As many of you may or may not know, I am on Twitter frequently (ChicagoBearJew). I enjoy interacting with everyone and have friends from all over the globe. One of my good friends Alasdair Lynch (alibud69) raised an excellent point about Chicago Bears offensive coordinator Mike Martz. So instead of me repeating it, I have given him full control of today’s blog…and with that, take it way Alasdair…
As I sat down last night looking forward to watching my Bears on TV, I thought to myself the main key to the Bears winning and controlling this game is for them to have at least 20 rushing attempts from Matt Forte, and at least an additional 10 attempts from Marion Barber, this all seemed so obvious to me, what seemed even more obvious was that Hanie should not have anymore than 20 odd passing attempts.
It goes without saying that my expectation was that Hanie would be amped up for his first career start, and this was evident in the first two picks that he threw, but to say he received any help from his coach on the sideline would be a complete lie, Martz play calling yesterday was nothing short of a disgrace, to say his receivers, namely Jonny Knox helped him settle into his new position as starter, right away, would also be a complete lie.
So this is the bit where I explain my anger at Martz, and explain why the real villain of the piece is not Hanie, the guy pulling the trigger, but Martz, the guy calling the shots on offense.
Lets start with some stats, now with Jay Cutler at centre, we have lost only three games, clearly he is more talented, and a leader of this team, but importantly in the three games that the Bears lost under his tenure at QB this season, just so happened to be the only three games this season that Cutler had over 35 passing attempts, hazard a guess how many passing attempts Hanie had yesterday?? That would be 36 passes thrown, if this makes sense to anyone you are a more learned person than I.
Now on top of this our rushing stats sat at Forte 12 attempts, 59 yards, and Barber 10 attempts, 63 yards. Now I’m sorry but you have to be all kinds of crazy to argue that only giving the ball off to Forte/Barber combined for 22 attempts is a good idea, ESPECIALLY, when together they amassed 122 yards, at a 5.54 avg. I mean is Martz being serious, I have heard of Baptism by fire but these stats are a freaking joke, Forte is going to be franchise tagged, Barber was violent between the tackles all day, are you telling me that Martz is to stupid/arrogant to realise that these two seasoned pros needed to be the driving force behind a victory yesterday.
Martz does not believe in rushing the ball, its that simple, it goes against every fibre of his idiotic being, his play calling in the 1st quarter yesterday offered Hanie absolutely no help to settle into the game what so ever. Every drive started with a rush, and every drive ended with two incomplete passes or an interception. This is not a way to support a new QB.
Now we get to the decision that ultimately cost the Bears; it would have been worse had it not been for an amazing effort to get back from Lance Louis, but that play asking Hanie to throw back across himself, six yards from the endzone (coincidently Barber average 6.3 yards per carry yesterday) to Kellen Davis that was intercepted, is one of the dumbest plays I have ever seen in my life. This play call cost the Bears an undeserved 10-9 halftime lead, ending in a field goal for the raiders, creating a point spread of 6 points, the raiders going in at the half 12-7 up. The Bears lost 25-20, had these points not been callously given away, the Bears would have won 23-22, based on the points scored in the game.
Guys it is plain to see that Hanie made mistakes, and yes the picks on him were bad but it was his first NFL start, and the Bears had a duty of care to nurse him though it as best as possible, something that Martz failed to do miserably. Of course ending the game on some Martzesk idiocy of his own, who would have thought that the old fake spike, fake pass, actual spike play would result in intentional grounding?? (Being a Brit, I thought we were meant to be the football illiterate ones!!). No doubt will lead to many people screaming Hanie is the worse thing they have seen on TV, since Jacko held his kid over his hotel balcony, but people need to take a chill pill and realize who the true villain of the piece was yesterday, because I have every confidence that Lovie Smith has a Martz sized dirty mark on his size 12 shoes today.
I couldn’t agree more . Well put
Agreed.
The screen to Davis when Barber could have RAN IT IN was the one of the most disgusting “cute” Martz plays I have seen.
Still needs to be a guy in the booth to punch him in the head when he wants to be a genius instead of score.
martz is an idiot, anyone who has even played high school ball can see that
Martz is 25% responsible for loosing the game. The receivers 25%, Lovie 25% and Hanie the other 25%. But I don’t think the approach Martz took is that far wrong.
Hanie threw some bad passes and had difficulties you expect from a QB in his first NFL start. Could he have done more to get ready? Maybe.
The receivers really could have done a better job of try to catch and catch the ball as well as getting open sooner.
Lovie had some opportunities to get Hanie into other NFL games where the speed experience would have helped him get ready. He should have planned for the future.
But for my main point.
Going into the game, EVERYONE expected the Bears to run more and pass less. Would it be smart to do something they didn’t expect? Hanies been backup long enough to know the system adequately and have some chemistry with the receivers. Mistakes are to be expected but if you play the way they’ve planned for you to play, you increase the odds of those mistakes. Barber has been doing a lot better running the ball but Forte’s production has been dipping. If they know you’re going to run the ball and you only have 1 real dangerous ball carrier, you can see where this is going.
The system Martz has is not a good system for the offense Chicago has. He’s demonstrated he’s not really good at addapting his ideas to our reality. He has shown he can work with what he’s got when forced (why doesn’t Lovie manage him better?). I don’t know if he just fell back into bad habits or if he made a decision to try and do what they weren’t expecting in the hopes of increasing our odds.
Well said. If given enough attempts, Forte will rip one for 25+ yards almost every game…it makes you wonder about the play calling. Plus you make a great point about Barber. Him not being the primary back has seemed to give this guy new life.
Rumor has it Martz is up for the Arizona State University head coaching gig. Will he be missed? Not by this fan.