Week 3 complaints, Yeah I got 1

[63bears40]

Mel Tucker's D. Antonio Brown was Pitt's only true weapon going into this game. And he still put up close to 200 yards & 2 TDs. Just sayin WTF is going on here. Reading Mel had good rep, as a pass defending DC, just puts some doubt in my eyes.

Yeah, I know 3 weeks I've been picking on him. But it is warranted. Our pass D has been awful. Especially the secondary, The CBs & Safeties don't seem to have alot trust amongst each other. JMO.
Conte while a sure tackler, gets suckered by QB pump fakes too often. That can lose us a game or 2.

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

Tucker has not impressed me at all. STs coverage also, notice the short high punts last night? Coach don't trust the coverage either.

 

[NCChiFan]

Is it really Tucker or is it the lack of pass rush this year?

 

[gmalis1]

Well, the lack of a pass rush doesn't help at all. How many times did Big Ben escape and get himself more time? Some of those passes were with 5-8 seconds after stepping up in the pocket. Shea McClellin is awful. He has good speed but bad routes to the QB.

And despite the two interceptions, I have no respect for either of the Bears safeties. They bite on every fake, they play out in no-man's land and they don't give any over the top help for the cornerbacks. Major Wright isn't bad but Chris Conte is just pathetic.

 

[NCChiFan]

Well, in fairness Big Ben has been escaping D's for years, ours D linemen aren't the first that he's escaped from. I did see good pressure by Peppers and some interior play, however I do wonder if the scheme we are employing is part of the problem. Guys can't just pass rush, they have to contain their areas and the pocket as to not allowing a QB outside or to run against them.

And yes, I have issues with Shea, while I don't think he is "awful", he just isn't living up to the 20th pick in the draft or 23rd or whatever he was. He has been a disappointment.

 

[Baseballnut77]

Lets not forget that peanut missed about half the game to and that had an effect on brown doing so well

 

[beardown07]

I thought the d-line played better. Sucks about Melton. Nate Collins had played well so far, but our depth chart looks a little thin now.

 

[Sportsmen]

I love the win. I just wish it would have been a nice easy win instead of what happened.

Stupid penalties and plays really made me sick.

The offense went into lovie mode after we got up 24-3 and just looked lost. Until that last drive were Cutler looked great.

I love the fact our D gets turnovers. The 2 TD's are amazing. However we did not get much of pass rush again. The CB's really got beat on some plays (Tim Jennings I am looking at you). I am not sure if this is because we did not get a good pass rush or because they lost coverage. giving Big Ben 400 yard in the air is just not acceptable. Conte looked lost that last game. Jennings eh. Tillman looked bad but I think he was injured so I will give him a pass.

I feel like we can play much better than we have. I want this team to get stronger week to week and not fade like last year.

 

[richig07]

It's hard to be impressed with a defensive coordinator, when you don't have a front four that can rush the passer.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

pass rush was pathetic last night. That Pitt O line isn't even very good this year. Losing Melton doesn't exactly help the thin depth. I'd have to say Paea is our best guy so far this year...he's actually looking pretty good. Might be my imagination, but it seemed like when Collins came in Paea spent some plays as the 3-tech...not all of the plays, but some.

I wasn't super impressed with the O line last night either...plays were either quick passes or Cutler stepping up and running around. There weren't a lot of Cutler comfortably sitting in the pocket plays. However at least the Pitt line and blitz packages are a quality group, so the O line didn't rate as badly as the D line for my money.

Rest of the team played great. I am impressed how quickly Frey is coming along. Lance Briggs of course, the linebackers overall. I am enjoying watching Martellus Bennett...guy is really athletic. Cutler's stats may not have been eye-popping, but I thought he actually played pretty solid..no major mistakes, and a few nice passes when we needed it.

My one other concern is that the playcalling seems like it is becoming a bit predictable. Pittsbugh quickly tightened up and played tighter, and the offense then struggled. I didn't notice a big adjustment to the Pittsburgh defensive adjustment. Fortunately defensive turnovers made it a bit of a snoozer at the end. Thanks Briggs!

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

oh, and on this Tucker thing...I'm going to go against the common view here and defend him. I am quite sure he recognizes the problems with the front 4. So he sent a lot of blitz packages...which is what a D coordinator needs to do. Most of the good pressure came in blitzes (duh), but what else did you expect him to do? Defense wasn't perfect, but you can't blitz AND double team Antonio Brown that often, especially with all the trips/bunch formations the Steelers were running.

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

It's hard to be impressed with a defensive coordinator, when you don't have a front four that can rush the passer.

A. Then he needs to adjust, he has not. B. his blitzing is hurting us. C. Rod got good play out of the same group. I,m not saying I dislike him yet. But I'm not impressed either.

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

oh, and on this Tucker thing...I'm going to go against the common view here and defend him. I am quite sure he recognizes the problems with the front 4. So he sent a lot of blitz packages...which is what a D coordinator needs to do. Most of the good pressure came in blitzes (duh), but what else did you expect him to do? Defense wasn't perfect, but you can't blitz AND double team Antonio Brown that often, especially with all the trips/bunch formations the Steelers were running.

He never made any adjustments to slow Brown down. He ran the same not working def plan the whole game.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

well...and again this is from faulty memory and only one game watch, but when Tillman went out we had Bowman on him because Jennings is too short to reliably cover Brown. If I recall correctly Bowman was playing outside leverage on him because since we had to blitz to generate a pass rush there was a lot of single high safety (you can't commit your only safety to Brown's side or the bunch/trips formations will KILL you every time. And with Bowman playing outside, Brown was bound to collect a lot of yardage.

I don't know why you didn't like the blitzes, I think a lot of them worked pretty well last night and produced our only semblance of pressure. For my money, the weak spot of the defense wasn't the playcalls or the back 7's play, it was clearly and squarely on the front 4.

 

[pumpkinhead33793]

The D has been decent. Pitt got 2 long TD passes on just great plays. Both the coverage was there but Brown made great plays, especially the 2nd one.

It seems though like our secondary is either great or horrible on a play to play basis. I don't mind giving up 400 yards a game if we get 4 turnovers every game.

 

[richig07]

A. Then he needs to adjust, he has not. B. his blitzing is hurting us. C. Rod got good play out of the same group. I,m not saying I dislike him yet. But I'm not impressed either.

How is his blitzing hurting us when we can't get pressure with our front four? The only plays this defense made last night, came as a result of the blitz. Also, what adjustments should he make? He can't turn our front four into better pass rushers.

Also, Rod got better production out of a FAR different group. Julius Peppers is just starting to look like an old man. He never looked anything close to that when Rod was here. That changes things COMPLETELY. Notice how Melton was a ghost until his injury? Yeah, that's because teams didn't have to pay much attention to Peppers.

Should have kept Idonije around...

 

[Peter Gozintite]

I agree that the front four have done shit without some blitzes. Now that Melton is gone, it isnt likely going to get better. they torched us with Brown in single coverage and made it a little close for liking when they got back within four points
Oline kinda played shitty as the game started back in the third quarter, and never did get back to being really solid like they were in the first half. Still a win, and on a day when the peckers lost, so good sunday.

 

[63bears40]

Is it really Tucker or is it the lack of pass rush this year?

Both of Browns TDs came on Conte blitzes easily picked up by pitt.
Those blitzes are usually called by Tucker.
And yeah, we're blitzing more due to the lack of a 4 man rush. Just think our LBs are more efective Blitzers.
But I haven't seen Pep being used anywhere but R DE. Or Wooton @ L DE. I could be wrong.
We were successful moving Pep around last year.\
As of today we're ranked 22 in total D. Not exactly Bear standards.
Some of the Blame has to go to Mel.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

"Just think our LBs are more efective Blitzers."

No doubt, perfectly true. However, one reason why is that offenses don't know where our blitzes are coming from because there are so many safety and corner blitzes. It makes the linebackers that much more effective when they do blitz when the offense doesn't know where it is coming from.

But yeah, without a doubt, the LB blitzes are going better.