Bears still suck Studs n Duds

[milani]

If you watch the replay right after coming back from commercial, you can see the ball hit the ground under Loveland as he and Williams hit the ground. It was not an interception.

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If you were to watch it frame by frame, that is Loveland's right hand on the end of the ball near his left hip. His left hand isn't on the ball anymore. His trunk lands on and to the left of the ball and then Evan Williams pulls at it and rolls away.

Unfortunate that they broke away to commercial right away.

 

[milani]

Ben Johnson also very much went out of the way to get Caleb on the move rather than keeping him in the pocket and letting Micah go hunting. Bears already had one of the highest play action rates in the league at something like 35% and yesterday it was pushing 60%+

We will get to see another play action dance around QB this week. Our linemen should practice some wind sprints for that elevation.

 

[Thirteen Below]

Would guess that if Love is still here in 8 years, he’ll have much more of the “this is my team and my offense” attitude than he has right now.

He'd better, and I hope it doesn't take 8 years. I don't want him to get as bad as the other 2 guys were, but I like to see some degree of independence and ownership in a quarterback.

 

[Old Guy]

Studs
Love-shook off a bad read and throw; owned up to it and called some great audibles.
Jacob’s-a horse. Got most of his yards on his own.
receivers- no drops, even played defender well when they had to
Oline pass protection- for the most part pretty good.
MLF- for getting on Nixon’s case. It was justified
Nixon - for being a man who made a mistake, closing his mouth after that and then became a hammer on D plus using his veteran experience to come off his man and cover a wide open tight end on his interception.

Duds
Oline’s run blocking. The Bears have been giving up a lot of rushing yards but we struggled with a lot of 0-3 yd gains. Most of Jacob’s yards became after contact.

Pass Defense- this was the biggest dud of the day for me. Hafley, Ansley, and Downard and the dbacks need to get their act together. You have to do more than play a zone and say catch it and we’ll tackle you. The man to man coverage is deplorable. The Bears should have run misdirection passing plays all game. Guys were wide open all over the place on those plays with most of our guys standing around like statues. This was coverage a high school coach would be #issed about and this is the NFL! Go back and watch those misdirection pass plays. This was terrible pass coverage at any level. If Nixon doesn’t see that TE going down the field all alone, cut off his guy and drop to make the interception, the Bears are going for two and a win. It was that close to a loss. Also need dbacks that are willing to tackle because it seems like some of them are backing off waiting for others to do the tackling.

 

[adambr2]

That was his response specifically to a question about how it feels to get the game winning INT after getting scrutiny from some people and it was basically his brash way of saying that he couldn't care less what anyone else (fans, media, etc) have to say either way and he plays because he loves to play. Probably no my choice of words, but that's pretty much the same way I feel about things like my own mediocre guitar skills, etc.

It’s not a huge deal to me but it’s a quote that can be picked apart pretty easily to say “here’s a selfish player who doesn’t care about his teammates.”

I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way and things can get easily taken out of context. Guys just have to be aware of those things when there’s a mic in your face.

 

[lambeaulambo]

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This about sums it up!! LOL

 

[milani]

Drives me crazy. Evidently he had these issues in Dallas too. Inexplicable.

As crazy as that Eagles-Chargers game was you still have to credit the refs for that game. They actually knew enough to call holding penalties on the O line.

 

[adambr2]

My only theory on Parsons is that he’s held so often that officials almost build up a tolerance to it where they just let it slide unless it’s beyond blatant, or they know they’d be throwing the flag every play.

The problem is it’s gone so far to that extreme that they actually are not throwing the flag when it IS blatant.

 

[Magooch]

Micah Parsons leads the league in pressures this year, and to my knowledge has not had one SINGLE holding call against him accepted yet this season.

(He did actually manage to get a call a week or two ago... but he still got the sack, so it was declined.)

This is of course basically an impossibility, statistically speaking

I do think there is some truth to the "tolerance" theory. On the flip side of the ball it immediately calls to mind Seattle's Legion of Boom defenses. They would play ultra-physical and basically hold (or interfere/illegal contact) on virtually every play. They understood that A.) the refs wouldn't call everything and would start to get a bit desensitized; B.) the refs wouldn't feel "right" having such a huge discrepancy in penalties against one team, even if called accurately; and C.) the league doesn't want to have to stop the game after every passing down and fans don't want that either.

Same thing you see (saw?) with Philly on their t*sh push. Their OL lines up ahead of the ball and false starts every single time, but they know it's not gonna get called every time so they keep it up. Now of course in both of those examples it's players intentionally taking advantage of the referees' hesitation to go flag-crazy and using that to their advantage. with Parsons, I dunno if opposing OL players are banking on that as well (and holding him intentionally because they know it won't get called every time), or if it's just a natural reaction, but either way - yeah, I think refs have basically gone blind to it

 

[Magooch]

Oh, and regarding Parsons, I would also add....I think at times he could probably get a few more calls if he "sold it" a bit more, if you know what I mean. As I mentioned, in spite of never getting a holding call, he's still generating more pressures than anyone else. Which means, broadly speaking, even with getting held he's still having "successful" snaps. I think it may very well be that there are plenty of instances where Parsons gets held but feels like he can still beat the hold; rather than give up on the play (and possibly still not get the call) he just fights through it. The referee sees him still often "winning" his snap(s) and is then less likely to call a penalty on it. So it's tough. Make it more obvious you're getting held and you might get more calls...but you might also take yourself out of a play and still not get a call.

 

[adambr2]

The tush push is a great example. Inherently, there’s nothing illegal about the play — except the false start that occurs almost EVERY TIME.

When things like this become the norm, there’s either tolerance, or pushback.

Tolerance isn’t the right way. Call the penalties, force the teams to make the necessary adjustments to the play, like giving help to the blockers on Parsons, opening up things for the rest of our pass rushers.

Teams will get away with whatever advantage they can if it’s not called.

 

[chemist]

The tush push is a great example. Inherently, there’s nothing illegal about the play — except the false start that occurs almost EVERY TIME.

When things like this become the norm, there’s either tolerance, or pushback.

Tolerance isn’t the right way. Call the penalties, force the teams to make the necessary adjustments to the play, like giving help to the blockers on Parsons, opening up things for the rest of our pass rushers.

Teams will get away with whatever advantage they can if it’s not called.

Or maybe the league needs to come up with a better definition of what is considered holding, just like they did with roughing the passer.

 

[adambr2]

Or maybe the league needs to come up with a better definition of what is considered holding, just like they did with roughing the passer.

It is pretty well defined. They are simply not calling it as defined.

 

[chemist]

It is pretty well defined. They are simply not calling it as defined.

If that is the case it then it sounds to me like the league is allowing players to break the law. Out on the street in real life you get arrested for that. So in order to get better control over this situation maybe the league needs to be harder on the officials who are not executing whats written in the law book, or maybe make the penalty on the players who are egresiously overstepping much harsher, maybe use the soccer idea of yellow and red cards. Once you are called for holding more than 2 or 3 times you are dismissed from the rest of the game.
Something needs to be done because this holding issue has reached the ridiculous stage.

 

[Magooch]

I will also say that we do see pretty much every year a new "point of emphasis" given to referees and that usually DOES have a fairly pronounced impact.

For instance like I mentioned above with the Legion of Boom, I can't remember exactly - either 2013 or 2014 the league put out a notice to referees that the upcoming season's point of emphasis would be defensive holding/illegal contact. They started calling it a lot more tightly and the "Legion of Boom-style" defense pretty quickly became non-viable from then onward (to be fair some of that is just due to player moves, guys getting older, etc).

so while they might not change the way holding is written as a penalty or anything like that, if it becomes enough of an issue it may be an offseason point of emphasis in the near future.

BUT, that said, I don't expect much to change. We all know by now that the league feels (and probably rightly so) that generally good offense is better for viewership/ratings than defense. As such they are almost always going to err on the side of the offense's favor. To put it simply, the league HATES offensive holding penalties. Not even singling out Micah, it's just not something that is beneficial to their "product". It slows the game down dramatically, it extends drives (down repeated), and it lowers scoring probability. In fact, OPI is the only offensive penalty with a worse "hit" to an offense's EPA on a given play than offensive holding...but when you consider the frequency at which these penalties are called (Offensive holding is called roughly 5x more frequently than OPI), offensive holding is by FAR the single most (negatively) impactful penalty-factor on an offense's EPA-performance in a given game. SO, all that is a long way to stay...the league is generally going to be motivated to call LESS holding, not more, unfortunately.

I also think that with guys like Micah or Myles Garrett or the like, to some extent there's almost an issue of them being TOO good. These guys are so head-and-shoulders above most NFL offensive linemen that holding them is the only way to have a fighting chance. If the OT doesn't hold Parsons, he's probably coming away with 6 sacks against Chicago. These guys would hit double-digits some weeks. The QB's going to get killed and the opposing offense is going to do nothing. If you don't hold those guys, offenses get tanked and the opponent's most valuable player is at a way higher risk of injury. They (the league, owners, etc) don't want that. And if you hold them every play to survive and it gets called every play... then games take 6 hours and the offense still never does anything. It's almost like these guys are simply TOO disruptive to be treated fairly in this way.

Which, all that being said, it's a real bummer, because we made a huge investment in draft capital and cash for Parsons to be an absolutely game-wrecking player...while it feels like the league simply does not want games "wrecked" in that sort of way. So, I don't really know what the solution there is.

 

[El Guapo]

It's one way in which the NFL protects quarterbacks

 

[chemist]

I will also say that we do see pretty much every year a new "point of emphasis" given to referees and that usually DOES have a fairly pronounced impact.

For instance like I mentioned above with the Legion of Boom, I can't remember exactly - either 2013 or 2014 the league put out a notice to referees that the upcoming season's point of emphasis would be defensive holding/illegal contact. They started calling it a lot more tightly and the "Legion of Boom-style" defense pretty quickly became non-viable from then onward (to be fair some of that is just due to player moves, guys getting older, etc).

so while they might not change the way holding is written as a penalty or anything like that, if it becomes enough of an issue it may be an offseason point of emphasis in the near future.

BUT, that said, I don't expect much to change. We all know by now that the league feels (and probably rightly so) that generally good offense is better for viewership/ratings than defense. As such they are almost always going to err on the side of the offense's favor. To put it simply, the league HATES offensive holding penalties. Not even singling out Micah, it's just not something that is beneficial to their "product". It slows the game down dramatically, it extends drives (down repeated), and it lowers scoring probability. In fact, OPI is the only offensive penalty with a worse "hit" to an offense's EPA on a given play than offensive holding...but when you consider the frequency at which these penalties are called (Offensive holding is called roughly 5x more frequently than OPI), offensive holding is by FAR the single most (negatively) impactful penalty-factor on an offense's EPA-performance in a given game. SO, all that is a long way to stay...the league is generally going to be motivated to call LESS holding, not more, unfortunately.

I also think that with guys like Micah or Myles Garrett or the like, to some extent there's almost an issue of them being TOO good. These guys are so head-and-shoulders above most NFL offensive linemen that holding them is the only way to have a fighting chance. If the OT doesn't hold Parsons, he's probably coming away with 6 sacks against Chicago. These guys would hit double-digits some weeks. The QB's going to get killed and the opposing offense is going to do nothing. If you don't hold those guys, offenses get tanked and the opponent's most valuable player is at a way higher risk of injury. They (the league, owners, etc) don't want that. And if you hold them every play to survive and it gets called every play... then games take 6 hours and the offense still never does anything. It's almost like these guys are simply TOO disruptive to be treated fairly in this way.

Which, all that being said, it's a real bummer, because we made a huge investment in draft capital and cash for Parsons to be an absolutely game-wrecking player...while it feels like the league simply does not want games "wrecked" in that sort of way. So, I don't really know what the solution there is.

Such a well written deciphering of the holding issue deserves more than a like from me. You have outlined in a hard to accept reality that the powers that be are not going to change the way things are.
Your detailed analysis was a thorough all inclusive outline of the money issue, the scoring issue, the QB issue etc.
Im wondering then if maybe the league should just do away with calling that penalty at all. Just pull it off the books and let holding become a non issue on the offensive side of the ball. That would certainly do away with the massive amount of complaints fans have because they feel their team was unfairly treated, or the refs were favoring one team over another. If the penalty no longer exists then there would no longer be any reason for fans to scream about favoritism.

 

[milani]

My only theory on Parsons is that he’s held so often that officials almost build up a tolerance to it where they just let it slide unless it’s beyond blatant, or they know they’d be throwing the flag every play.

The problem is it’s gone so far to that extreme that they actually are not throwing the flag when it IS blatant.

Reminds me a little of the hold Hack A Shaq they used in the NBA for years. But at least there you could shoot free throws.

 

[milani]

It is pretty well defined. They are simply not calling it as defined.

And they made changes decades ago. Through the 70s holding on the offensive line got called so often that they had to change it. Back then the linemen could not open their hands and arms to push. They had to use closed fists with the arms locked into the upper torso like you see in very old football card pictures of linemen. And they slapped you with 15 yards instead of 10. That is why the running game dominated at the time. Passing the ball had more repercussions and 1st and 25 was no fun. Not good for ratings. Now on the other hand, today they call way more penalties on kickoffs and punts than they did then, which I cannot understand.

 

[chemist]

And they made changes decades ago. Through the 70s holding on the offensive line got called so often that they had to change it. Back then the linemen could not open their hands and arms to push. They had to use closed fists with the arms locked into the upper torso like you see in very old football card pictures of linemen. And they slapped you with 15 yards instead of 10. That is why the running game dominated at the time. Passing the ball had more repercussions and 1st and 25 was no fun. Not good for ratings. Now on the other hand, today they call way more penalties on kickoffs and punts than they did then, which I cannot understand.

This offensive holding call is taking over my life so I have to get this out.
The only way i see to get better control over this situation is to make the penalty very harsh, say lose 10 or 15 yds, and the player get 1 strike against him. 3 strikes and you are out of the game for good
In order for this to work properly there would have to be a clearly defined, majority accepted defintion of what holding is.
IMO we are looking for egregious acts of holding. if the offensive player grabs the rusher around each shoulder with open hands for just a second or 2 and then lets go ..No Call. If he holds that position for several seconds absolutely a penalty, if he holds that position and turns the rusher sideways, absolutely, if he holds that position and throws the rusher to the ground, absolutely, if he approaches the rusher with closed fists and arms across his chest and just keep pushing the rusher backwards, no call, if he keeps that position and he pushes the rusher off to the side, no call. Etc
Im sure there are many ways we can define holding and not holding to keep this game fair.
And by majority accepted i just dont mean the league office. They are not the ones on the field in the heat of battle. Doesnt it make sense to have those who are playing the game have a say in what holding should be

 

[tynimiller]

You know what...MAJOR DUD possibly:

Not dressing Nazir Stackhouse....zero issues during the week and than just didn't play - a seemingly healthy scratch. Now if he was ill or something and we don't know I get...but Stackhouse not playing seems crazy dumb.

 

[Pugger]

Oh, and regarding Parsons, I would also add....I think at times he could probably get a few more calls if he "sold it" a bit more, if you know what I mean. As I mentioned, in spite of never getting a holding call, he's still generating more pressures than anyone else. Which means, broadly speaking, even with getting held he's still having "successful" snaps. I think it may very well be that there are plenty of instances where Parsons gets held but feels like he can still beat the hold; rather than give up on the play (and possibly still not get the call) he just fights through it. The referee sees him still often "winning" his snap(s) and is then less likely to call a penalty on it. So it's tough. Make it more obvious you're getting held and you might get more calls...but you might also take yourself out of a play and still not get a call.

Yes, perhaps his ability to cause havoc while still being held influences refs against pulling out their yellow hankies.

 

[DoURant]

You know what...MAJOR DUD possibly:

Not dressing Nazir Stackhouse....zero issues during the week and than just didn't play - a seemingly healthy scratch. Now if he was ill or something and we don't know I get...but Stackhouse not playing seems crazy dumb.

I was shocked he was inactive for the game

 

[Thirteen Below]

As crazy as that Eagles-Chargers game was you still have to credit the refs for that game. They actually knew enough to call holding penalties on the O line.

Sure. Parsons wasn't playing.

 

[Half Empty]

Yes, perhaps his ability to cause havoc while still being held influences refs against pulling out their yellow hankies.

So, they ought to let DBs mug (fill in the name of a great WR) because he can get open so easily?