I disagree, especially when Mitch went out. Howard has had success with this OL and within a version of this O.
While I like Monty - love his versatility - I would rather have Howard when we have to go to a more power-run situation. Not saying Monty isn't a strong runner, my eyes have shown me that Howard was more of a bulldozer, with good enough speed running down the field.
Neither are burners, I love Monty's balance and shifty feet while I love Howard's one cut ability and power.
Again, this is a bit of revisionist history. When Howard came into the league one of his weaknesses was being a one cut running back. Thats in his scouting report. As for power..he's averaging one broken tackle per 13 carries. Montgomery averages 1 broken tackle for every 9 carries. Further, last year was Howards worst year as a pro...if people think this years line is bad...how would Howard be doing better behind a worse offensive line than he had last year? How would a running back who has trouble making tacklers miss create yards when the line fails him? Jordan Howard is seeing 8 defenders in the box on 5% of his snaps this season...Monty? Try 22%. Monty has more broken tackles than Howard has this season. Phillies O-Line is better than ours....someone needs to explain how Howard would be doing better than Monty behind a worse offensive line? As it is he still has less rushing yards than Monty does. Do the law of physics cease to exist on this stove?!
I'm not ragging on Monty, I'm not evening saying Howard should/would have more carries than Monty. I love that we drafted him, I just believe Howard would eat more into Monty's carries than Davis has with more success. I just miss Howard, geez.
Nagy is doing what he is doing because the OL, up until last game, was not getting it done. They were poor in pass protection and they continue to be poor in run blocking. It's obvious if you when you watch the tape. They miss blocks and assignments. I don't why they are having these problems this year compared to last year but that's the way it is.
They did take some shots downfield in the last game when the line seemed to be able to handle the pass rush from time to time. But as well as the defense was playing Nagy clearly wasn't going to take chances when he didn't need to. Especially with a backup QB.
Seems like we had a better OL w/out Long then with him. Not much better but better all the same. KL needs to get near 100% healthy before he is starting again.
Whether Long was on the injury report or not I believe he was injured for the last couple games. He just moved strangely and couldn't seem to keep his feet under him. I'm not very conspiratorially minded normally but I'm actually wondering if he was hiding it and it finally came out last week during practice so they sat him for the game. Hopefully it is just something he can rest off and then get back into form. Otherwise we're going to be essentially down a lineman for the rest of the year.
Again, this is a bit of revisionist history. When Howard came into the league one of his weaknesses was being a one cut running back. Thats in his scouting report. As for power..he's averaging one broken tackle per 13 carries. Montgomery averages 1 broken tackle for every 9 carries. Further, last year was Howards worst year as a pro...if people think this years line is bad...how would Howard be doing better behind a worse offensive line than he had last year? How would a running back who has trouble making tacklers miss create yards when the line fails him? Jordan Howard is seeing 8 defenders in the box on 5% of his snaps this season...Monty? Try 22%. Monty has more broken tackles than Howard has this season. Phillies O-Line is better than ours....someone needs to explain how Howard would be doing better than Monty behind a worse offensive line? As it is he still has less rushing yards than Monty does. Do the law of physics cease to exist on this stove?!
I'm not ragging on Monty, I'm not evening saying Howard should/would have more carries than Monty. I love that we drafted him, I just believe Howard would eat more into Monty's carries than Davis has with more success. I just miss Howard, geez.
I get it...I'm just pointing out all the reasons why Howard wouldn't eat into Monty's work that much. I also don't really miss Howard...and I liked him when we drafted him.
I am going back to my original point -- getting rid of Howard was a bad deal. We got Davis (and his $6 million contract) instead of keeping Howard (and saving about $1 million). There would be no need to get Davis in the first place except for the fact that they were determined to get rid of Howard. To Butkus: After we ran the ball 15 times against the Packers and lost the game, everybody (rightly) dumped on Nagi. So, if Howard were still the #1 RB, he would have started getting the ball. But, since Howard is gone, it is now Monty. Some people here seem to think that Monty is the next Matt Forte. I hope that is true, but it's not yet proven. Meanwhile, Howard is back to being the productive RB he has always been before Nagi and now with Philly. And, if we still had Howard, we could have used that 3rd round pick for something else (like OL or TE) instead of to fill the gap created by getting rid of Howard..
Seems like we had a better OL w/out Long then with him. Not much better but better all the same. KL needs to get near 100% healthy before he is starting again.
Whether Long was on the injury report or not I believe he was injured for the last couple games. He just moved strangely and couldn't seem to keep his feet under him. I'm not very conspiratorially minded normally but I'm actually wondering if he was hiding it and it finally came out last week during practice so they sat him for the game. Hopefully it is just something he can rest off and then get back into form. Otherwise we're going to be essentially down a lineman for the rest of the year.
+1,000
That is the only explanation I think. Long was playing very solid last season. In fact the guy was an animal run blocking in particular. There was even a video of him posted on this messageboard and he was just blowing defenders up. He seemed to be fully recovered from his surgeries and performing at a high level for sure. How on earth could his play deteriorate so drastically? It has to be the injury. Nobody declines that far that fast as an OL due to age. It has to be the injury. And this is actually good news, in that he can recover and get back to blocking well. Kyle Long is 30 years old & that is not old for an OL. Many can perform well for a few years beyond 30. He just needs to be healthy again and get back into the lineup.
I am going back to my original point -- getting rid of Howard was a bad deal. We got Davis (and his $6 million contract) instead of keeping Howard (and saving about $1 million). There would be no need to get Davis in the first place except for the fact that they were determined to get rid of Howard. To Butkus: After we ran the ball 15 times against the Packers and lost the game, everybody (rightly) dumped on Nagi. So, if Howard were still the #1 RB, he would have started getting the ball. But, since Howard is gone, it is now Monty. Some people here seem to think that Monty is the next Matt Forte. I hope that is true, but it's not yet proven. Meanwhile, Howard is back to being the productive RB he has always been before Nagi and now with Philly. And, if we still had Howard, we could have used that 3rd round pick for something else (like OL or TE) instead of to fill the gap created by getting rid of Howard..
Howard was NEVER going to be the primary back here. Last year he was and he was terrible, as predicted by multiple people when discussion what Naggy wanted out of the RB.
Amazing how you finally said something in his 4th game when he finally did something w/Philly. Those first 3 nothing burger games, not a word.
1 game out of 4 of doing something is now productive, good to know. Now prove that he could have had even that one game w/Kyle Long as his starting RG; he's been flat bad, the entire OL has been flat bad. 0% shot he ever gets 15 touches as a Bear, or gets holes like he had against GB in Chicago w/the OL struggling the way it is.
Nagy was going to draft a rb regardless if they kept Howard one more year, So it's not Howards contract vs Monty's, or Davis'. B/c it wasn't about his contract this year, it was about the contract he's going to get from another team next year, and having his replacement already on the books.
I am going back to my original point -- getting rid of Howard was a bad deal. We got Davis (and his $6 million contract) instead of keeping Howard (and saving about $1 million). There would be no need to get Davis in the first place except for the fact that they were determined to get rid of Howard. To Butkus: After we ran the ball 15 times against the Packers and lost the game, everybody (rightly) dumped on Nagi. So, if Howard were still the #1 RB, he would have started getting the ball. But, since Howard is gone, it is now Monty. Some people here seem to think that Monty is the next Matt Forte. I hope that is true, but it's not yet proven. Meanwhile, Howard is back to being the productive RB he has always been before Nagi and now with Philly. And, if we still had Howard, we could have used that 3rd round pick for something else (like OL or TE) instead of to fill the gap created by getting rid of Howard..
Howard was NEVER going to be the primary back here. Last year he was and he was terrible, as predicted by multiple people when discussion what Naggy wanted out of the RB.
Amazing how you finally said something in his 4th game when he finally did something w/Philly. Those first 3 nothing burger games, not a word.
1 game out of 4 of doing something is now productive, good to know. Now prove that he could have had even that one game w/Kyle Long as his starting RG; he's been flat bad, the entire OL has been flat bad. 0% shot he ever gets 15 touches as a Bear, or gets holes like he had against GB in Chicago w/the OL struggling the way it is.
Nagy was going to draft a rb regardless if they kept Howard one more year, So it's not Howards contract vs Monty's, or Davis'. B/c it wasn't about his contract this year, it was about the contract he's going to get from another team next year, and having his replacement already on the books.
There was no need to draft a RB if we have Howard and Cohen. Jordan will continue to produce at Philly so long as they continue to give him the damn ball 15-20 times per game. It happened in Chicago, and it will (I would predict) happen in Philly. Granted, his production (like any RB unless you have Gale Sayers) is going to depend on getting some decent blocking.
As for next year, I would be happy to deal with that NEXT year. I want to make our best run at a Super Bowl THIS year....because I don't have that many more years left (age 73)!!
Whether Long was on the injury report or not I believe he was injured for the last couple games. He just moved strangely and couldn't seem to keep his feet under him. I'm not very conspiratorially minded normally but I'm actually wondering if he was hiding it and it finally came out last week during practice so they sat him for the game. Hopefully it is just something he can rest off and then get back into form. Otherwise we're going to be essentially down a lineman for the rest of the year.
+1,000
That is the only explanation I think. Long was playing very solid last season. In fact the guy was an animal run blocking in particular. There was even a video of him posted on this messageboard and he was just blowing defenders up. He seemed to be fully recovered from his surgeries and performing at a high level for sure. How on earth could his play deteriorate so drastically? It has to be the injury. Nobody declines that far that fast as an OL due to age. It has to be the injury. And this is actually good news, in that he can recover and get back to blocking well. Kyle Long is 30 years old & that is not old for an OL. Many can perform well for a few years beyond 30. He just needs to be healthy again and get back into the lineup.
What does it take for Long to "get healthy"? Is that even possible anymore?
You're right that 30 isn't that old for an OL--many play at a high level well into their 30s--I'm just wondering because we were told this past offseason that Kyle Long was finally past his injury-surgery problems of the last few seasons. Apparently, that isn't the case.
Regardless, he has 12 games left to substantially pick up his game. Whether his decline is age-related or injury-related or some combo of both, there's no way the team can keep him on for 2020 at a $9m cap hit playing at a "backup guard" type of level.
That is the only explanation I think. Long was playing very solid last season. In fact the guy was an animal run blocking in particular. There was even a video of him posted on this messageboard and he was just blowing defenders up. He seemed to be fully recovered from his surgeries and performing at a high level for sure. How on earth could his play deteriorate so drastically? It has to be the injury. Nobody declines that far that fast as an OL due to age. It has to be the injury. And this is actually good news, in that he can recover and get back to blocking well. Kyle Long is 30 years old & that is not old for an OL. Many can perform well for a few years beyond 30. He just needs to be healthy again and get back into the lineup.
What does it take for Long to "get healthy"? Is that even possible anymore?
You're right that 30 isn't that old for an OL--many play at a high level well into their 30s--I'm just wondering because we were told this past offseason that Kyle Long was finally past his injury-surgery problems of the last few seasons. Apparently, that isn't the case.
Regardless, he has 12 games left to substantially pick up his game. Whether his decline is age-related or injury-related or some combo of both, there's no way the team can keep him on for 2020 at a $9m cap hit playing at a "backup guard" type of level.
Yeah, I agree with you on all of that. He only played 8 regular season games last year and had limited play (played 40% of the snaps) in one of those. Injuries have been a major concern with him. I was just taken aback by how much his play deteriorated since last season. I did not expect that at all. And if he's injured to the point that his play is that bad, I'd hope the Bears would not play him. What's the point in letting the guy hurt the team like that by starting him?