Pathetic performance vs. the Bears

[Philly Fin Fan]

That word doesn't even begin to describe how bad the Fins looked last night.
I know some people will say "well Thigpen only had 3 days to work with the starting offense". OK- so why did they completely abandon the run? 6 running plays? Seriously? Come on. They seemed to handcuff Henne and never let him air it out, and in comes the QB who has had only 3 days of running with the first team, and they let him toss it up. Confuses the hell out of me.

And the defense had the same problem I've been complaining about all season- they'd stop the Bears on 1st and 2nd down, or only allow them to gain minimal yardage, and then on 3rd down, they'd forget how to play, and would give up big yardage. (I think I read a stat that Chicago was 9 of 15 on 3rd down conversions- too lazy to look it up, I'm sure someone will for me)




(modified to adjust thread title to be more reflective)

[Brian Fein]

^^ the third down thing is a consequence of goo preparation and film study.  They came out on nearly every third down and threw a quick slant to Knox or the quick seam to Olsen that went for 8-10 yards every time. 

They must have seen something on film about the quick pass, or coverage cushion, that gave them great success.  They have to address this.  Do you think they have the personnel to match-up on press coverage on 3rd downs?

[Pappy13]

^^ the third down thing is a consequence of goo preparation and film study.  They came out on nearly every third down and threw a quick slant to Knox or the quick seam to Olsen that went for 8-10 yards every time. 

They must have seen something on film about the quick pass, or coverage cushion, that gave them great success.  They have to address this.  Do you think they have the personnel to match-up on press coverage on 3rd downs?

See this is exactly the problem.  Good coaches see this DURING THE GAME and make adjustments DURING THE GAME.  You can accept that 1 time, but when they continue to do it throughout the game, that's poor coaching.  Either they can't adjust or the players can't and either way that's poor coaching.

[Spider-Dan]

I think for the season, we've actually been very good at 3rd down defense.  I don't know the totals, but I remember seeing pretty impressive stats in that regard in previous games.  I was actually shocked that we couldn't get off of the field on third down all night.

[Landshark]

Six running plays?  SIX fucking running plays?  Something tells me Ross is going to clean house at the end of the season.

[Dave Gray]

I wonder if we only ran 6 running plays because there was a stacked line on every single play.  If the Bears set it up so that Thigpen had to pass out of it, and he was unable, running the ball into a line of guys and wasting a down doesn't make much sense.

I still think 6 runs is pretty pathetic, but maybe there's something in the tape that we didn't see.

[Philly Fin Fan]

I think for the season, we've actually been very good at 3rd down defense.  I don't know the totals, but I remember seeing pretty impressive stats in that regard in previous games. 

Really? You could've fooled me with that. I've complained about this for several games. it seems the D is prone to giving up a lot of big 3rd down plays.

[Spider-Dan]

Really? You could've fooled me with that. I've complained about this for several games. it seems the D is prone to giving up a lot of big 3rd down plays.

Defensive 3rd down statistics:

@BUF - 3/14
@MIN - 5/14
NYJ - 7/15
NE - 10/15
@GB - 3/13
PIT - 6/15
@CIN - 6/16
@BAL - 6/13
TEN - 9/17
CHI - 10/18

Season:  65/150 (43.33%)

Looks like we've fallen off a bit in the last two games.

[Dave Gray]

^ We're fine on 3rd and short.  Short and long is where we're terrible.

[Spider-Dan]

^ We're fine on 3rd and short.  Short and long is where we're terrible.

That's simply unacceptable.  There's no excuse for poor performance in logical contradictions.  We shouldn't even be in that scenario!

I blame the coaching for the subpar play in short and long situations.  It's a simple issue of preparation.

[Dave Gray]

3rd and long...oops.

But it's true.  In 3rd and short, we blitz and stack the line and we're usually OK.  It's in 3rd and long, when we have to have guys in coverage for an extended amount of time, where we give up big plays.

[Philly Fin Fan]

I think its also the manner in which they allow the opposition to convert 3rd downs. They come up with big stops on 1st and 2nd, and then lay down on 3rd down.

I think it was the Green Bay game when I complained about it on one particular drive, they kept allowing 3rd down conversions, and even a 4th down conversion. Had they stopped any of the 3rd down conversions, the game was over, and would've never been tied up and gone into overtime. Granted the Fins won, but still, why make it difficult?

[bsfins]

I was sitting in a waiting room exhausted off in never never land,listening to two guy's chatterbox back and forth about the Chiefs...This thread,and what Philly,and Dave said popped into my head....So I thought I'd throw this out there....

I think I might have an idea why we appear to struggle on 2nd,and 3rd down in 7+ yards situations....Somewhere earlier this year, I think it was Sparano that mentioned,the defensive philosophy was not to give up the big plays...

I've sort of thought to myself this has been a bit of a problem all year,maybe others have noticed.We seem to tip our hand to what we're doing too early...

(This is from watching T.V. in the stadium might see it differently)
Our CB's while the QB is walking under center, start in press,and start walking backwards playing off,even to the point of turning parallel  to the side line.Our safeties are walking towards the line of scrimmage. Then if we crowd the line (showing Blitz) they give a quick count,our defense all shift,then the QB, audibles,hot reads,calls timeout etc.

We either give up the 5yard pass,and miss the tackle,or the help is 10 yards away to make the tackle quickly...The other 2 parts of this seems to me, to be or they run like a slant where the the receiver is already moving forward and see's lane to Run after the catch. Thirdly, they run off the coverage,and throw underneath,where we depend on 1 guy to make the tackle....

Anyways my 2 cents....