Final Bear thoughts

To close the book on the Packer’s first loss of the season, I think head coach Mike McCarthy has the most to learn. His strategy of kicking away from Devon Hester in my mind was a failure. Giving the opponent only 60 yards to go for a touchdown, 30 yards for a field goal, is too much stress to put on your defense. The Packers gave up 27 points, I think even if they kicked it deep and Hester ran one back they would have given up less. That is the first example of McCarthy coaching scared.

The second example is the failure to put the ball in Brett Favre’s hands in the second half. Sure the Packers ran the ball well in the first half, so don’t you think the Bears will make an adjustment or two at halftime? The Bears are good enough on defense to shut down any team’s running game, the Packers just shocked them by even trying to run the ball in the first half. But when McCarthy ran the ball three straight times after a first and ten on their own twenty, I thought I was watching the 1972 Packers. I’d go back farther but I’m not that old. It was simply idiotic. Favre was 19-of-22 at the half with two clock killers. Very strange.

The Redskins defense is much stronger than the Bears so McCarthy better come up with a better game plan than the chicken-?!#$ one he used for Chicago. Maybe just let Brett call the game.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Al Davis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • snydro

    yes, favre was on fire and the run got us the initial score, how did we get to 4 and 0? favre. the bears obviously tightend up in the 2nd half agains the run, put jones back on the field and let him take another fly pattern to the house like last week.

    i disagree about hester. i think mccarthy thought that we matched up well, we should win but it could be close if the bears D stepped up. don’t let hester be the difference in a close game. i liked it. i guess i’m an optimist. we’ve all watched the bears lately, they’ve only won games by special teams and D, always close games that come down to one big (lucky) play. not kicking to hester eliminates a good percentage of those back-breakers.

    anyways, plenty of reasons to keep your head up but we better wax the heck out of the skins at home this weekend or Al’s right, the 4-0 start means nothing when you lose two in a row at home.

  • Mark Barroso

    I agree about McCarthy. He seems to repeatedly muff the play calling – coaching “scared” like the SI columnist said. Favre’s too much of a team player to criticize his coach, but I think it’s obvious that he went into “Hail Mary” mode (throwing the stupid interception to Urlacher, not the one at the end) because he lost confidence in his coach.

  • Zaz-FL

    Is it me, or is Jarrett Bush the worst tackler on the whole Packer’s D?
    All I see is him being left in the wake of every receiver he ever comes in contact with.
    Am I alone, or am I just happen to be singling him out?
    Just asking.

  • Doug R

    Favre has always made bone headed throws when pressure is on and he feels he has to make something happen. I think he has had a bad defense for so long it is probably hard to get out of the mindset that he has to do something instead of just throwing it away. Up until that point, he had done a great job all season of not forcing it and letting the defense do its job. At this point in the season and in his career, all we can hope for is that he minimizes this tendency.

    The Pack showed that they are a contender but still many notches below the level of the Pats and Colts which would have never let that game get away from them. This team has a lot of potential but will probably be at least one to two more years (if they can keep it together) before they could realistically beat a team like the Colts or Pats.

    If they can get a home game in the playoffs they would have a great shot at NFC championship probably at Dallas where they would likely lose and whoever comes out of that game will get decimated by the Pats/Colts anyway.

    I think if this team has this much potential Favre will return for another year but who knows. Even with Rodgers, this team should be competitive (at least in the NFC) since they have a solid defense.

  • Ed

    Good points – playing scared vis a vis Hester backfired as did playing scared once Favre threw his hideous momentum sucking INT. MM acted like a child with both Jones and Favre when they made mistakes. Yes get in their grille but don’t bench one and take the ball out of the hands of the other. Dare them to screw up again – challenge them to rise up to the occasion. I generally like MM and the job he has done but I feel he let the bigness of this game get to him. Bad news is the Skins are coming to town. They are beatable, as is any NFC team, but they are probably playing better than any team in the NFC right now other than Dallas. A win will take the smart out the Bears give-away but a loss will be a bitter pill for the bye week. If you can’t beat the better teams in the NFC what’s the big deal about getting into the playoffs – only to be whipped. If the Pack takes a stand and plays a great game vs Skins, the rest of the season should go well.