Hot Take Tuesday: The Incoherent Rantings of a Belligerent Bears fan.
The Chicago Bears lost… again. Our beloved Bears lost 4 of 5 to finish the 2015 season, went 3-13 last year, and now dropped their first game of 2017. That makes then 4-18 in their last 22 regular season games. That’s just dreadful.
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What does this loss to the Atlanta Falcons mean for the 2017 Bears? Nothing, absolutely nothing. That’s because the front office and coaching staff has decided to punt this season. There were rumblings in OTAs about how Mitch Trubisky (and don’t correct me and say it’s Mitchell, I’m calling him Mitch, end of story) already looked better than Mike Glennon, and yet nothing happened. Training camp opened and the beat writers all discussed how Trubisky looked better throwing the football than his QB counterpart. Then we hit preseason games and Trubisky was clearly better than Glennon, but the Bears knew Glennon was going to be the quarterback and never even considered it a competition.
That choice was made before the second preseason game. Trubisky flashed a lot of ability in the first game. Knowing that no one plays in the fourth game and that the third game is the “dress rehearsal” and therefore Glennon was going to get first team reps, Trubisky had to be given first team reps in the second preseason game. When the Bears decided to not only skip that idea but play him less (and later) than they did in the first game, the ship had sailed: Mike Glennon was going to be the quarterback against Atlanta.
Now, we hear plenty of these ‘Mike Glennon looked pretty good’ comments after the Falcons game. You’re kidding, right? We’re we watching the same game? Glennon’s game is so limited that he neutered Dowell Loggains’ offense before the first snap of the game. Loggains ran a high school offense keeping all of Glennon’s passes at the line of scrimmage. From my count, Glennon threw the ball down the field twice, once on a completion to Deonte Thompson, and the other time was the fade to Tarik Cohen in the back of the end zone which Glennon underthrew by 3 or 4 yards. An accurate throw there and that would have been a touchdown.
Here’s the sad truth, what we saw out of Mike Glennon is peak Mike Glennon. He didn’t make a ton of mistakes, made a few solid throws on short passes and was able to drive the team down the field a couple of times, but, that’s not good enough. If they wanted a dink and dunk game manager they would have kept Brian Hoyer. That’s the best we can expect out of Glennon and we saw that his read progressions are slow, his deep ball is weak, and his mobility in the pocket is nonexistent. Other than that, he was fantastic.
What’s most amazing about Glennon’s performance and his limitations is that the Bears clearly know that’s the most we can expect out of him. Do you ever hear Ryan Pace, John Fox or Dowell Loggains talk about Glennon? It’s always about how he’s a leader, he commands the huddle, he’s a great locker room presence, he has tremendous height, he has all the intangibles. They never actually talk about his actual skills as a quarterback!
The Bears are in the middle of a rebuild, and this team isn’t a Super Bowl team whether Trubisky plays or Glennon plays, but windows close fast. Rookie deals are four-year deals. If Glennon plays a large part of this year, then 2018 is going to have even more growing pains for Trubisky. Suddenly Jordan Howard only has a year left on his deal and the Bears will have to pay him. Then they will be in a pickle about paying both Howard and Cohen, not to mention guys like Leonard Floyd will need new deals. When the money gets committed to building blocks, then suddenly some of the good players have to go by the wayside.
Great teams know how to replenish that talent, but we don’t know if the Bears will ever consistently be able to reload like teams like the New England Patriots do. This team is starting to collect some talent and the window is about to open, the sooner you have Trubisky in there, the sooner that window to contend will be open. Glennon has proven he’s nothing more than a QB2 and the longer the Bears delay the beginning of the Trubisky era, the shorter their window potentially will be.
Chicago Bears
Quick Hits
- Jerrell Freeman is obviously a loss, but Nick Kwiatkoski is going to surprise people with how well he will fill in.
- The man crush is fully on with Akiem Hicks, what an impact player.
- The Bears secondary (specifically Quintin Demps) fully blew it on the Austin Hooper bomb, but overall the secondary was so much better than what we saw in 2016, it’s not even comparable.
- I love what Jonathan Bullard could potentially become, but he was invisible yet again.
- Tarik Cohen- insert 1,458 complimentary comments here.
- Josh Bellamy is always open. Too bad he can’t catch. He should be renamed Featherstone after the wide receiver in Necessary Roughness.
- Dion Sims needs to play more, well-rounded tight end and clearly the best on the Bears’ roster.
- What doesn’t show up in the box score is how much the Falcons’ offense respected Eddie Goldman, constantly double-teamed and held his ground well in the middle of the field.
- This week’s Hot Take Tuesday was so sizzling, we couldn’t publish it until Wednesday so it had a little time to cool off.