Cut over that DJ Moore nisode Touchdown Touchdown Pair. I am Jeff Jonihan Witz is on Dottie go up.
What was like playing for coach did?
I don't want to answer any questions like that pressure coming is a big trouble, Donnie Go Mottest.
Sweat Now, Bears, etc. Brought to you by Geico with the voices of the Bears Jeff Joniac and Tom Thayer.
Well, we knew it was going to be a big test. Road games always are, certainly in Houston where that place was stirred up and the Bears hung in there to the finish. They had the ball in their hands with a chance to win the game and could not close the deal. Welcome back to Bears, et cetera. Everybody. This is episode ninety four and we're brought to you by Geico. I'm Jeff Joniac, voice of the Bears, along with my broadcast partner, super Bowl winning Bears guard Tom Thayer, and
we'll hear from head coach Maddy Berfluse coming up shortly. Tom, what's your take after watching tape?
You know, I'm disappointed in the outcome because I really respect how well the defense is playing as a team. The contributions of the special teams, but it's an organization process of the offense. And I'm not surprised then the fact that got beat. Listen, I want the Bears to go seventeen to zero all the way to the super
Bowl every year. But when you look at the schedule beforehand and you think of everything that you put in place, you got a rookie quarterback, you got a new offensive coordinator, you got some new pieces in place on offense. I wasn't unrealistic about I thought the difficulty of going into
Houston and winning this game. But it's just that when you look at the development of an offense and you go back and you watch the tape and you can slow it down and you can look at it from different angles, there's significant areas of improvement that can be made quickly. And I do think that should be the preached process from the head coach to the offensive coordinator into all the leaders on the offensive side of the ball.
Well, the first thing I would imagine is just helping out an offense in terms of running the ball, and you know, make a defensive coordinator think twice about like these blitzes that we saw and the extra pressures that we saw. Some teams are going to do it regardless. That's their makeup, that's their chemistry. If that can be solved,
get the running game going. Heck, what did I talk about before the game yesterday was all the math that happened in the league yesterday with one, two, three, four teams with over two hundred yards rushing, including two sixty one for Green Bay against the Colts. Teams in the one eighties, one forties. I mean, you know that was going to be a big part of this if they could get the run game going. But that has not happened.
But a lot of those stats from the running games that you've been talking about, they are established programs that have a number of veterans inside their program. When you're talking about the Bears and they have a running play called it's got to be things where the offensive line has to be organized of how to get to their angles of responsibility so then the running back can commit
to the hole. I would try to encourage less freelance ability by the running back, but I would also encourage more line of scrimmage movement by the offensive line that continues upfield to the second level. And then when you start fitting into that process together, where the back meets the front. I do think that you can get much more efficiency out of this running game.
So in that case, Texans did blitz Caleb twenty times according to next Gen Stats, the highest blitz rate in the game under Demico Ryans, and once it started paying off, they weren't going to stop until you stop it. I mean, that's just how it's going to be.
You know, you got to think of our viewing advantage point. What are were seven or eight floors above the playing surface, so we have a chance to easily see all twenty two. We know the down and distance, we know the way they break the huddle, and we know how many guys are on the opposite the opposing line of scrimmage, and
then you can start counting. Okay, in this pass protection, they're outnumbered, they're gonna have one free rusher regardless, or they're sometimes gonna have two free rushers, and it's really difficult until you beat that repeatedly.
They are gonna keep doing it. Just like you said.
So, I do think that some of the growing pains that the Bears are gonna face throughout the early portions of this regular season and a.
Caveat to that.
As I tell you what, I've never been impressed by toughness before by a guy than I was with Caleb last night, because he took some unpredictable shots from angles that he didn't know they were coming from, and he bounced up, got back into the huddle, clearheadedly, called to play and went on to the next down and distance. So all my hat my hats are off to Caleb Williams and what he proved to me as a Bear alumni.
Yep, it was definitely a vicious attack. We are brought to you by Geico and middle Light taste like midder time, celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company Milwaukee was kind. Ninety six calories and three point two carbs per twelve ounces. All right, everybody got in late last night after four am at hallis Hall, and so a short rest for Mattiberflus to watch the tape, get into meetings and start breaking it all down. Let's get the status at allis now with
the Bears head coach. Matt, thanks for joining us. I know, very early morning arrival, so I'm ach sleep you got but enough to break down tape and all that, but to get in the game. You know, I kind of referred to this as a twelve round fight last night, so I learned this morning. By the way, twelve round fight in the heavyweight boxing world is referred to as
the championship distance in boxing vernacular. So a lot of sparring, a few punches thrown, some landed, and as it turned out, literally from Aziz al Sharu, there was a punch thrown. So but it took into the last snap to knock you guys out. And I think that's very important to state right out of the gate here.
Yeah, these NFL games, as you know, will always come down to the last drive and you know, the last part of that fourth quarter. So that's why we practiced those moments and those situations during practice and during the week, during training camp and all year long really, so it's important for us to be able to execute during that time. We gave ourselves a chance to get victory. You know, we set up a you know, got a three and out. You know, offense did a nice job with you know,
getting down there to kick that field goal. Kirol hit a nice.
Field goal there, and we did a good job.
Of going three and out, utilizing our time out and getting the ball back for the offense with plenty of time to be able to go down there and score. And you know, we just got behind the sticks, you know, on the one sack and then ended up being fourth and seventeen. So those two players were unfortunate. But again we put ourselves in a good spot to be able to win that football game at the very end.
Did you like my analogy, the boxing one?
Yeah, oh I love boxing, so yeah, it was yeah.
Real good sparring a bit really kind of the theme of the first two weeks, you know, when you talk about a new quarterback, a young quarterback, and a new offense.
Yeah, no doubt. And again those guys are going to find their way, you know in terms of you know, being efficient, being effective, and I thought they were better yesterday in terms of, you know, Caleb was good being able to get the ball out of his hands and and the timely throws and the accuracy was there and and those things. And we had a chance to make some bigger type plays and those didn't happen during that time.
But again, chunk players are gonna be big. We got to have those, and again we got to establish the run game first.
Yeah, let's pick it up from there, because you know, we talked about that in the pregame interview. Saw what was going on around the league yesterday. My gosh, the numbers for run games and everybody's at a different point. Obviously you can't compare everything, but people are running the ball. And so if that happens, doesn't that change a lot of what Caleb's gonna see from defense?
Yeah?
Absolutely, And I think that's that's a good starting point, is to establish that running game. And I think that sets up a lot of things for you offensively. I know, on the other on the other side, when you when you don't defend the run the right way, you know, it's it's demoralizing. Well, you feel like you don't have control, you know, because you're not controlling the down and distances. And that's what it is. And that's really about controlling the line of scrimmage.
When you're not running the ball and you're stuffed, you lose yards. There's false starts, there's sacks. So there were a number of behind this chain's situations. Yesterday, I counted thirteen of those situations of third and long or second and long or first and long. Again, this is correctable. This is not like something you're stuck with. It's correctable.
I told them in the team meeting. You know, it's about controlling the controllables. We can control penalties, we can control you know, in terms of how we operate and fundamentally on first and second down. And that's important for us because when you were in front of the sticks, you know a lot.
It's a lot a lot.
Better and more efficient in terms of functioning on third down if you get the third down and going forward from there.
Every defense is a different personality. So just because Demiko Ryans through twenty blitzes at a young quarterback, doesn't mean everybody's going to do that. May not be in there DNA to do that, but at the same time, it's there now right. So knowing that doesn't that help your team in some way because they're going to be bracing for that. They're going to be focusing in that. You guys are going to coaching on that. I don't think Gus Bradley next weekend into him. I don't think he
has his mindset. They're not a big blitzing team, but that doesn't mean they won't.
Yeah, I mean, you're always ready for everything you know in terms of you know, it's a copycat league and when things start to work, you know, you'll see those things until you get it corrected. And that's something that we're gonna have to.
Do right without a blitz. I don't know if you did this math of they told you about this, but Caleb was twenty of twenty five. They're on the football under no pressure. That's that's a building block for the offense.
Yeah, I mean I think he started out, uh seven seven or seven, Yeah, so seven for seven in the first couple of drives there, and yeah, I thought it was very efficient to start. I thought he had a really good drive to in the first half with a touchdown. Like we said at the end of the game, he had two nice drives to put us in position one for a field goal and then won for us to win the football game at the end, and we got behind the sticks at the end there.
I know you've probably been asked a lot about the blocking up front, but as you pointed out, I think many times and explain to me and it's just football. It is a lot of different reasons. Also, it's the entire offense.
Yeah, no question, everybody's got a hand and when things go well, everybody's got a hand in that. That means all eleven guys are working together. Everybody's doing their job, and that's on all sides of the ball. And then when something breaks down, it's all eleven. You know, it's
about the operation. It's about one particular group. But when it comes to protection, protections, you know, starts with the offensive line, but then it goes to the running backs, goes to the tight ends, it goes to the receivers, you know, running the right depths of the routes and adjusting you when you do see pressure, and it.
Goes to the quarterback.
I mean, so it's a whole group that's working together to make sure that that's a clean operation in terms of protection.
All right, let's talk the defense again, giving you guys a chance to win every game. And it goes back and again. I know you don't love talking about what's happened in the past, but the fact of the matter is thirteen in the last fourteen games, you guys have allowed twenty points or less eight games in a row. So that speaks to the continuity, the consistency of personnel you calling the plays. This is a significant moment to give you guys a chance to win all those games.
Yeah, if you old.
Team under twenty points, you got I.
Would say that, you know, the guys understand where we are, you know, you know in the season, and the guys that are doing a good job of executing the calls and doing a good job of hanging together and being there and really setting the field for the offense. And that's going to continue to be that way because I said, since the beginning, we got to play well around this rookie quarterback, around Caleb, and he's getting better, and he got better from week one to week two. You could
see that. That's clear and evident. If you watch the tape and look at it. You know, everyboy's gonna be talking about, you know, sacks and those types of things, but you know, the evidence is there that he's getting better every single week and he made a big jump to me from week one to week two.
All right, two games, four quarters, three points allowed in the second half. What's that say about what's happening? And even in terms of adjustments, they're just making teams go the distance with you. In terms of the your defense.
Always goes back to the players, right it's about execution. So the players execute the calls that are made, and I think that they're doing a really good jobs. It's because they've been together now for a couple of years. They understand when we tweak and adjust little things here and there, you know, during halftime or during a serial in you know, in game adjustments. And they've done a nice job with that.
You know.
I always like to use that word deploy. You deploy some guys yesterday that I don't hear anybody talk about. But Jack Sanborn had great blitzack, gotten the way of a pass early in the game. Anytime you ask him to do something, he seems to make a play.
Yeah, he did a really good job at the end of that game. Not only that, but in the four minute mode too. We put him in there. Nice play, a couple of nice tackles there. But that that that sack was huge to be able to reset the field for us and get the ball back for the offense.
Also, restraint, let's talk about that. Because you have a high character football team. You want this team to play hard, play physical, but you wanted to do it with some great responsibility in terms of character. But Temper's flair so Roshawn Johnson got popped in the popped in the face on the sideline. He could have taken a swing he did not, Tyreek Stevenson. Wide receivers and corners they do bad all the time. That could have been a situation
where that got out of hand. How do you feel about that, especially on the road, in a very tempestuous environment and things not going completely well offensively, that people maintain their composure.
Yeah, that's that's important, you know. I talked to the team, you know, on situational Friday. We watched a situation's tape you know, around the league, and we showed that a couple of weeks Togo, I think the first week on the sideline when a I think it was one of the quarterbacks in the league got hit and one of the guys that were on in street cloths and practice squad ended up, you know, bumping into the guy who did it, and he got fined, He got the organization
got fine. I said, guys, we can't have that, you know, we can't have fouls on the sideline. I know, we don't like when people hit you know, illegally. Let the let the referees call the foul. And then move forward from there, and we can't make a bad play on their part, you know, a bad play on our part. So we got to make sure we keep our water temperature the right temperature during the course of the game.
I quick look at what's ahead here with Indianapolis. They've given him a lot of rushing yards to forrest Buckner maybe out I suffered an ankle injury and played ten snaps. I know it's very early, but you know this team very well. We practiced against them last summer, a lot of the same personnel there. This is an important game for them. Anytime the teams facing a three game losing streak,
panic sets in from the outside in. How are you looking at this in terms of the build up from a bear's perspective.
Yeah, just really focus it on us. Like I said, control the controllables. We need to get better this week. We have to improve as a football team, and us coming together and doing that's going to be of the utmost importance starting today and then working through the Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday practice.
So you be ready for the questions about your ex colts days again, because that's always an easy one, right, But you had a great time there, sir.
My time at the Colts was awesome. The Ursay family is a wonderful family, and I enjoyed my time in Indianapolis.
All right, I appreciate your time. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you. Right, Tom, He's gonna he's gonna keep talking about resiliency because resiliency is necessary to win in this league, no matter what week it is. And complimentary football. And there were moments in that game where there were complimentary moments, including at the end of the game when they force a turnover and the Bears have the football on a chance to win the game. So that has to be top of mind. You got to
you gotta stay together as a team. We heard from col COMBT today. We heard from Tremaine Edmunds as well, so they discuss some of these same topics, big moments to take advantage of from a teaching perspective, Like you said, but any other takeaways from Eeberflus, You.
Know, it's just the fact that you got to hang your hat on what the defense is offering you right now. They bring stability inside that locker room that no matter where you go, no matter where you play, how much experience you have or how inexperience you are, that you can attack from every possible angle. They got depth and
the defensive line. They got quality linebacker play and guys that can come in and out of the lineup, and they have a number of defensive backs that, as you always say, they're deployable in a lot of different ways. So if you have to have one side of the ball to hang your hat on, it's gonna be the
defense right now. And then when you listen to guys like Tremaine Edmunds, who is just a character of unbelievable strength for that locker room, and he understands that, Look, you're going to go through some growing pains with this offense because there's youth there in the most important position in football. Allow them to grow through their building opportunities, and defense keep going out there and doing what's asked
of you, because there's going to be a turnover. There's going to be something that's going to get this thing turned around, and it may and be initiated by the defense.
Yeah, I think they know that. The journey here, I mean it started late last year when they started playing well. Three second half points allowed in two total games, that's incredible, that's best in the league. And eight games in a row allowing less than twenty and thirteen of the last fourteen, so less than twenty points. You put yourself in a position, then your team has a chance to win.
Right, you know, you go back and you just look at the defensive line, the different configurations of lineups they can have the way that people. You know, you get your Von Dexter rushing from the end, you got DeMarcus Walker rushing from the end of the defensive tackle position.
You got big push up in.
The middle by Billings, You've got Montese Sweat, Austin Booker, and Darryl Taylor that can rush from the outside as well as any three rushers on any team in the National Football League.
And then they're backed up by a quality group of athletes.
So I still think that no matter what building you go into, home or away, that the Bears defense can dictate the pace of a game.
So when we break it down even further, when he was knat Blitz last night, Cata Williams twenty of twenty five for one hundred and fifty nine yards and an interception, better protection use that run game. In fact, let's listen to Cole Comett talk about just that very topic, getting that running game going to help open the passing game.
Well, I always think it always starts with running football. I think every you know, every offense, you know, the number one goal is to run the football effectively. So I think it always starts there, and you know, from there, I think we can open up so things off things up in the past game as well, and you know that includes saying how of the change there, and then being more disciplined upfront as well with our with our cadence and whatnot.
Stuff.
So we had a few false starts was included in that. So getting those things corrected and you know we can't have those things kind of shooting ourselves in the foot there.
Blue said something similar just about how you know you won't get those sorts of pressures and probably as many blitz looks if you're able to run the ball effectively. And when he's talking about pass protection, he says, it's on everybody. How do you guys view your responsibility like for just collectively in combating some of those pressures, knowing that those looks were you know, as aggressive as they were last night, and it's probably a formula teams are gonna try to replicate here.
Yeah, sure, you know, I know obviously with Kleb being a rookie, they're going to test them to see to see what he knows protection wise. But yeah, I mean, like coach is saying, protection's not I know, everyone wants to just look at the offensive line and you know, you see a sack and maybe you feel like it's on the offensive line. But there's a lot of things
that go into it. Whether it's the receivers having to right the run the right routes and you know, if they're not there, that causes a quarterback to hold the ball a little bit more and those lead to sacks,
you know what. There it's protection adjustments that you know, you see pressure and having to adjust off the pressure that you see and you know, maybe making a slide different here there, and you know, getting the alignment to the right spots in that regard, or whether just a miscommunication upfront on us to what, you know what what play we're running. So there's a lot of thing that goes that goes into it. I don't think it's a necessarily a talent issue necessarily up front. I don't think
that we were just getting overmatched totally physically upfront. But I think, you know, us getting on the same page mentally speaking can lead to those adjustments and we can kind of see those sacks come down a little bit.
All Right, everything Cole said there, I think you'd agree with one hundred percent.
You know, there's a lot of the variations to a successful running game, and it's gonna go tight end to tight end, including the backs and the entire offensive line. And when they start developing some better understanding of each other and trust and how the blocks are going to unfold in front of them, you're gonna get better decisions
made by the run. So you're gonna get offensive line that understands how to initiate their block on the line of scrimmage, that catches, that brings them up to the second level.
Yeah, DeAndre Swift, you know, he hasn't been here very long.
And like we talk a lot about how many reps it takes for a quarterback to stand behind this offensive line, it takes that many reps for a running back to learn how an offensive line is flowing into their blocking responsibilities, and then there's a predetermined understanding of how their momentum is going to take him off field and all that stuff is going to work out. And Cole understands it. But I think every under they position, every other position understands it as well.
We're brought to you by PNC Official Bank of the Bears. So yes, growing pains are inevitable. And you know they're talking about the same thing as We're going to look a little bit towards the Indianapolis Coats and Anthony Richardson. So they looked up his numbers for the first two games because he's shown some great ability to get the ball down the field. He's got an unbelievable arm, He's
a big guy, he's built like a defensive end. So this is what happens, right when you start getting statisticians like Doug Colletti or just people who look at this stuff. So in his first six NFL starts, Richardson at fifty five percent completion, just under one thousand yards, six touchdowns, five picks, quarterback rating seventy seven to nine. I'm going
through the exercise just for illustration. So they go back and see Peyton Manning's rookie year, his first six starts even less of a completion percentage at fifty three percent. He did throw a lot more so he had thirteen hundred yards, six touchdowns, fourteen interceptions, fifty five point seven quarterback rating. He finished that year with twenty eight interceptions.
Josh Allen in his first six games, less completion percentage than Richardson, only three passing touchdowns, five interceptions like Richardson, sacked eighteen times, and he fumbled the ball five times, losing three. So again, when we're talking about Caleb Williams, we're talking about these second year quarterback. Yes, CJ. Stroud's
in a different place right now. He happens to be in a situation that's ideal for him at the moment, and he learned from whatever mistakes he made early in his career in the first few games of last season and he just kept elevating his game. You can't really compare every person's growth. Everybody's going to do it in a different way, and there are many different circumstances. This
is like that game cerplunk. Well, you have those little sticks you remember you put in there, and you got to make sure you put You don't know when the sticks are going to be, which one's going to be pulled that's going to make all those marbles fall. And that's how I look at this.
So pre draft evaluation of Anthony Richardson, Peyton Manning, Josh Allen, and Caleb Williams.
There is certainty that Caleb.
Williams and Peyton Manning were going to be super successful in their NFL career no matter what the beginning numbers were. There's a lot of uncertainty about what Anthony Richardson's going to turn into because he's so inexperienced in his college on a playing time in the same thing with Josh Allen.
And then so when you look at.
Their numbers, it's always where they're going to be in three to five years after their career begins, not necessarily after five games. And so this will be an interesting comparison to pay attention to when we're doing this podcast in four years, Let's revisit those same stats about those four guys and see what's become of them. Because to me, when you look at Peyton Manning and you look at Caleb Williams, I think they're comparable to where their careers
are going to go. When you look at where Josh Allen went to college, and the inexperience of Anthony Richardson. It's almost they have to prove it to me that they can play at an NFL level and continue to accelerate their performances.
Let's go back one thing about the pressure, because yes, he definitely got his share of pops. He admits it as well. Seven sacks, eleven quarterback hit, sixteen pressures and again, various evaluations from different stat companies, whether it be Pro Football focused or Next Gen Stats or other ones are going to come up with different types of analysis. But that speaks to me as a broad compilation of reasons why it's not just a particular offensive lineman or interior
versus exterior or Caleb. It could be backs, it could be tight ends, it could be down in distance, it could be the play call. It could be a lack of execution of the play. Right. So this is not just one reason that this happened yesterday.
No, So put yourself in the mind of a quarterback. You're in the huddle and those that circumstances that they were playing in Houston. You hear the crowd noise that's building during the process of the huddle. You call the play in the huddle, and there's a million things going through your mind. Okay, you called the protection. You know the time needed to get the routes run downfield, you
know what the down and distance is. So you're filtering all the information that you have to make sure works accordingly in order to safely get the ball out of your hands. The development and trust of your protection is a key ingredient to any quarterback success. If you take I think it might have been the first pass in the second half out of Caleb's hands where he scrambled and overthrew DeAndre Carter.
Sorry, it's you got to make sure that you trust your protection.
You don't think anybody's coming on the attack in any way you can set your feed and efficiently throw the football. So that's part of the process as well, is you say a thousand things in your head that you know mean the success and failure of that play. But it all comes down to trust every element.
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Most in course Beverage Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There are a lot of analysts out there that explain offensive line play, but you know I've got I've got a guy here that's an expert in it, talk talk about and explain to the listener the isl count and the impact of it on the road or as a weapon even in your own building when it is quiet, and how it affects all five of the offensive line and maybe in a different way, how it impacts their get off from
the line of scrimmage. How you can use it as a weapon on the road with that kind of din of sound in Houston yesterday. Break that down for it in the most common terms that we can understand.
Well, you go to Soldier Field, the crowd cooperates with the Bears offense. Caleb breaks the huddle, says, okay, everybody on one on one.
Ready break.
They go to the line of scrimmage and he starts a non rhythm volume count and then you can hear it. You know, okay, it's on one.
So that means.
That that tick Jeff, that instant of a second before he gets that out of his mouth, that last single, you're already coming off the ball and you're initiating contact to the defensive player and now you're in control, stalemate, movement, run.
Past, whatever the case is.
When you go and play in an environment like last night, just every time you break the huddle, you make sure you take this in the account. Neither tackle can hear the cadence tight ends, multiple tight ends, one tight end. They cannot hear the cadence. If you're in shotgun, you really can't hear the cadence up front, So you have to understand what the rhythm of timing you've been developing in practice. If he's under center, the center and guards
can hear the cadence. The center can here feel the movement of his hands before he snaps the ball, So you give those guys a chance to get off the ball. And now that with periphial vision, the tackles are trying to read you as well, but they're never going to be off the ball at the same time as the
defensive lineman. And so given that it's gonna be, you know, it's so difficult to initiate contact as an offensive line on the road like that because it's just brutally difficult to anticipate the cadence of caleb that you really don't have the amount of reps that you need. If you're with a quarterback.
Over years, does played direction matter in that situation as well? So you got to run slated to go off left tackle or off right tackle, or you got to throw to the outside or to the middle. Does anything impact the success or failure of that play based on the silent count situation?
One hundred percent.
If you look at the first running play that the Bears ran to the left the other night, it was outside the shoulder the left tackle, Braxton Jones was late getting off the ball, so that means the white jersey was across the line of scrimmage before he could get movement. And then you look at the block between the center
and left guard. As Tevin Jenkins came off the ball, he's thinking, give a hand to the center, Let the center get in control of that defensive tackle, and then move on field of the field of the second level. Because Tevin gave him that punch, the center was not able to get his body in front of the defensive tackle and that created penetration tackle for a two yard loss.
And a lot of that is because of.
The not being able to hear the snap count and the point of attack is to the outside shoulder of the left tackle.
Can that be improved over time, of.
Course, one hundred percent.
Because Jeff I mean, we sat there all training camp and we always had this number in our head. How many reps does the take for that quarterback then become familiar with the cadence of a quarterback if they have a silent count. And to me, if that same offensive line can be in place for a thousand noisy reps. Noisy reps, I mean an opponent stadium where they have the crowd noise, where it's a non volume, it's an anticipated count. That's when they start becoming familiar with the count.
And that's when the quarterback can use a very of counts to keep the defense off balance.
Before we ramp this up and look at the colts, one more take on who really stood out, now that you've had a chance to look at it on the defensive side of the ball and on special teams, if anybody sticks out obviously Byered and Edmunds leading tackles. You had the pass rushers coming home on three occasions. And we're brought to you by Blue Crossing Blue Shield of Illinois right here at home, driving access toward healthier communities.
Through it all, you know, I'm still really impressed with the continuous improvement out of Jervon Dexter. You know, he's the type of guy that's blessed with great size, length, speed and strength, and he's able to use all of it as a defensive line asset.
Darryl Taylor.
A great job by Ryan Poles of identifying a pass rusher that can immediately help the depth of that position. Listen, Mat, I'm still all in on Montest Sweat and I like where Austin Booker is going. But when you have a guy that's newly introduced to us and you see what he can do, it's great. In the back set, Shoot, they're as good as you can get. If defensive backs play physical, they're like, again using your word, deployable. The linebacker position, including Jack Sanborn, is super effective.
He comes in.
And he's intermittently used between he and Kyler Gordon. They put him in, they let him blitz, and it results in a sack. The guy's a legitimate NFL linebacker. So when I think that how well the Spars defense can travel, how difficult it'll make for opponent's offensive coordinators to be prepared for sixteen seventeen players, I just think they're gonna really help the Bears have some sustained success as this season winds on.
Steinhoffels is an employee owned furniture in matresstore. Is it any of their for Chicago land locations in Vernon Hills, Crystal Lake, Downers Grove, and Horwood Heights or shop online at Steinhoffels dot com. One in one, headed to zero and to Indianapolis. So you know what they say about three straight losses, that's time to panic, and so the Indianapolis Colts will try to avoid panic when they host
the Bears. That is not of the Bears concern. What is of the concern of the Bears, though, is how to deal with this team. What are the Bears defense dealing with here? With a young quarterback like Anthony Richardson.
Yeah, you know again, I think they're playing through the mind of a young, inexperienced quarterback, regardless of how great of an athlete he is. They can crowd the line of scrimmage and make every read difficult for the amount of bodies at the line of scrimmage. If they want to call a run play, there's more guys than you
can block. If you want to put more guys at the line of scrimmage that have pass rush ability, and the quarterback has a pass called, then he's starting to think about protection and he's starting to think about the timing of the route. So I think it creates a real inefficiency in their offense by the number of bodies that you have the luxury of putting at the line of scrimmage. You saw last night in the game where TJ.
Edwards and Tremaine Edmonds, they ran a great stunt in the middle that resulted in a sack for Tremaine Edmonds. But TJ. Edwards gave himself up. He crossed the face of the center and he dragged the back with him. So the Bears have a wide variety of things that they can do at the line of scrimmage that can create a lot of thinking by the opponent's quarterback. And if you think your beat, We've always said that one
thing I'm interested to see. They asked Trumaine about the support of the Bears crowd in Houston, and he said it was evident behind their bench about the Bears fans. I think this is going to be a well attended game by Bears fans. It's Indianapolis, It's drivable there and back within a day, and so if the crowd noise was as hectic as it was last night in Houston.
I think you can take.
The crowd out of this game if the Bears defense goes in there and makes their offense look dysfunctional.
All right, Tommy, they're hemorrhaging against the run Colts with out to Forest Buckner yesterday for just ten snaps right angle, looked kind of bad, kind of bent under his body. Letuatu the defensive end from UCLA. He only was limited to twenty eight reps with a hip injury, and so they've given up four hundred and seventy four yards in two games in the run game.
So if you have Buckner in the lineup, you know he's becoming an elder statesman. And when you consider what the NFL age limit is of success, so maybe he was before he got hurt, getting pushed around a little bit, and then when you do put in a replacement for him, obviously not going to live up to the starters caliber as of yet. So I think, you know, the Bears, they have a real opportunity here to be successful because they just don't have the defensive profile that is intimidating
like the Bears defense is. So I expect the Bears to get into their play books, get into the meetings, get into these practices, have a positive working atmosphere throughout the week. Take it to Indianapolis and put on display. Hopefully you get guys like Keenan Allen back and if you don't, you're Tyler Scott.
Colin Johnson, DJ Moore.
All those guys have to live up to what's expected of them.
The other thing, Gus Bradley, the defensive coordinator, under fire in his third season. Not a big blitzer, So that doesn't mean he's not gonna blitz this quarterback. But that's not kind of their way they go about their business. But if they kept getting gouged in the run game defensively, wow, and hopefully the Bears can take advantage of that as well.
I mean, that's a cure.
All You give the Bears an opportunity to get you one hundred and sixty yards rushing.
What a relief that would be for Caleb.
How much more the play action pass game wore to work against them, and then you start getting a little bit more involvement from backs catching the ball and tight.
Ends abandoned the run with Jonathan Taylor yesterday in a tight game, and that's a bit of a He was averaging over eight yards of carry, but they went to a passing game backfield with Trace Sherman and Tyler Goodson instead, and that's drawn some criticism there in Indianapolis.
Right.
That surprises me too, because you have one of the premiere fast running backs in the National Football League. He's gone through some injury issues over the past couple of years. But if you're running the ball that well, and you can take that type of pressure off of the mind of Anthony Richardson and maybe exposed him to a little bit more running opportunities. Man, I think you're you know, you're kind of deflating two of your best assets in game day competition.
All Right, One last thing about Richardson, it's just the body composition. We saw him up close last year at training camp. We were amazed. He's six four to two of forty four and he runs a four four to three and he's got a cannon so he can throw the ball seventy yards. He did that in Week one to Alec Pierce. Unbelievable throw while he slipped and was falling backwards. I know, you keep mentioning a guy like Randall Cunningham. But Randall Cunningham wasn't two hundred and forty four pounds.
Well, you know, he had an incredible arm. He had a whip of an arm. He was six ' four. He could throw the ball all over the place. He was a great runner in a day where you could really punish at a running quarterback nowadays, I think Anthony Richardson, I don't know. It's difficult for the offensive coordinator for Indianapolis because you're kind of feeding Anthony Richardson experience in
the playbook intermittently. But you know, you don't have an experienced quarterback that you're trying to put out there in game day against the defense as versatile as the Bears.
Jim Bob Couter is the offensive coordinator, but to play calling is Shane Stike in the head coach. So should be fun noon start. We'll break that one down on Thursday, hoping to get Bill Brooks, he does analysts work for the Indianapolis Colts, to join us for that and we'll have a player guest as well as Bears weekly this week as we will break down Week three. It's moving quickly. We're moving through that AFC South hopefull the Bears can get back in the win column. On Sunday in Indianapolis.
Good new Chicago United Air Lions getting brand new planes with all the bells and whistles like Bluetooth connectivity screens at every seat in room for everyone's rollerbag. United Proud to fly the Chicago Bears and you two as in a side. Tom Bryce Young, the quarterback in Carolina, is not the starter anymore, at least for the time being. Andy Dalton will be the starter. He has really endured a tough year plus with the Carolina.
Pats eighties quarterback football, Jeff, Because that was the way it was back then. No matter where you drafted a guy, you allowed him to set and sit down and mentally develop, and then you put him in the game. You come here and you take the worst team in the National Football League, you put the first pick in the draft in there, and under size quarterback you're throwing into the Wolves as an early careered young man.
Yep, and lots of coaching change in that window as well. All right, special thanks to Matt ebri Flus for joining us for Tom. I'm Jeff. Thanks for listening everybody, and please subscribe now. The Chicago Bears official app, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. Spear down everybody