Offense shuts down as injuries pile up in loss to Giants

I have to wonder why all season long this team fails to be able to respond to any second half adjustments being made and we end up playing just 30 minutes of football on one side of the ball or the other but mostly on offense.

I realize it's tough sledding when your top WR is out on suspension and your other top pass catcher get his foot stepped on and broken (is it possible that was intentional?) but to go from success to being stopped cold isn't all on those injuries.

The combination of a lack of execution, ho hum and ineffective play calling, and sheer bad luck that haunts these guys has to track back to somewhere and someone.  We're in the game and then within 15 minutes or less of the 3rd quarter we aren't.

Loggains may be a try hard guy but with an offense that can't generate more than 16 points game any NFL team will lose 80% or more of their games. I don't know how you cannot make a change in the face of that.  This has nothing to do with everything needing to be just so for Cutler to succeed.  It was far from that yesterday and yet he was pretty much the only guy who kept them in the game 'til the end much as he did last year with a rag tag OL and backup receivers.

This is far more about John Fox's offensive style needing to be perfect and for the run game to be effective for it to work.  There are no big plays to be had in his low risk philosophy offense and therefore no margin for error with the mundane.  When it operates efficiently like it did in the first half it all goes well until the other guys take those more efficient plays away and force you to beat them with more creativity that apparently doesn't exist in the game plan or play book at all.

Or you run into a team who scouts you so well they know exactly what you'll do before you do it and they take your entire game offensive game away from you as the Bucs did.  Fox's conservative style offense seem to be based on the Vince Lombardi principal of they know what we're gonna run but we're still gonna run it and make them stop us.  Well John they do and far more often than they don't as that 16 ppg average would indicate.

We did make a huge mistake almost two years ago.  We should have hired Gase as the HC or done what TB did with Lovie and fired Fox in order to promote Gase like they did to keep Koetter to keep from losing him.  Fangio and the defense would have remained the same and we'd be year two into an improving offense as opposed to being set back still again and looking to be set back even more next year if we let go of Cutler and can't replace him with someone better.

I might suggest that we spend our higher 2017 picks and/or some FA money on continuing to rebuild that OL at OT and by adding more depth.  It would be wise to do that before putting some hot shot young QB back there just to see if he's any tougher or less prone to picks under pressure than Cutler has been.  Just sayin' ya know.

Well I do think that by now we've busted up Cutler and a few others enough times to start paying attention to actually having an OL who can prevent that.  It's tough to figure out why Pace even bothered to sign vets who can't play well at all vs keeping younger guys who might actually be trained to do better.  Even our starting OTs are better as backups on any other team.

Let's face it and be honest with ourselves.  Cutler has been brutalized so many times since he arrived it's amazing he hasn't been hurt even more than he has.  Last time we played NY it was 9 sacks in one half.  This time he cut it back to 4 sacks so I guess we're improving but apparently not enough.

When the 3 QBs you started the preseason with are now all out for the count some people need to lose their jobs both on the field and in the coaches offices.

When healthy, the OL looks pretty good.  And I understand it's not like we can have starting quality OL sitting on the bench.  But I do hope we can upgrade the quality of the depth bit.  Regarding a young QB, I'm not sure what to do.  I want us to find a solid franchise QB in the draft for the post-Cutler era.  My hope was that we could have done this so he could be a backup to Cutler his first year.  I understand that is not a popular stance here on this board.  People want the new kid to start day-1.  It may be a moot point at this stage because Cutler is probably gone after this season.  I wish it had ended with him being here another year after this one.  But it is what it is.

Last night I spent time reviewing the potential QB's who should be available in this upcoming draft (some may not put their name in the draft and stay in college another year... so this isn't etched in stone at this point).  Man, it really doesn't look like a good QB class.  There could be a diamond in the rough... and that could very well could be the case.  But more than likely we will get a kid that needs - desperately needs - a year carrying a clipboard for a vet.  If that is not Cutty, then who?

The other thing, is that even if we spend our #1 pick in this draft on a QB, there is NO guarantee we hit on a franchise QB and consequently have to come back and do it again with another 1st round pick in a year or two.  That is just reality.  I buy into the idea that drafting a franchise QB is hard.  But things in life ARE hard.  That doesn't mean you give up, and in this case, bury our heads in the sand and not even TRY to draft a QB.  Gotta get in the game and try.