If the Bears do upset GB at Lambeau in game one of the season:
1. Will that significantly change your estimated ceiling for this 2018 team? 2. What would you predict for our record this season if we do knock GB off right out of the chute this year?
1. Yes 2. If we would beat GB at Lambeau to open our season, I figure anything is possible for this team. If we can can travel & beat GB at their house, then all of a sudden the first 4 games are all potentially winnable.
Break the season down into quarters, and then look at the schedule in light of a GB win to start the season. All of a sudden it looks like we could very well be a playoff team this year. Not saying it WILL happen. But personally, my outlook for the Bears goes up if we can win our opener.
1 @ Green Bay 2 Seattle 3 @ Arizona 4 Tampa Bay
5 Bye
6 Miami 7 New England 8 New York 9 @ Buffalo
10 Detroit 11 Minnesota 12 @ Detroit 13 @ New York Jets
14 Los Angeles 15 Green Bay 16 @ San Francisco 17 @ Minnesota
1) I'd have to say no. The GB game is always somewhat of a wild card and always will be. Even when we dominated them in the '80s they'd win every once in awhile just as we have since they've dominated us. It should be a close game and it could go either way but I don't see it as a barometer for the rest of the season.
2) What the GB game may do is serve as a lift in the confidence of the offense if we win. But....with each passing game we leave more game vids for other teams to watch that will help them to determine just what the limitations of the offense are. So IMHO how well we do as the season progresses depends a whole lot on how rapidly Mitch and the other can assimilate this new offense so we can keep adding to it and avoid becoming too predictable again.
The third element will also be how healthy can we remain. We have better depth and some positions than others and a few key injuries could swing our W/L by two or three games. That said I still look for 8-8 as a reasonable improvement regardless of how the GB game comes out and that is much better than most of the media sees us finishing.
1. Yes 2. If we would beat GB at Lambeau to open our season, I figure anything is possible for this team. If we can can travel & beat GB at their house, then all of a sudden the first 4 games are all potentially winnable.
Break the season down into quarters, and then look at the schedule in light of a GB win to start the season. All of a sudden it looks like we could very well be a playoff team this year. Not saying it WILL happen. But personally, my outlook for the Bears goes up if we can win our opener.
1 @ Green Bay 2 Seattle 3 @ Arizona 4 Tampa Bay
5 Bye
6 Miami 7 New England 8 New York 9 @ Buffalo
10 Detroit 11 Minnesota 12 @ Detroit 13 @ New York Jets
14 Los Angeles 15 Green Bay 16 @ San Francisco 17 @ Minnesota
Week 7 is going to be interesting. It depends on which of type of New England team the Bears will face.
1) I'd have to say no. The GB game is always somewhat of a wild card and always will be. Even when we dominated them in the '80s they'd win every once in awhile just as we have since they've dominated us. It should be a close game and it could go either way but I don't see it as a barometer for the rest of the season.
2) What the GB game may do is serve as a lift in the confidence of the offense if we win. But....with each passing game we leave more game vids for other teams to watch that will help them to determine just what the limitations of the offense are. So IMHO how well we do as the season progresses depends a whole lot on how rapidly Mitch and the other can assimilate this new offense so we can keep adding to it and avoid becoming too predictable again.
The third element will also be how healthy can we remain. We have better depth and some positions than others and a few key injuries could swing our W/L by two or three games. That said I still look for 8-8 as a reasonable improvement regardless of how the GB game comes out and that is much better than most of the media sees us finishing.
You could be 100% right in point #1. I definitely agree with you that the GB game is often an aberration game. It has been for decades. One thing I will throw out there is that it "might" have more meaning THIS year due to the team being so young, new & with a new HC and offense... in that a win at GB could show that this very young team can execute together as a team effectively at this early stage. If so, then the team would be ahead of schedule in getting that chemistry executing the Nagy offense. This is something that could take all year to develop - or - if we see the offense clicking on all cylinders game-1, then that is probably significant for our 2018 season.
One other thing keeps coming to mind is that I think Nagy's offense, with Helfrich input, will always be light-years ahead of what the Bears have executed for the past few decades here in Chicago. Other teams will have more game film to look at as the season progresses, but I don't think the offense will ever be predictable. I think this offense is going to be a living hell for opposing defenses to game-plan and prepare for. This makes it night-and-day different than what John Fox & "The Logg" trotted out there in recent years.
I totally agree that a lot depends upon how much, how fast, and how well Trubisky can assimilate this offense though. But his first "exam" is going to be Sunday night, September 9th at 8:20pm in Lambeau Field. If he aces that sucker I figure this could be a better season than we initially thought. He seems like a very intelligent QB... and having 12 games of NFL experience last year means he is not a total green rookie QB now.
I sure hope we win that game. I do believe it could be more indicative of a good season than the usual Bears/Packers games.
1) I'd have to say no. The GB game is always somewhat of a wild card and always will be. Even when we dominated them in the '80s they'd win every once in awhile just as we have since they've dominated us. It should be a close game and it could go either way but I don't see it as a barometer for the rest of the season.
2) What the GB game may do is serve as a lift in the confidence of the offense if we win. But....with each passing game we leave more game vids for other teams to watch that will help them to determine just what the limitations of the offense are. So IMHO how well we do as the season progresses depends a whole lot on how rapidly Mitch and the other can assimilate this new offense so we can keep adding to it and avoid becoming too predictable again.
The third element will also be how healthy can we remain. We have better depth and some positions than others and a few key injuries could swing our W/L by two or three games. That said I still look for 8-8 as a reasonable improvement regardless of how the GB game comes out and that is much better than most of the media sees us finishing.
You could be 100% right in point #1. I definitely agree with you that the GB game is often an aberration game. It has been for decades. One thing I will throw out there is that it "might" have more meaning THIS year due to the team being so young, new & with a new HC and offense... in that a win at GB could show that this very young team can execute together as a team effectively at this early stage. If so, then the team would be ahead of schedule in getting that chemistry executing the Nagy offense. This is something that could take all year to develop - or - if we see the offense clicking on all cylinders game-1, then that is probably significant for our 2018 season.
One other thing keeps coming to mind is that I think Nagy's offense, with Helfrich input, will always be light-years ahead of what the Bears have executed for the past few decades here in Chicago. Other teams will have more game film to look at as the season progresses, but I don't think the offense will ever be predictable. I think this offense is going to be a living hell for opposing defenses to game-plan and prepare for. This makes it night-and-day different than what John Fox & "The Logg" trotted out there in recent years.
I totally agree that a lot depends upon how much, how fast, and how well Trubisky can assimilate this offense though. But his first "exam" is going to be Sunday night, September 9th at 8:20pm in Lambeau Field. If he aces that sucker I figure this could be a better season than we initially thought. He seems like a very intelligent QB... and having 12 games of NFL experience last year means he is not a total green rookie QB now.
I sure hope we win that game. I do believe it could be more indicative of a good season than the usual Bears/Packers games.
Dave, one thing I'm trying to keep in mind is that many of the media do not believe this team can even match it's 2017 record of 5-11 this year. While I find that a little hard to digest given we've returned most of our defensive starters, added depth and a rookie ILB some have pegged as a DROY candidate, and the entire defensive staff of a top ten defense it shows they have a decided lack of trust in Nagy, Trubisky, and the offense despite it's obvious talent additions as well.
It's this dichotomy that has me asking what do they see or believe will happen that we don't and it's not just a few. The majority have us ranked as a bottom ten team despite these improvements.
IMHO the only way we'll see an offense as varied and imaginative as we've been sold on it being clicking on all cylinders game one is with a much simplified version of it. That, some very good execution of what we can do well, and a stout defense may be enough to beat a GB whose not faced this version of the Bears yet. But Nagy's schemes are not that hard to discern if a DC studies the KC and Philly offenses. Nagy has already said ours will be very similar to those two.
So, to me it still comes down to how quickly and how well can Mitch and Co. get this scheme down and execute it well enough to actually outscore some teams and not leave Fangio and his defense holding the bag with the responsibility of keeping us in games as they were forced to do under Fox. I agree, eventually this offense will be much better than what we've been accustomed to but the key word is eventually. This is not a simple offense and it will take time to master it.
That seems to be the rack the media is hanging their hats on right now so I'm willing to wait it out for more than one game to see just how quickly it all comes about. Truthfully I expect some rough sledding during the first half of the season before they gel and then a much better second half which will set us up as an true contender in 2019. That's my take.
Post by dachuckster on Jun 26, 2018 9:56:45 GMT -6
I think the first game is our best chance to beat the packers this year. The GB DC will have all the Nagy offense video but he will have nothing on what Nagy has done with this new group.
With a creative game plan and some luck we could do it.
As so eloquently discussed, there will (hopefully) be a progressive improvement through the year as the offense gels and implements twists and tweaks. Right now, I'll just be thrilled that we beat Goon Bay and I'll leave it at that. As teams develop tape and schemes I hope we keep throwing new twists at them. I do not want to go back to the ol' Lovie- or Fox-ball where we're a predictable run-run-pass-punt.