After getting over the disappointment yesterday I have some thoughts on how things played out and what changes could/should be happening.
- KOC play calling:
I totally understand why people are upset for his lack of aggressiveness on that last drive and to some extent I agree. I don’t have an issue running on first down to see what you can get. If you get positive yardage, you set yourself up to run the ball again on 2nd down while forcing the bears to use more timeouts. However when it gets stuffed as it did, you have to pivot to the quick game on 2nd down. Slants, curls, whatever. The bears secondary was playing aggressive all night and you could have used that to your advantage. With all this said I think people need to understand where KOC is coming from. He’s watched his QB have a game in which he has missed wide open reads and throws, and should have had like 6 INTS. People are also saying they didn’t call designed runs, but the bears played great containment and forced Dobbs to make reads and throws from the pocket which didn’t happen.
- Defense:
The defense played amazing all night long forcing screens and checkdown which were held in check for the most part. My only issue was on that final drive we only rushed 3/4 when the stacking the box was effective all night.
- Going forward:
I believe that we will see Hall coming off the bye. He showed poise before exiting the Atlanta game, and his college tape proves he can throw an accurate ball. It’s time to give him a shot.
So the KOC play calling is interesting. I started thinking it was a Zimmer issue where we’d take our foot off the gas and let teams creep back in. Then Zimmer left and I thought, oh, well KOC is different so it must be a Cousins decision making issue. Then Cousins’ leg fell off and now I know it is a KOC issue as it was a Zimmer issue. They’re very different coaches overall, but coaching with a lead is run, run, flat far too often with both. I’m sorry Kirk.