UA-59049186-1 2024 Week 9: Chicago Bears 9, Arizona Cardinals 29 - Good if it Goes

2024 Week 9: Chicago Bears 9, Arizona Cardinals 29

Player Grades

The grading scale goes from -2 to +2, in half-point increments, for each play. Screens are graded as runs. Penalties are counted in whatever phase they were committed. Pre- and post-snap penalties are in the “Misc.” column. “Short” throws are 10 yards or less, “Medium” is 10-20, “Deep” is over 20. Everything else (scrambles, throwaways, reads, etc.) is under “Miscellaneous.” Parentheses in a column denote grades/snaps from the opposite side of the ball and are not included in grades/snaps from the player’s usual side. Snap counts are from Pro Football Reference. Box score and other relevant info can be found at that link as well.

Notes: 1. No snap counts this week because grading stopped early in the 4th. Punting down 3 scores in the 4th is waving the white flag. 2. Going forward, illegal formation penalties for lineman not being on the offensive line will be graded as -1.5 instead of the standard -1 for a pre-snap penalty. I’m tired of it. We’re halfway through the season where it has been made clear that it’s a point of emphasis and it’s still happening. At this point, getting called for this is just sloppiness and stupidity.

What went wrong?

Poor planning and terrible execution.

What went right?

The scripted portion of the offensive gameplan, after which Waldron went back to calling nonsense plays featuring routes that take too long to set up and don’t play off one another in the first place.

Who’s really to blame for the offense?

I’m inclined to believe it’s mostly Waldron. The line is not good, but if the pass game concepts didn’t suck, I’m guessing that they’d look merely bad instead of awful. The counter to that guess would be that you would then think the run blocking numbers would look better, but the counter to that counter is that if the pass game was better, it would create more opportunities to run the ball. Also, the offensive linemen weren’t the ones who schemed one target for Cole Kmet in 8 quarters of football since the bye, so I’m putting the majority of the blame on the guy with the headset.

How was Caleb?

Not great. Also not bad. A couple misses and a couple bad decisions. You can see him getting more comfortable throwing the Superman cape on. The biggest lesson to learn is to just take what’s there; not everything can be a home run. That said, in a game like this, you can understand him reverting to the “if I don’t do it, nobody will” mentality he picked up at USC.

Defense?

A really poor effort and worse coaching. Dexter took a bonehead penalty on a field goal that gave Arizona a new set of downs on which they found the end zone. The defense gave up a long rushing touchdown at the end of the first half that simply can’t happen. Eberflus took responsibility (hey, that’s something new), saying he called a pass formation. While that’s true, this team still needs to address the issue of giving up long runs.

Anything else?

Not really. I just want to flush this one. The players didn’t put much effort into playing the game, I don’t want to put any more effort into writing about it. They’ve got a chance to right the ship Sunday against New England before a pair of divisional games against Green Bay and Minnesota. It kind of feels like they need to win all three of these upcoming home games to have a chance at the playoffs. If you’re 7-5 after Thanksgiving, you’re in it. Anything less and it’s going to be really tough.

Monsters

Kmet, Wright, Martin, Smith before he got hurt. Steward took advantage of his opportunity. Really, the pass coverage as a whole was a bright spot.

Chipmunks

Borom. All interior defensive persons.

Four Stars of the Game

Kmet, Wright, and Martin will all get one point each in the standings. That’s all anyone deserves this week.

(3 games pending)

Whatever Elmo’s calling it nowBlueskyThreads: @312sportsguy

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