Now there are 2 schools of thought when it comes to this Cutler situation.  The first is that Cutler is awesome, but he has no defense, offensive line, or wide receivers, so he is in an impossible situation.  The second is that, yeah, the rest of the team is bad, but that doesn’t excuse Cutler for being so terrible.  Both are correct to some degree.  Here is what I think is really going on though.

Jay Cutler came to Chicago with high expectations.  I mean he personally had high expectations for himself and this team.  He thought this was it.  He was one of the top quarterbacks in the league going from a sub-par team to a pretty good team.  He wanted to win bad.  Their was Super Bowl talk and contender talk and he, being the confident guy he is, thought he could make it happen.

Then the season started with that hiccup in Green Bay, but he bounced back from that.  Even though the Bears started winning, however, it became clear that the defense was rusty and aging and they would not be able to help carry the load.  So he started pressing.  And pressing.  And as the defense deteriorated into a worthless pile of shit, he began to revert to what he did in Denver, try to win games by himself.  While the offensive line does look like swiss cheese, it really doesn’t seem to affect Jay too much.  He is able to scramble and create time for himself (although the run game being shitty is a huge factor).  Thus we can’t blame them too much if that was what you were thinking.

So Jay’s bad performance, well that is on Jay, although I can understand why.  He DOES need to win games by himself on this joke of a team.  So while we should be pointing our fingers at him for being somewhat shitty and pressing, we should also do it while understanding that it’s not him giving away games we should win, but instead trying to salvage games that we most assuredly will lose.

H/T Picture: Sun-Times

Blog Down, Chicago Bears

Did I mention the Bears are -13 against the Browns this week? If we lose that is pretty much the season down the drain. Let’s hope Turner and Lovie have a plan, because there are no gimme games with this offensive line.

Most people aren’t familiar with the O-line, so lets take a look at all 5 of them and break down what was wrong (or in a far less likely scenario, right) about their performances.

Orlando Pace (Left Tackle #76): This former Pro Bowler and future Hall of Famer was the best left tackle in all of football for many years.  Those days are over now.  That doesn’t mean he cannot be effective, but he is clearly a shell of his former self.  It appears that he can block the bigger hulking defensive linemen that he can get himself tangled up with, but those speed guys will probably give him problems, since he seems to be moving in quicksand when he tries to go laterally.  Against Pittsburgh, he may have a lot of trouble with a guy like James Harrison, but we’ll see.

Frank Omiyale (Left Guard #68): Unable to pull, unable to block, got no push in the run game.  On that horrible interception by Jolly, you can see him release the linebacker on a screen, but then he just does nothing and watches.  It looks to me like he didn’t release the block on the defender at all, he just got beat (watch #68, Omiyale).  I know he’s a bit banged up, but he was barely able to stay in front of his man all night against Green Bay.

Olin Kreutz (Center #57): I’m usually not a huge Kreutz fan.  When he was young and quick, he made up for being undersized and undisciplined.  I mean what center gets called for a false start?  Kreutz does, a lot.  Against Green Bay, however, he looked excellent.  He blocked well all night, got upfield a bit on runs, and generally protected Cutler very well.

Roberto Garza (Right Guard #63): Also had a solid game, and in general is a reliable guard.  He is also a bit undersized, though not by much.  He is known for his great run-blocking, but he wasn’t spectacular in the Green Bay game.  Overall nothing really to complain about.

Chris Williams (Right Tackle #74): This kid pisses me off just by his existence.  After being drafted with the Bears first pick last season, the city found out he had serious back problems OF WHICH THE ORGANIZATION WAS AWARE WHEN THEY DRAFTED HIM.  He missed the half of the 2008 season nursing those back injuries.  Although he was originally drafted as a left tackle, the acquisition of Pace bumped him to right tackle, where he was shaky at best this past week.  His pass blocking actually looked so-so, but it felt like he couldn’t get any kind of push on the right side of the line when the Bears tried to run.  He has the size and the speed, but he’s still young and maybe its just a matter of putting it all together.