As always, Zeise’s Q&A is a full read. He starts by unloading on Chicago Bears fans who are still blaming Wannstedt. A spectacular blast, insuring that he will not be taking a job in Chicago any time soon.
The proof is in the pudding. In the past 40 years, the Bears have had 14 winning seasons – and seven of them came with Ditka and another two came at the end of Halas’ career. That means the reality of your Chicago Bears is that they have had five winning seasons in the past 31 years without one of their two legendary coaches in charge. And two of those other five winning seasons came with Wannstedt in charge. And in the six seasons since he’s been gone – the Bears have had just one winning season and given the way they’ve started this year, is there any doubt that we’re witnessing a sixth losing season in eight years?
That tells me the Bears are a bad organization, one of the worst in the NFL, and their track record in the year’s since Wannstedt was fired prove it (did you see the Redskins-Bears game earlier this year? I think that set football back 50 or 60 years to the days of the single wing).
I mean, have you watched your team this year? The only difference between the Cubs and the Bears is one organization is known as the lovable losers the other is simply known as losers
Again, the problems with that organization go way deeper than the coach, so please, spare me the “Dave Wannstedt ruined this organization” drivel because you can’t ruin something that is already in ruins and if you think the Bears are worse off for having him as their coach, you are kidding yourself.
He missed making the obvious point that Wannstedt is also the 3rd winningest coach in Bears history.
The Q&A explains why the game is a 2pm start, what he thinks Pitt has to do to beat USF, a very detailed explanation as to which of the young kids are getting action now — and defending the decision, and ideas for shuffling some players on the O-line.
On the subject of the USF game, the scary thing to me, is that they appear to have a lot of speed on the defense. Pitt has not dealt well with speed this season (on either side of the ball).
According to this article, one of the keys to beating USF is to get ahead early. Don’t make mistakes to give them extra opportunities. Eventually force them to go to the passing game — their weakness. If they are able to get a lead, they will just ride the running game. That was what they did against Louisville. They were able to jump early, take advantage of turnovers and just force Louisville to play catch-up. In the losses to Miami and PSU, they got down early and eventually lost patience and went to the pass — and turnovers followed.
