Caleb Hanie

McCown was unspectacular in his first start, but clearly a better choice than Caleb Hanie. McCown threw one poor interception straight to a rushing Clay Matthews, but his other pick tipped off the hands of Earl Bennett into the arms of Charlie Peprah. It wasn’t an awful performance by any means.

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Unfortunately, Caleb Hanie was still in the game.

Mike Martz’s offense had its issues all day, starting with turnovers. An early first down catch by Johnny Knox was promptly fumbled away after a hit by Kam Chancellor and recovery by Earl Thomas, giving Seattle the field position needed for its first score. On a decent drive in the second quarter, supported by Hanie scrambles and Marion Barber runs, a roll-out and throw ended up in a tipped pass off Kellen Davis into the hands of Earl Thomas. Continuing the trend in the third, pressure from K.J. Wright in the face of Hanie led to an awful throw into the flat which was cut off by lineman Red Bryant and returned 20 yards for the ‘Hawks third touchdown of the day. If that wasn’t enough, Hanie had one more pick-six in him late, tossing it right at Brandon Browner, who took it right back in his face for 42 yards to give the Seahawks an embarrassing 38-14 lead in the fourth quarter. And just to cap the day off right, when Josh McCown came in for Hanie after his third INT, McCown gets one of his own on his second throw of the game. Chicago gave up four sacks on the day (Chris Clemons is scary good, FYI), but the pressure was more constant than that number would suggest. Hanie overthrew plenty of open receivers and made poor decisions with the football for the fourth straight week.

Continue reading "Joe's 2011 Gameday Recap: Seahawks 38, Bears 14"

Chicago won’t be able to bully them around on the ground, so Caleb Hanie has to… make throws??? That deserves a long, drawn-out, Darth Vader-like “NOOOOO!!!” Marion Barber and Kahlil Bell are going to get their carries, but Chicago can’t win unless Hanie gets passes to his wide receivers. Johnny Knox, Early Bennett and Devin Hester must show up. Corner Brandon Browner is extremely underrated and is beginning to make a name for himself in the secondary, adding to the ball-hawking skills of Earl Thomas. If that was bad enough, defensive end Chris Clemons is a monster coming off the edge. Mike Tice better have plans to take him out of the equation or Hanie’s in for another rough day.The Odds:

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I’m on the record with saying Caleb Hanie isn’t a back-up-caliber NFL quarterback. As much as I don’t like Josh McCown, I might let him see some first team snaps this week. If all he has to do is hand-off during live action, why not?

Continue reading "Joe's 2011 Gameday Recap: Broncos 13, Bears 10"

With two straight losses with Caleb Hanie at the helm, the Chicago Bears find themselves in an unenviable position on Sunday, traveling to Denver to meet the best (and most run into the ground) story in the NFL: Tim Tebow. After taking over the reins for John Fox’s offense, the Broncos are 6-1 and lead the AFC West after starting the year 1-4. Will there be more magic in Denver or can Urlacher and the Bears keep Timmy in check? It’s time to break this one down!

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Tyler Palko. The blame starts with the offensive play-calling, then shifts to the crappy play Caleb Hanie, veers towards horrible injuries and finishes with a pathetic showing from the offensive line. As much as you don’t need to be reminded, here’s the analysis of today’s clusterf*ck.

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With their fourth loss in the rearview mirror, the Caleb Hanie-led Chicago Bears welcome the deceptively decent Kansas City Chiefs to Soldier Field. Oh yeah, and Kyle Orton might show up sometime today as well. Casual NFL fans may look at this game as an easy win, but it could be very, very ugly. My breakdown illustrates why.

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kdown.

Chicago Tribune

(7-4) Oakland Raiders 25
(7-4) Chicago Bears 20

With Caleb Hanie at the helm, the Bears struggled to move the ball through the air. Going into this game, most fans would have expected Martz to rely more heavily on the run than he would if Cutler was playing, but that wasn’t the case. The game started off balanced in terms of run/pass ratio, but that eventually faded away as Hanie was forced to throw from behind. However, Martz needed to give his QB help by focusing on getting the ball to Forte and Barber, both of which had solid numbers despite their lack of attempts. Hanie was jittery early on, overthrowing or vastly under-throwing his receivers, which led to the first and second of his three interceptions. He played relatively well after he settled down, making scrambles for large gains and big throws to Johnny Knox for a 29 yard TD in the second and a deep throw for 81 yards as the Bears mounted a miracle comeback in the fourth.

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to the Black Hole today, taking on the Raiders in a hostile environment, led by fourth year back-up Caleb Hanie.

 

(7-3) Chicago Bears at
(6-4) Oakland Raiders

If Lovie Smith’s team is going to get their sixth straight win, Hanie will have to come out and prove early that he’s a threat to throw down the field. He doesn’t have nearly the arm strength that Cutler does (but who does, honestly), but he can get it deep when necessary. Chicago’s offense has been so successful this year because the idea of Jay going deep has loosened the defense for Matt Forte up front. With better offensive line protection, Hanie has to let his receivers take advantage of a soft set of Raider corners. Stanford Routt and Chris Johnson may have been in the league for several years, but that doesn’t mean they’re any good. Mike Martz has to jump on the Raiders in the first half and then rely on Forte to close this one out. Get a decent lead for this defense and they’ll get you a win. Just avoid taking heavy hits from a Raider defensive front that only needs to rush four to get to the quarterback. Richard Seymour will be coming on every play.

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nesota.) KC, Denver and Seattle at home are all winnable games, but none are a lock without Cutler. Caleb Hanie is a decent back-up, but there’s a reason he wasn’t starting. Anyone who tells you the Bears are better off with him over Cutler (and I HAVE heard that) are ridiculous and insane and clearly haven’t been watching Cutler during this winning streak. I don’t even want to have a conversation with those people, for fear I’ll be infected by their crazy-juice.

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rn at the end of the game (no matter the holding call) sorta made up for the muffed punt early.

- Caleb Hanie is definitively the back-up quarterback. I don’t care what flip-floppy tactic Martz/Smith tried earlier in camp. Nathan Enderle is NOT ready for primetime, despite his somewhat adept showings. Hanie isn’t as far along as I think he should be, but his pinpoint throw to Knox in the corner of the endzone proved his skill when he gets time to throw.

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o stand-out, Merriman notched his two sacks on consecutive plays in the first quarter on back-up QB Caleb Hanie’s first series. Even Jay was sacked on his only series of the game. It was that effing bad. With less time to gel in camp, Mike Tice played his starting five offensive linemen for entire first half, a desperately needed tactic. If they’re going to get better, they have to play better together. It won’t come in practice.-Marion Barber is still a beast.

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He kept the Green Bay defense honest which made it easier for Caleb Hanie to step in as he did after Jay left the game early in the third with his injury.

There’s not a lot to say about this game, it was pretty cut-and-dry. Chicago’s offense took too long to get on track and recover after the defense got punctured in the first half. For whatever reason, Greg Olsen was nowhere to be found, unlike the game against Seattle, which took away Jay's safety net. While the defense stuffed the Pack in the second half and forced two turnovers, the game was over as soon as Jay went down. From there Green Bay had to fend off a late miracle comeback, but they were the better team that day. (But not by much, they never seemed to be able to step on Chicago’s jugular, which could cause problems against Pittsburgh.)

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True to form, the Chicago Bears came out after a great win with an equally horrific loss to the New York Giants Sunday night. Concerns abound for Lovie Smith's team, who never got in sync on offense and lost Jay Cutler to a concussion at the end of the first half. There are plenty of areas to pick on, but here's what I noticed from Sunday night's debacle.

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Back-up center Josh Beekman committed a bad holding penalty while stepping on Caleb Hanie's foot and mis-handled a snap. A lot of inexperience on all three offensive line squads. Dan LeFevour got swallowed by the defense when he came in.

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Caleb Hanie struggled in his first half, throwing a pretty ugly interception. He rebounded in the second with a solid drive that ended with a 25-yard TD pass to tight end Michael Gaines. Brett Basanez came on in relief during garbage time and showed some improvement over his prior outings. He showed good zip on his passes along with making smart decisions with the ball, finding Brandon Rideau for 18 yards and a score.

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That’s all Alex did, he tackled him. Load of crapola that was.

Caleb Hanie looks like a decent back-up, but I still would like to see a veteran quarterback somewhere on that bench.

On the final drive of the first half I wrote down: “Greg Olsen is a stud.” Take from that what you will.

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k purely pedestrian at times, which is a feat depending on with whom you speak.

In back-up notes, Caleb Hanie had another consistent performance at the no. 2 QB spot. Kevin Payne and Garrett Wolfe have yet to establish themselves as valuable back-ups to Forte, who needs to carry the ball less this season to avoid wear and tear.

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