Plenty can claim the blame

This team reeks of bad coaching. When team after team finds the holes in your defensive scheme, even a blind man should be able to adjust. Our Bears just keep running the same schemes hoping it will work better.. Someone wake them up please!!

Lovie, do us all a favor and fire Babich and Turner and then RESIGN!!!!! Your GAME and CLOCK management is awful and your in game adjustents and decisions are brutal. Get the hell out of Chicago!!

This game should cost Babich his job at the bye! Lovie should be told he has no choice! If Lovie won't make the move, he should be fired with him! The squib kick and playing two deep in the prevent game this game away, no more BS! Do it!

Lovie cannot both play the role of head coach and cover for his incompetent side kick Mr. Babich. This is especially true during crunch time where both defensive schemes and clock management repeatedly get screwed up. Won't get better until Lovie gets a real defensive coordinator and turns over the reins to him. Don't hold your breath

typical typical typical wow blame the defense sure. amazing the defense gets blamed for this one to. even in games where the defense creates turnoevers they get blamed for the losses. I agree you can blame the defense but not too mention orton as a part of this haugh is idiotic. this guy was missing for 3 and half qts and he throws a td late in the game thank god for forte and you guys praise him. just pathetic this team is getting worst every week. I thought orton was this potion every drank that lifted the teams moral it seems not even his sorry @ss could move the ball on this average defense. wake up people realize this guy is not a bonafide qb. He was out played by a damn rookie Matt Ryan (what a stud).. Maybe this will snap some sense in lovies head to sit his behind because he's so inaccurate down field it's actually effecting our running game. teams will continue to put 9 in the box until checkdown charlie can make them pay..

Squib kick "second guessing"? I said even before the kick that giving it to Atlanta on the 40 (which they did even without kicking it out of bounds) was a horrible idea. Norwood isn't Hester. Just because he returned the last kick 80 yards thanks to a no-call block in the back doesn't mean he'd do it again. Time expires even if he does. Kick it deep and dare them to put together a good return or to hit an 80-yard bomb with no time on the clock.

Haugh usually tells it like it is, but he's dropping the ball here. Lovie's horrendous squib kick call may go down as the worst of many bad calls of late. His coaching cost the team the game, not the idiot rookie corner who shouldn't have been in that position in the first place. Lovie is not doing his job, and it's costing his team games. He's lucky I'm not the GM, because he'd already be out selling Streetwise. I guarantee you most if not all the readers here have been fired for less.

So it’s commendable that they all want to take credit for that ugly football game, however, the offensive play calling is dreadful. What happened to last week’s game plan? Did we abandon it because it worked? By the way, Rod, we have two tight ends that can catch the ball close to the end zone? Dez caught them last year remember? Also the line is not that strong, keep telling yourself it is, but today we saw the reality, again. Defensively, Tommie, please sit down until you can play, you are great when you have two good knees. Oh, and don’t try and run with the ball! Brian, give the money back, yes, I’ve seen your box score stats, but I didn’t see four tackles this week and certainly didn’t see eight last week.

Why did we lose, it really was a team effort. From coaching decisions, to the play calling on both sides of the ball and let’s not forget some of the team, step up when you have to, you have to do it because Lovie won’t do it, it would be unchristian! Fire them all and hire a real bear to lead this team. My recommendation would be Ron Rivera, with maybe Mike Singletary as a coach to help. Real Bears who would make our players proud to wear the uniform again.

Ahh the good old squib kick...
Give a team the ball 25 yards from where they need to be to score..Make it easy...
Lovie is just another coach who blew a game by using the squib or pooch or whatever the hell it's called!
I don't get it and I never will but you can bet some coach will do it again next week..Why?
Cause that's what they do!!

Nick

Hey Haugh, stop being such an apologist in an effort to appear level-headed and rational. Fact is, there were 11 seconds left and they blew the game with a stupid squib kick and a horrible defensive call on the next play.
On top of that, this joke of an overrated defense let a rookie go Joe Montana on them and yet again didn't get a single sack (like against Tampa).
The coaching on this team sucks.

Lovie Smith is the ONLY coach in the NFL that does NOT work on Sundays. This guy is BRAIN dead in game situations. If the game coms down 2 coaching, the Bears will LOSE every time.

I don't rate Bears coaches....they all suck!

I got a defensive coordinator in mind, Rob Riverra

not only was the squib kick a bad idea, there is no way that you should call cover two in a situation like that. late in a game when the other team has to complete a long pass, you should be in a cover 3 or cover 4, or even a prevent, where you drop all but the down linemen back in coverage. rush 3, drop 8 in coverage. hell, rush two, drop 9, its not like they could get a sack on matt ryan anyway. embarassing, thats all that can really be said about this loss.

Maybe the Bears coaching staff knows something we don't know?
That Gould can't kick it deep, even so an attempt at deep is better than a squib. What a wasted effort by Orton.

I posted this earlier, but I feel compelled to do it again, so If any body sees this please feel free to comment---Here's the deal. Tony Dungy grows weary in Indy and retires to pursue mission work. Bill Polin seeks replacement immediatley and hires Lovie due to the two men's common and personal beliefs. Meanwhile Ted Philips tired of taking heat from Virginia is forced to fire Angelo. Philips trys to hire Ditka as GM but Ditka agrees to step in as an advisor much like Tuna is in Miami. After reviewing the situation Ditka hires Singletary to coach, Brings Gale Sayers in as GM. Singletary brings back Rivera as Defensive Coordinater, keeps Ron Turner because he believes his hands were being tied with Lovie. Then Rivera brings in Dan Hampton to help and coach the d-line and brings in Doug Plank to coach the secondary. Though not complete, this would work! Am I crazy or what?

Nice to see Urlacher, Briggs and Harris step up and play like the top paid players they are!

*sarcasm*

vin wrote:

I got a defensive coordinator in mind, Rob Riverra

Is that Ron Rivera's brother?

Fire Lovie already. He is not a leader of men who inspires. He's Dusty Baker out there. He and Angelo need to go but the ownership is too inept themselves to see it. Mr Cuban, could you please try to buy The Bears too?

Unexcusably bad decisions:

-Don't kick field goal on 4th and one with minutes to go and two scores needed.

-Kick a squib kick to give a team one play on their own 40+ yard line when that team has the kicker with the NFL longest field goal record.

-Play a soft prevent defense with 7 seconds left in the game and only 20 yards to field goal range.

I am no football expert, but even a high school coach would not make these mistakes.

No excuse for the squib. Unless Norwood takes it all the way back, any return long enough to have gotten Atlanta into field goal range would have eaten up the entire clock. And if you as a coach are fearful enough about a long return to make that call, then you have not done your job in the first place. Brutal finish. This is the kind of game that gives those asking for accountability among the coaches legitimate ammunition.