. Feels great.

 

[thunderspirit]

It takes a village. It's a team win. Both sides of the ball showed up. LoL. Feels great.

This.

Defense showed something last night against a pretty darn talented team.
Evidently Lance Briggs still has a pulse.
Willie Young, your table is ready.
Kyle Fuller, yours too.

Offense showed something last night too.
Cutler had a great game. I see a lot of (local) media calling it his "signature" win. I'm not willing to go that far yet, but he turned in a terrific performance.
Marshall is a beast.

And props to Emery for getting guys who could step in for injured players. Brian de la Puente, Michael Ola, Santonio freaking Holmes (of all people). Not to mention Fuller and Vereen

 

[Da Coach]

IMO the biggest difference in this game versus BUF was not only execution of the base defense but our ability to defend the read-option. Honorable mention to the young guns stepping up and contributing when we desperately needed it (Fuller, Sutton, Ferguson).

It appears that we've figured out a way to compete against the read-option which really helped us hang in there defensively until the offense came around. As for the young guys, clearly Fuller's game goes without saying however I thought that Sutton and Ferguson really played well down in goal line. Further, Sutton stepped in for Ratliff and was in our nickel giving Kaep fits on the final drive. I wish I could add Vereen to this list but he missed the sack (attack the upfield shoulder 45!).

I thought Willie Young was awesome and Lamarr Houston was nonexistent again. The tackling is also light years better than last season. Hopefully this is the start of a defensive resurgence. We only need them to be pedestrian.

I'd mention keeping Kaep in the pocket but Jared Allen continuously lost contain which hurt us at time. Allen is coming on but he hurt us as much as he helped us last night.

 

[DaSuperfan]

IMO the biggest difference in this game versus BUF was not only execution of the base defense but our ability to defend the read-option. Honorable mention to the young guns stepping up and contributing when we desperately needed it (Fuller, Sutton, Ferguson).

It appears that we've figured out a way to compete against the read-option which really helped us hang in there defensively until the offense came around. As for the young guys, clearly Fuller's game goes without saying however I thought that Sutton and Ferguson really played well down in goal line. Further, Sutton stepped in for Ratliff and was in our nickel giving Kaep fits on the final drive. I wish I could add Vereen to this list but he missed the sack (attack the upfield shoulder 45!).

I thought Willie Young was awesome and Lamarr Houston was nonexistent again. The tackling is also light years better than last season. Hopefully this is the start of a defensive resurgence. We only need them to be pedestrian.

I'd mention keeping Kaep in the pocket but Jared Allen continuously lost contain which hurt us at time. Allen is coming on but he hurt us as much as he helped us last night.

Exactly - Allen preached patience and doing your job all week and he goes out there and definitely lost contain on multiple occasions. Hopefully he gets this corrected soon, along with providing more of a pass rush.

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

I seen stacked lines and twice as much blitzing. I seen a aggressive defense making SF get away from their game plan. How is that the same as the read/react def from a week before?

 

[Beengay fudgepackers]

I seen stacked lines and twice as much blitzing. I seen a aggressive defense making SF get away from their game plan. How is that the same as the read/react def from a week before?

I saw the same things against the bills, except the linebackers were missing their gaps, over pursuing, and falling for play action. Allen looked bad against the bills as well. We might have stacked the box a little more, but I won't say that's introducing new wrinkles. It worked, but if we do that against a team like the packers we will get burned every single time. You were right when you said we'd see a better defense, but I still think you were very wrong when you said we would see a more complex defense against the niners. It was still the same scheme with really nothing complex to it. We mostly just committed another safety against the run and dared them to beat us through the air and they couldn't.

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

Things looked similar enough but, we were not playing read/react. We were the aggressors. We forced things instead of just reacting to what they were doing. Not exotic but very different then week one.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

Someone just sent video of conte interception...damn good play if you asked me.

 

[toooverbearing]

I've been critical of Briggs, especially after the Bills game... but he had a very good game. He stood out to me as well. And I thought Bostic and Shea looked good too. I noticed a handful of plays where one of them did something to make a play that would not get credited to their stat sheet by funneling the running back to the teeth of the defense or containing the edge. The defense defended the run very well I thought.

 

[yutch]

Tucker played it straight with his personnel in the opener, which was the smart thing to do. The only thing to do, really. And our execution was terrible.

So he made a bunch of little adjustments. On the D-line alone, we were constantly moving guys around. Briggs got an easier assignment for most of the SF game, and stepped up; McClellin got to play more in space than downhill, and it worked. Bostic initially had that role, but took on more of McClellin's erstwhile downhill stuff. I'm not assigning these functions to positions because we moved so many guys around so frequently that I lost track of who was playing where. But we did a tremendous job, I think, of putting guys in position to make plays given their styles, their physical abilities, and their comfort with the pro game.

I don't think we really had a "defensive plan" before this game. Not a sense of what we did well and how we'd cover up the rest. We had a gameplan, though, which wasn't all that different from week 1's except that we had to commit a bit more decisively to stopping the run and containing the QB. And we had a willingness to shake the shit out of the lineup to see who lined up where gave us the best chance of realizing that gameplan.

We might have a defensive plan--an identity we can carry from one game to the next--after this game.