Preseason Week 3 - vs. Pittsburgh (practice tweets, discussion, etc)

[Proudiddy]

I felt pretty good about us making progress this season, surprising some people, and getting some more wins than last season going into it.  Now, after preseason, my expectations are much, much lower.

I was talking with my friend who is a Bears fan, and we were discussing their drubbing of the Bills and how people try to dismiss it as “preseason, so it doesn’t count.”  It absolutely counts.  Not the wins or losses.  No one really cares about that.  But what the Bears are doing shows that even in a vanilla, non-specific scheme, they are executing at an elite level and they are disciplined.  It shows they are well coached.  They see growth in their players.  Versus us - hard to tell what we’re looking at because everything is a fuging mess.  In games we’re still undisciplined, be it penalties or assignments.  We do NOT execute.  We got random coaches calling plays that won’t be calling plays during the season, we have our players getting into fights in the last padded practice of the preseason, then we have Bryce and Chuba trying to correct it while our coach sat off to the side laughing.  To be clear, I like Canales.  He seems like a good dude.  But, it feels like we have very little direction and discipline.  You’re allowing a team who has been historically bad the last almost decade, with a losing culture that mostly bereft of talent to self-police?  You’re allowing subordinates to work on pet projects at the expense of getting valuable reps and evaluation of players in during games?  
 

My friend literally brought up last night that when Ben Johnson got there he essentially put DJ Moore on notice because it was starting to be perceived that he was displaying some diva-behavior.  That’s leadership.  And they’re reaping the benefits early and setting a tone.  My friend said there is an excitement and confidence in and around their team that’s he’s never felt his entire life.  And here we are, sounding and looking like The Bad News Bears in our final week of training camp and preseason.  I literally stopped watching after halftime last week.  I used to watch every play faithfully, even in 2001 and 2010.  It was fun.  This isn’t.  We are bad and our administration keeps making bad decisions to compound things.  Reading poo like this today is just fuging deflating.

[PleaseCutStewart]

17 minutes ago, kungfoodude said:

Well, you do have to also consider that they are pretty well set on who the starters are. It's the cut line and reserves they are evaluating in game 3. I would guess that is the reason.

Maybe. I can't imagine there is more than a handful of 3rd stringers and beyond that are worth keeping on this team. I wouldn't be surprised if we had more waiver wire pickups on our roster than current 3rd/4th stringers on this team

[Icege]

3 minutes ago, Proudiddy said:

But what the Bears are doing shows that even in a vanilla, non-specific scheme, they are executing at an elite level and they are disciplined.

Just wanted to mention that the Bears were not doing vanilla playcalling. It was very reminiscent to Mike McDaniels' first season in Miami where he showed his hand and then in year two everything seemed to come to a halt. It's too early to make the same determination for Ben Johnson's future, but it was very apparent that he was treating preseason like the regular season.

Some fans like that mentality for understandable reasons. However, one of the risks to that is exposing your tendencies to the rest of the league at the beginning.

Last season was to see if Bryce could be the guy. At the beginning, it looked like the damage from his rookie season had done him in. Mid-way through, he's back and looking good. At the end, he's still ascending. This season, the focus is on rebuilding the defense while developing our young weapons. Winning is always the #1 desire, but I don't know if we're deep enough on both sides of the ball yet to demand excellence yet. 2026 we'll have cap space, some expiring contracts to make decisions on, and knowledge of whether or not there's going to need to be a change at QB.

[PleaseCutStewart]

7 minutes ago, Proudiddy said:

I felt pretty good about us making progress this season, surprising some people, and getting some more wins than last season going into it.  Now, after preseason, my expectations are much, much lower.

I was talking with my friend who is a Bears fan, and we were discussing their drubbing of the Bills and how people try to dismiss it as “preseason, so it doesn’t count.”  It absolutely counts.  Not the wins or losses.  No one really cares about that.  But what the Bears are doing shows that even in a vanilla, non-specific scheme, they are executing at an elite level and they are disciplined.  It shows they are well coached.  They see growth in their players.  Versus us - hard to tell what we’re looking at because everything is a fuging mess.  In games we’re still undisciplined, be it penalties or assignments.  We do NOT execute.  We got random coaches calling plays that won’t be calling plays during the season, we have our players getting into fights in the last padded practice of the preseason, then we have Bryce and Chuba trying to correct it while our coach sat off to the side laughing.  To be clear, I like Canales.  He seems like a good dude.  But, it feels like we have very little direction and discipline.  You’re allowing a team who has been historically bad the last almost decade, with a losing culture that mostly bereft of talent to self-police?  You’re allowing subordinates to work in pet projects at the expense of getting valuable reps and evaluation of players in during games?  
 

My friend literally brought up last night that when Ben Johnson got there he essentially put DJ Moore in notice because it was starting to be perceived that he was displaying some diva-behavior.  That’s leadership.  And they’re reaping the benefits early and setting a tone.  My friend said there is an excitement and confidence in and around their team that’s he’s never felt his entire life.  And here we are, sounding and looking like The Bad News Bears in our final week of training camp and preseason.  I literally stopped watching after halftime last week.  I used to watch every play faithfully, even in 2001 and 2010.  It was fun.  This isn’t.  We are bad and our administration keeps making bad decisions to compound things.  Reading poo like this today is just fuging deflating.

Sarcastically saying this... This is our way of playing 5D chess when we actually don't call moronic plays the entire game week 1 vs Jacksonville. If we are calling 90% pass plays like we did in the first preseason game, go ahead and take us out back and put us out of our misery

[PleaseCutStewart]

2 minutes ago, Icege said:

Just wanted to mention that the Bears were not doing vanilla playcalling. It was very reminiscent to Mike McDaniels' first season in Miami where he showed his hand and then in year two everything seemed to come to a halt. It's too early to make the same determination for Ben Johnson's future, but it was very apparent that he was treating preseason like the regular season.

Some fans like that mentality for understandable reasons. However, one of the risks to that is exposing your tendencies to the rest of the league at the beginning.

Last season was to see if Bryce could be the guy. At the beginning, it looked like the damage from his rookie season had done him in. Mid-way through, he's back and looking good. At the end, he's still ascending. This season, the focus is on rebuilding the defense while developing our young weapons. Winning is always the #1 desire, but I don't know if we're deep enough on both sides of the ball yet to demand excellence yet. 2026 we'll have cap space, some expiring contracts to make decisions on, and knowledge of whether or not there's going to need to be a change at QB.

Interesting and fair point.

I think the Bears also have to go all-out with their playcalling in the preseason because they have a new OC with a completely new playbook. Hard to be vanilla in your playcalling then expect your team to know every play week 1 when they only had an offseason to learn the playbook

[WUnderhill]

1 hour ago, CarolinaLivin said:

Evero and Canales will call plays Thursday.

Jonathan Cooley did in WK1, Pete Hansen in WK2 for the defense.

Brad Idzik called offense first two weeks. #Panthers
 

https://x.com/mike_e_kaye/status/1957838962342465825?s=46

This honestly makes no sense. If you’re gonna have a week where the real play callers are calling plays, why not make it the week when 1st string plays the most?

[Tr3ach]

47 minutes ago, CarolinaLivin said:

Canales is serious about considering himself a developmental coach. That includes staff development, evidenced by the preseason operation approach

I understand what his intent is. It makes sense

I also disagree with it being best practice for this #Panthers team in this moment
 

https://x.com/rickyboboddy/status/1957846538819965138?s=46
 

i have to say… i do agree with this take.

I think it only helps.  They are still just calling plays from the same playbook and you aren't showing wrinkles or tendencies in preseason.  They dont watch tape of the other team ahead of time so there is really no chess to it.   I dont think it hurts in any way.

[UnluckyforSome]

Well, we are certainly in for a real show now. What a treat.

 

[Shotgun]

47 minutes ago, Icege said:

Just wanted to mention that the Bears were not doing vanilla playcalling. It was very reminiscent to Mike McDaniels' first season in Miami where he showed his hand and then in year two everything seemed to come to a halt. It's too early to make the same determination for Ben Johnson's future, but it was very apparent that he was treating preseason like the regular season.

Some fans like that mentality for understandable reasons. However, one of the risks to that is exposing your tendencies to the rest of the league at the beginning.

Last season was to see if Bryce could be the guy. At the beginning, it looked like the damage from his rookie season had done him in. Mid-way through, he's back and looking good. At the end, he's still ascending. This season, the focus is on rebuilding the defense while developing our young weapons. Winning is always the #1 desire, but I don't know if we're deep enough on both sides of the ball yet to demand excellence yet. 2026 we'll have cap space, some expiring contracts to make decisions on, and knowledge of whether or not there's going to need to be a change at QB.

I'm fine with "not showing our hand" in preseason as long as we don't come out looking flat week one. If that happens again then Canales needs to be on the hottest of seats.  

[kungfoodude]

1 hour ago, PleaseCutStewart said:

Maybe. I can't imagine there is more than a handful of 3rd stringers and beyond that are worth keeping on this team. I wouldn't be surprised if we had more waiver wire pickups on our roster than current 3rd/4th stringers on this team

I mean, realistically the difference between most of our 2nd stringers and our PS guys is largely razor thin. Hence why maybe they are paying more attention to that.

[kungfoodude]

14 minutes ago, Shotgun said:

I'm fine with "not showing our hand" in preseason as long as we don't come out looking flat week one. If that happens again then Canales needs to be on the hottest of seats.  

I will say, within the first few weeks. If we come out of the first five games with 0-2 wins, that is a huge problem given the projected schedule.

[Icege]

43 minutes ago, Shotgun said:

I'm fine with "not showing our hand" in preseason as long as we don't come out looking flat week one. If that happens again then Canales needs to be on the hottest of seats.  

Yea, if the team looks like hot ass the first two weeks again it's not going to be a happy time. It'll be especially frustrating if the team starts slow but finishes strong but at the same time that's probably what will happen with the new defense + young weapons getting acclimated... I expect that to take until halfway through the season, and I don't believe that extra preseason snaps would help that much to speeding up the timeline. Even if it meant they gelled a game or two sooner, there's the added risk of injury on a team that's still trying to build depth after years of bad decisions.

Now if they start slow and have the same approach in 2026 with a more complete team I'm going to have some not so nice questions (and opinions) for/about the staff.

Edited Tuesday at 07:18 PM by Icege

[LinvilleGorge]

35 minutes ago, Shotgun said:

I'm fine with "not showing our hand" in preseason as long as we don't come out looking flat week one. If that happens again then Canales needs to be on the hottest of seats.  

Exactly. This preseason gives me concerns simply because we've been so trash for so long and year after year we try to convince ourselves that preseason doesn't matter and we're going to magically look better as soon as the regular season gets here. It hasn't worked out for us like that.

I sure hope it does this year but I'm done having any positive expectations out of this organization. I'm going into the season hoping for the best but fully expecting trash. That way there's no disappointment. If we're trash it's like "yep, business as usual again". If we actually do magically flip the switch this year it's like "fuging SWEET, this is awesome!"

[kungfoodude]

4 minutes ago, Icege said:

Yea, if the first the team looks like hot ass the first two weeks again it's not going to be a happy time. It'll be especially frustrating if the team starts slow but finishes strong but at the same time that's probably what will happen with the new defense + young weapons getting acclimated... I expect that to take until halfway through the season, and I don't believe that extra preseason snaps would help that much to speeding up the timeline. Even if it meant they gelled a game or two sooner, there's the added risk of injury on a team that's still trying to build depth after years of bad decisions.

Now if they start slow and have the same approach in 2026 with a more complete team I'm going to have some not so nice questions (and opinions) for/about the staff.

I had this discussion with my buddy yesterday afternoon. If we start this season very slow(especially with the schedule being what it is) and then "rally" in the second half to get to 4-7 wins, I am already gonna be pretty heated at the staff overall.

I know we are a very bad roster but I am not gonna keep excusing these slow season starts WITH late season rallies. That's a coaching staff problem, IMO.

It's more excusable to just stink gate to gate, IMO. At least you can understand why.