The Truth Hurts Part III.................

David Haugh complete the troika of what others and I have been saying all along. This team looks like it's playing it's 3rd preseason games every week like it's the movie "Ground Hog" day played out in a football stadium on national television in prime time. It's only the Bears who aren't prepared for their share of the scenes and takes.


"The bad thing about the first three games is we haven't put a complete game together," coach John Fox said.

And here we have a $5 mil per year veteran NFL coach telling us what we already know instead of explaining why his team hasn't been able to play 60 minutes of football yet.

Did we actually conduct any OTA's back in June?  Was there an actual training camp in July and did we really play any of those preseason games or was all that just staged in a studio as conspiracy theorists claim the moon landing was?

Can someone please tell me how a veteran NFL HC with 227 games under his belt and two Super Bowl appearances could have his team so unprepared for the regular season not once but two years running unless the guy truly has lost it and simply doesn't have what it takes to be an NFL HC any longer? 

This is not a guy in his first NFL HC job as Trestman was this is a veteran NFL HC with 15 years of season openers under his belt and he can't even best Marc Trestman's record!  That's right.  To date Fox's W/L percentage is worse than Trestman's and Trestman was saddled with Mel Tucker for a DC while Fox has Vic Fangio.  It's almost unbelievable.

I don't want to hear about injuries either.  Every team in the league has their fair share of key players missing including NE whose shutting teams out behind a 3rd string QB.  All these injuries really indicate is just how poorly prepared and conditioned this team is to play NFL football right now.  They're getting hurt because they're getting it taken to them and getting the crap kicked out of them not the other way around.

So if anyone wants to deny these are facts that's fine, but you can't deny it's the truth.  There is no way any team whose added as much supposed talent as this team has over two offseasons and with a veteran coaching staff as experienced as this one is could possibly play this badly if they are being prepared and coached properly.  No f'ing way!

I can't even say that John Fox has lost control of his team because I'm not sure he ever had control of it to begin with.  The same mistakes and poor execution we saw leading to losses in 2015 has only gotten worse.  Stats aren't everything but they can be useful predictor or what is and in every conceivable way this team is statistically worse than they were are year ago. 

Based on that alone how can anyone call this a rebuilding program when the idea of that is to get progressively better.  This looks a whole lot more like some of the demolition projects I worked on ten years ago.  If the idea here is to gut this team so the next HC and his staff have clean slate to work from then I'd say that seems to be the only true success they've been able to accomplish so far.  What's even more alarming is they keep insisting it wasn't a rebuilding project to begin with.  Were they lying or just plain stupid?

Now Fox has been quoted as saying Cutler may not start when his thumb is healed repeating another of his predecessors major mistakes with a benching of Cutler like somehow anyone would believe that Brian Hoyer is a better starting QB than Cutler and this coming roughly 9 months after both he and Pace gave their wholehearted support to Cutler and claimed they would continue to build around him.  It's even the excuse they're using to explain why they passed on drafting a kid like Dak Prescott to develop and drafted three backup defensive players in front of him.

We don't need Lovie and JA back we have v2.0 here now.  It's the HC "tail" wagging the GM "dog" all over again.  This is what happens when an NFL HC gets too much control over personnel and roster decisions.  If your Bill Belicheat maybe that works but all John Fox has proven is it gets worse.

So in view of all this if anyone can honestly say that it looks like this guy actually has a single clue about what he's doing and how to solve the riddles that appear to be of his own creation I'd love to hear it.  Or better yet put 'em in an email and send them to Foxy.  I think he needs a few clues to help get him back on track.

Say what you will but this guy has got to go.  Whether it's sooner or later makes no difference but until he does welcome to the Cleveland Bears.  Yeah, it's that bad now.

The other question you need to ask yourself is how many times is it going to be the coaches fault? Prepared or not is tough to say when he is handed a rake every week to compete in a sword fight.

We have seen numerous coaches and coordinators churned through the mill in Chicago and the chances that they are all failing terribly is becoming less and less likely while the realization that we have been fielding awful teams is becoming far more the reality.

Fox and Fangio have both done great in other programs, these players have never done great for other coaching staffs.... who do you think is to blame?

just my random thoughts

draft two OTs, one early one mid/late. suddenly we have an offense. the defensive side is much harder to eval. but here you can look for a young guy at OLB or along the DL to build the team around. Goldman is still good in my eyes, I'd like to give the new DE we drafted a year. IMO you have two years to get an edge rusher that has size and speed. obviously these guys are hot commodities, but we are 0-3.

your coach needs to tell you specifics on how they'll utilize guys on the team and their eval of the players on the roster. make them demonstrate they understand statistics. start with monty python game, then talk weather and weatherman's forecasts. ideally you find a coach that knows enough about college game to find ways to make the best use of what college is giving the pros. how does this effect his schemes.

i think Pace can and will execute such a plan as he already demonstrated an understanding of building a deep team. he has the budget to keep alshon and has added talent to the O side of the ball. White was bad value, but his o lineman and rb pick ups have been above average. I appreciate his decisiveness and this includes the Fox hire even if at 0-3 Fox looks like a mistake.

You can't stand in front of the media or the fans for two years trumpeting all of the roster changes you've made which at least on paper have added a massive amount of new talent to this team and then use an excuse that the team lacks the players it needs to at least show up prepared to play and at least play competitively. 

I think you're missing my point here.  I'm not even talking about winning.  I'm just talking about not looking like we're the Cleveland Browns.  We've shown up for three games looking totally unprepared to even compete for 60 minutes.  At this level players play as they are coached and prepared to play and their efforts need to be coordinated in order to succeed.  That's the job of the HC and his staff.  Did you see much of anything that resembled proper preparation and coordination during any of those three games? 

That was not only the point but also the conclusion of three different sportswriters which is why I posted them separately to make that point.  I sure as hell didn't tell them what to write did I?  They simply drew independent of me and one another the exact same conclusion after three games that I had already posted here after just one.  They look like they're still playing preseason football.  Now if that isn't a coaching problem then what is it?  If they could do it all on their own and that's the way it worked then why to we even need a coaching staff whose entrusted with getting that part done?

That excuse may have been OK year one but after two offseasons with plenty of cap capital to buy new talent and two drafts to acquire younger talent as well that won't cut it a second time around.  We've sent Pro Bowl level talent on offense packing so are you telling me by what I bold faced that those we've signed or drafted to replace them are nowhere as good?  If so then your question is appropriate.  Just who is to blame for that?

Moth in my career I've boot strapped up one business about to go under and made it wildly profitable again, began my own company from scratch, and got a third off the ground guiding them through a maze of regulatory issues in order to even get the doors open.  So I'm not a neophyte when it comes to running a business well and at it roots a pro football team operates like most other business.  It's not all that unique.  Good management is still good management and bad management gets you fired.

If in the process of building those businesses I fired my most productive employees and replaced them with those who are less productive or worse yet totally inept who do you think is gonna take the heat for that?  Those I fired, those I hired to replace them, or me?  If you ask for and are given the power and the authority to do it your way and it doesn't work there's only one head on that chopping block and to think otherwise also evades fact and reality.  It was always mine and in this case it's John Fox's.

So you can give a pass to whoever you like but I'm sticking with the facts and the reality of how to operate successfully as I've learned them and succeeded with. 


PS; John Fox has had both successes and failures but when you strip away the winning teams John Elway spent millions of dollars and several key trades to acquire top shelf players for Fox's overall record is just as mediocre as those who say Jay Cutler's is.  Despite the talent provided him Fox struggled to win in the playoffs going one and done two out of three years and when he did make it to the SB with Manning as his QB leading the #1 offense in the NFL Seattle tore him up as badly as we tore up NE with the '85 Bears.  He was let go here in Denver because of poor preparation and being out coached one too many times.  I do live in Denver and follow the Broncos too.