Thoughts On The Amazon Kindle.
I bought my Kindle abut 12 months ago, it took a further 3 months to arrive and the first one lasted about 24 hours before it died. Amazon dealt with the failure as well as anyone could expect, they cross shipped a replacement which I received inside a week.
Since then I've bought a second unit which I gave to my girlfriend as a gift.

I've read perhaps 20 books on the device, and while it has its faults, I think it really succeeds at what it sets out to do.

It succeeds over other E-Readers for me because it manages to be a standalone device, I have no need to plug it into my computer. When I finish a book I can have another ready to read inside 60 seconds.

When I bought the first one I was really not convinced that I'd want to read on any device that wasn't paper and ink. But I really like the e-ink display, and I don't really miss the more traditional book form factor the way I thought I would.

The Kindles form factor is OK although there is a tendency to knock the large Next/Prev page buttons. I've personally found that using the device without it's book like cover minimizes this, although my girl friend still uses hers in the cover so your mileage may vary. I use the keyboard only when I'm buying a new book, but it's nice to have. The scroll wheel almost works, the clicks could be closer together for my tastes and it doesn't have great feel.

The interface is functional at best and the store interface is poorly thought out. It's fine if you know the name of the book or the author, but the store is essentially amazons web page on the device and e-ink displays (at least currently) are the wrong place to try and page through web pages looking for a book.

The book selection isn't bad, better if your reading more recently published material. Most recently I've been reading a lot of SciFi and Fantasy novels, and you run into issues where a series is only partly available, or an a particular isn't represented at all. A couple of Iain M Banks books were just added to the store, "Look To Winward" is the poorest E-Book conversion I have ever seen, with rampant obvious OCR issues. Thankfully it seems to be he exception and the only book I've read on the Kindle where the errors were even noticeable.

At this point I couldn't imagine buying fiction in paper form. I'll pick up a couple of reference books at some point, but I can't imagine they would be particularly good since access to the material is usually none linear and there is no quick way to leaf through material on the e-ink display.

Walter Payton and Devin Hester

Since the Bears season was over and because Walter Payton was one of the primary reasons I became a bears fan, I was trolling YouTube for Walter Payton Highlights.

I missed out on Walter's best years, since I'd never even seen a football game prior to 83 when Channel 4 started showing games in the UK. For some reason the game just grabbed me to the point that I played for a year on one of the UK teams circa 1989 despite running up an overdraft to pay for the equipment. Fact is I was a bad 3rd string running back the year I played, 1 carry for 3 yards if I remember correctly and couple of blown kick coverages even if I was faster than most of the guys in pads.

But Walter Payton is the reason I'm a Bears fan and to a large extent the reason I watch football, so I sometimes like to watch highlights especially with such a dismal season to look back on. Someone had posted highlights of Hester on the ChicagoBears.com boards, and I was scanning those. Anyway while drinking single malt scotch and watching said highlights I was surprised by the similarities.

Not that Hester looked vaguely like Payton, Unless he suddenly starts running people over they're very different players. But specifically in their ability to set up blocks, Payton was a surprisingly patient back and watching him set up his down field blocks reminded me of Hester doing the same on kick returns, moving left and right just enough to miss on coming tacklers waiting for the opportunity to explode downfield.......

Hester is enough to make me ache for the 2008 season in Chicago, as Payton was enough to make me root for Chicago in the mid 80's when the NFL was first shown on British television.

There are a lot of off season questions to be answered by the Chicago Bears, but at some level those answers don't matter to me. I'm a fan and I support them regardless, of course I prefer them to win. And through my "fan only rose tinted spectacles", right now I fully expect them to be champions next year.

Starting QB in 08

I think it's pretty clear that the starting Quarterback for 08 is most likely on the roster today. There are a number of possible scenarios.

1. We grab a free agent/trade for a QB -- In this scenario, we'd most likely be starting whomever we bring in, but it doesn't look like McNabb is going anywhere and the Bears aren't in the "looking for one last piece" mode that leads to high draft picks being slung around for say a Derek Anderson.

2. We Draft a QB on day one -- Even if we do it's unlikely he'll start in his rookie year, so we'll be starting someone currently on the roster.

3. We Draft a QB lower in the draft -- see 2 but with 0 chance to start.

4. We have exactly the same set of QB's we have already.

Given that though who starts?
I think this comes down to whether or not Rex signs with the Bears next year, if he does I think we'll see an open competition between him and Kyle for the starting job, and a of right now, I think it's likely Rex would start.
If some other team places significant value on Rex, I think he's gone and Orton starts next year, we'd either then draft a QB on day one (depending on how the draft plays out) or in one of the later rounds as a project.
I think Griese will be on the roster going into next year in either scenario.

I doubt very much Rex will still be a free agent come draft day, so we should have a pretty good idea who's going to be under center next year in March.

Bears finally string two wins together.

Devin Hester really is rediculous....

The D played well, giving up a lot of yards, but coming away with turn overs and getting their hands in the passing lanes all day. The runnung game gve them a lot of trouble however.

Ron Turner called another good game, and from Lovie's post game press conference, it sounds like he'll be back next year.

Orton was inaccurate at times, but did well enough to compete for the starting job next year.

All in all an entertaining game to end the season.

I did want to add one piece on what's wrong with the QB rating, the simple version is it places far too much emphasis on tochdowns, and there is no context to the statistics. Actually my real problem with it is the name, it doesn't in anyway measure the efficiency of a QuarterBack, what it seems to attempt to measure is the efficiency of the passing game. Even in this reguard I still think it places too much emphasis on TD's, but rename it to Passing Game Rating and it has some meaning.

Orton's passer rating was >100 in the first half of the game despite a completion percentage of <50% and <50 in the second half because of the INT. Watching the game you'd have been hard pressed to say he played better or worse in either half.

Thoughts on a Bears win.

The bears beat the packers in all 3 phases of the game.
Special teams dominated, which is something you can only ever say about the Bears.
The Defense helped by the poor conditions shut down the Packers offense, minus one big running play.
Despite 4 early false start penalties, the O-Line looked better with St Clair starting at Guard, the weather helped here too, it forced the Bears into simpler blocking schemes, which seemed to suit their running game better.
Orton had a very solid game, should have had two touchdowns (Moose dropped one), what was interesting though we're the drops, 3 on the day where the ball got to the receiver very fast just as they turned. In my mind it's interesting because despite the weather Orton was far more accurate than his first start, and I think it was a function of him throwing the ball harder to overcome the weather, it seems to be the touch passes where Orton has struggled thus far, and I'm interested in how he plays against New Orleans.

All in all a great team win..... Something I can say for the first time about the Bears this year.

Edit - And since I've bagged on him all year.... Props to Ron Turner, who called a great game in horrible conditions.

Orton not the answer.

A horrible offensive performance. The playcalling didn't help him out at all and the Bears need to start him the remaining two games, but in this start at least he looked very much like a 3rd string quarterback.

The defensive effort was good, Urlacher looked like a man without a bad back, Vasher and Tillman had great games.

But now it's officially all about 2008....

I hope the Bears organization can make any coaching changes that are coming soon after the season ends, and decide what their offensive identity will be in 08 and draft accordingly.

Todays game and the Giants game demonstrate yet again that turnovers do not win games if you can't score points off them, lets forget running when you get off the bus and look at the talent we have and build something that works around that.

And Grossman down for the rest of the year!

The Redskins game was horrible to watch with the injuries and total in-effectiveness running the ball. Two interceptions in back to back plays, Five stupid penalties on a single drive an a field goal when you have first and Goal at the 1.

They had the oportunities to win it but like many games this year, they just found a way to loose. I will say that Garret Wolfe looked promising in the second half as did Hester when getting more time on the field at reciever.

They're still not mathematically eliminated...... But who cares, let's be realistic it's about next season now. We have a long week to prepare for Minesota, lets give Orton a shot, let's see more of Hester at wide reciever, more of Wolfe at running back, more Olsen, and Bradley. Let's see what we have to build around on Offense.

I think the injury limits Rex's chances of coming back next year, he won't need surgery, but he's out for the remainder of the games this year, and I'm not sure he'd done enough to win over the front office. Having said that it gives other teams less of a chance to evaluate him as well, which might keep his price in check and give him more incentive to sign a short term deal with Chicago.

If Rex does go Turner is definitely gone, consistency in the offensive system while grooming a quarterback would be the only reason to retain him. Turner might be gone either way. And I who we bring in at offensive coordinator will probably be the most interesting question to get answered this off season.

Outside of OC I think we'll see more turn over on the coaching staff, perhaps not Babich or Smith, but some one in the coaching staff will be held accountable for the inability of the players to execute, it'll likely be position coaches.

I still say let Briggs go, he's expensive and although he's had a stellar season this year, I'm not sure that cap space can't be spent better either on the offensive line, at defensive tackle or safety.

Either way unless Orton is a total standout in how ever many starts he gets, we're coming into next year with big question marks at most of the offensive skill positions and the O-Line. The Defense should be more stable though, and if we can stay healthy next year, it should be a lot better than 07 for the Bears.

On the plus side expectations in 08 will be a lot easier to meet...

Random Thoughts on Coaching

The Bears coaching staff have taken a lot of flak this year, many fans calling for their heads. After one of the more disapointing seasons I can remember this is hardly surprising. Although certainly not the worst Bears team I've watched, the Bears were expected to contend for the superbowl.

I remember reading in the preseason that scouts considered the Bears "bullet proof" at every position except quarterback. Not really how it panned out.

But how much of it is the coaching? How much the injuries? and how much the players?

A lot of fans poit to Lovies demeanor with the press and note how emotionless he is and play up some of the more inane statements he makes, obviously drawing comparisons to Ditka. I think this is just a different coaching style,and I don't think it's relevant except where it backfires which I'll get to in a minute.

If you look at the Bears talking to the press as a whole I think you'll find they all have much the same ring, nothing much said few fingers pointed. This is likely policy, because they want to address problems internally without the additional friction of outside scrutiny, and in a lot of ways that's fine. Where this policy backfires is that the local media has to write something, and if Lovie isn't providing the headlines, it'll be the team, or the quarterback, or the running back or the linebackers bad back.

I actually believe this policy increased the external pressure on Grossman and Benson, which is contrary to it's intent. Having said that I also suspect that the continual criticism of Grossman in particular probably fostered a solid sense of team around him. I just think it would have been more productive if it had been around Lovie, and some of the pressure could have been lifted from Grossman sooner.

None of this explains why the Bears have so significantly underperformed this year, I think the fundamental problem with passive management/coaching is that you hand ownership over to the players. This can be a great asset especially when you're playing the underdog, players have chips on there shoulders and something to prove, but it leaves you wide open to overconfidence on the players part. As a coach you have to step in before this starts, but it's difficult to recognise and respond to.

So it's all coaching then?

Well no, it's pretty clear how much our defense suffered last year down the stretch with far fewer injuries than we have now, the system is clearly very dependant on personnel in key positions. Indy seems to manage to plug people in to a similar system (with the exception of Bob Sanders) with more success, so maybe it's not a fundamental flaw in the system.

The offensive problems have stemmed from an in-ability to run the ball, and coaches seemingly unable or unwilling to adjust for this. And this is my primary issue with the coaching this year, games seem to be called as if we can protect the passer, effectively run the ball and as if we have a great defense to get the ball back. This has led to endless 3rd and longs and 3 and outs.

So Ron Turner gets the bulk of my criticism, should we replace him? I don't know, if Ron goes we'll be looking at a new offensive system next year and that probably means poor offensive production while the transition occurs. On the other hand if we can resolve the O-Line issues, get a working running game, and our D steps up he's probably capable of calling a good game plan.

So what now?

The Bears hopes for the post season ended when Grossman's final pass in to the end zone was batted down. But it should never have come to that, this game might have been the most frustrating of the year. It was reminiscent of the 1990's and early 2000 Bears, where they would have a lead and some how find a way to loose in the 4th quarter.

After taking possession on an interception by Urlacher, the Bears came out in a no huddle offense, and looked good doing it, they drove down the field and scored. By half time it was 7 13 but the score could have been a lot higher.

This was a game of missed opportunities, the ball bounced off Hester's shoulder pads on a long pass that would have been a touchdown, there we're two well called screens, which would have been big plays if it the guard could have made the first block. One of the lineman knee'd an opposing player after the play on the two yard line turning a probable touchdown into a fieldgoal.

But the trouble really started when they were two scores up, everything suddenly got very conservative on offense, and drives started to all look alike, Peterson run for 1 or 2 yards, false start penalty (they had 5) something else that didn't work and a long pass to Berrian on the left side which wold fall incomplete.

Berrian was open on that play most of the day, but it was a 40 yd pass in high winds and freezing weather, Grossman just couldn't put it in the right spot. But then why try and get 40 yards every time you need 15? I understand doing it a couple of times a game but I think we saw that pass attempted 4 or 5 times. Of course had it worked Ron Turner would have been a genius.

Grossman played well for the most part under a lot of pressure, some of the sacks were as much his fault as the O Lines, trying to scramble to the outside rather than stepping up.

But getting back to the original question what now, I'm not sure we've seen enough of Grossman to really evaluate him for next year, he's looked solid since coming back, and he's looked solid in the situations he looked bad previously. But I think he'll probably play for at least another couple of weeks, with Orton possibly coming in for the last couple of games.

The O-line has to be a priority in the off season, they've played better over the last couple of games, and may be that means it's just a case of replacing one or two, or at least getting some younger players to start building a line for the future. We don't have the cap space to make a play for a top wide receiver or running back, and I don't see us drafting either position high up.

The D is difficult to gauge, clearly a lot of the issue is injuries, but that's a perennial problem, we need to add depth on the D-Line and we need someone who can come in and dominate at safety. I think we should let Lance Briggs go, he's had stellar year, but he's expensive and we have other needs.

There has been speculation on trading Devin Hester, I'm not sure anyone would be willing to offer what he's worth to the team.

Special teams save Bears, offense helps...

All I could say at the end of the game was "astonishing".
Jerry Azuma on the post game show the Devin Hester was the closest thing in the NFL to cheating and it rang true on so many levels.

Anyway ignoring the stellar special teams effort.

The defense was hot and cold, there were big stops on drives, but they gave up big plays. The combination of injuries and depleted talent at tackle and in the secondary are really showing.

On the offensive side prior to the 4th Quarter, the Line was like a revolving door, and passes we're dropped or penalties nullified gains. But the offense had two big drives, one at the end of regulation and one in OT, to help win the game.

Grossman threw an interception early, it was a long throw, not particularly well delivered, but Berrian didn't do him any favors by falling over rather than at least trying to make a play on it. He fumbled twice, one on a designed QB draw where he just dropped it while trying to swap hands to protect the ball (go figure) and one on a sack. What the stats fail to show is how many time he was pressured, and how many times he threw the ball away. All those throw aways count as incompletions, but for the most part they were good plays and something we didn't see much of in the first 3 games from Grossman. All in all even without the last couple of drives where the offense stepped up I though Grossman had a tolerable game, including those drives it was certainly passable.

Benson of course was hurt and lost for the Year. All those Adrian Peterson fans got to see him as an every down back, and his average looked like Bensons earlier in the year, although his 4yd pile pushing run was impressive. Benson had started pretty well and frankly I think he'll be missed. Whether he's the back of the future for the Bears, who knows, I suspect unless the injury raises long term questions, his contract and the salary cap situation will dictate that he's back next year.

The Bears are still in the hunt for a wild card spot and they play the Giants this week, a loss to the Giants will pretty much eliminate them, but every time I watch the Bears play I see flashes and if they play a good game they can beat the Giants.

Bears run out of time against Seattle

There were flashes against Seattle,the offense did enough to win, but Matt Hassleback exploited the weekened secondary leaving the Bears with another loss.

Grossman was fine, he fumbled once trying to make a play which I think is par for the course, Benson had a couple of big runs, but other than that the running game remained stagnant. The 4th and inches call in which the Bears had Garza pull resulting in Olin Krutz sitting on his ass 4 yds behind the line of scrimmage and a turnover on downs, summed up the Bears Season in some ways.

It was a game they could have won, and another one where the plays just weren't there.

The Bears can still finish 10 and 6, and that might be enough, if they can build on the good things in today's game, get Vasher back and fix some of the problems they may even have a shot at it, but at this point it's just about the next game on the schedule and stringing wins together.

Two none losses in a row!

Not the most exciting game, but like most Bears fans I'll take any win this year.
The story of the game was Grossman coming back in just before the half, and winning the game with a great looking long ball to Berrian.

There were a couple of things of note in a game that minus the last 4 minutes was pretty uninspired.

1. The Defense turned up or 4 quarters and played well. Last season against the Raiders we'd have expected that, but this season it was a pleasant surprise.

2. The running game is still struggling, whether it be the O-Line or Benson I can't tell, it's probably a combination of the two.

3. The O-Line continues to struggle to protect the quarter back.

4. The offense looks very different with Grossman on the field.

I think the last point is worth discussing, I don't know if it's Ron Turner calling different plays or just Grossman making different decisions, but I much prefer the look of it with Grossman in there.

If it was my call against Seattle I'd start Grossman he wasn't dramatically better that Greise but I prefer the way the offense works when he plays, and from the comments after the game the team seems to have faith in him. Having said that without more consistency from the line and the running game it's going to be a struggle for anyone playing quarterback for the Bears, they struggled against the Raiders and their remaining schedule has many teams who are better.

Still we're still in the play-off race, it probably won't last, Seattle next week will be challenging up at qwest field.

The Bears Offense

Random thoughts following a Bears none loss.

You cannot ask an offense not to loose the game for you.

Offense has to be able to win games, it has to be able to score points when given the opportunity.

Football is a game where teams take turns trying to score, give or take one possession, you have as many shots as the other guy to score. If you're more successful in your turns you win as simple as that.

The concept of playing conservatively on offense and having your defense "win" the game has always seemed somewhat short sighted to me. If your offense doesn't score touch downs you leave even great D's in a position where a few good plays by your opponents or a couple of mistakes by your D can loose you the game.

Now understand I'm not saying you need to throw the ball or espousing a particular offensive philosophy, just that if you expect to be consistently good you need your offense to score and not simply to manage the game. Great teams have had both offense and defense, when one falters the other steps in.

It appeared early last season that the Bears were a truly great team and had both, when they blew out Seattle during the regular season I loved every minute of it, I thought "they finally get it". But now that's looking like it was more an aberration than a accurate reflection of the team. Grossman became inconsistent and Ron Turner became more and more conservative trying to avoid loosing games with turnovers. This year things are much worse.

Trying to avoid turnovers is understandable, making your offense predictable and conservative to do so is just stupid, it makes the offense less effective, it often leads to playing from behind having to go into a predictable pass happy mode, which in the end puts more pressure on players to make plays, increasing the mistakes and leading to more turn overs, reinforcing the cycle.....

Ignoring the running back situation for a minute, we have many of the same personnel on offense as we did in the heady days of early 2006, something broke somewhere (and before this year started) and I don't believe it was just the other shoe dropping on the Rex Grossman situation, or defenses around the league suddenly waking up. So what was it?

I think the difference is almost entirely psychological, the 06 teams offense believed they could win games for the team, between the media and fan base laying into Grossman, the Superbowl loss and the mauling the Bears got in the second half of the Wk 3 Dallas game and we are where we are. A couple of good 2 minute drives by the replacement quarterback isn't going to fix that.

I think Ron Turner came into the season wanting to give Grossman the best chance to perform, unfortunately he did this by taking the risky plays out of the playbook and trying to play conservatively. Relying on what we now know is a none existent running game to take the load, and as I've said before I don't think this does your QB any favors, he ends up having to predictably throw the ball from behind more pressure, more mistakes etc etc all the way to the bench.

Maybe I'm too much of an optimist but I don't think benching Grossman was the right decision for what it's worth, having said that team psyches are often bizarre things and how a move is perceived within a team is as important as anything else. Unfortunately the Bears are very dead pan to the media, showing nothing but support for team mates regardless of there performance, so it's difficult to get a read on the team dynamics. if the team had really lost faith in him, then I cede the point and benching him was the right move. If they read it as Grossman taking the bullet for what had been sub par performances all around then it was a bad call.

Good offenses aren't pass happy, but they aren't afraid to pass either, they exploit defenses where it works, and keep the calls balanced where it makes sense. Ball control has it's place, it can help let a defense rest, but despite a lot of talk, it doesn't win games, scoring and stopping the other team scoring wins games.

I like Lovie Smith as a coach, but he seems very defensive minded and historically that has been the Bears mantra. But that needs to change we need to be winning minded, that means offense and defense as equal partners. Statements like "the Bears get off the bus running" are just none sense statements, the Bears offensive plan should be built to exploit opponent weaknesses and create mismatches where ever possible, if that means run off the bus great, if that means throw every down do it, and don't worry about matching some historical stereotype in Chicago. With the exception of 85 and 06 to a lesser extent it hasn't been very successful stereotype anyway.

Mathematically it's possible

It's still numerically possible for the Bears to make the playoffs, they need at go at least 6 and 2 and probably 7 and 1 through the rest of the season.

For that to happen the defensive problems really do need to come down to injuries and injuries that will need to cease to be a problem with the bye week. But even if that were the case it doesn't help the offense, they aren't missing any key starters. They are what they are. Incapable of exploiting a week Detroit secondary. There is clearly talent on offense they're just not executing, I'm still not sure in real terms if Griese is any better than Grossman.

The Bears offensive strategy is too dependant of a successful running game, and they simply can't run against 8 man fronts this season. Ron Turner needs to solve this problem either with personnel changes or by changing the focus on offense, and by that I don't mean the 2:1 pass mix we've seen in the last few games. I mean doing something to get the 8th man out of the box, and getting back closer to a 1:1 pass/run split.

Some of the turnovers and missed tackles are players trying too hard, some of it is made worse, as loosing works against trust inside the team but fundamentally those just compound bad play.

What can the coaches do in this situation, they have to raise the energy level and get the players engaged in the games beyond where they have been. I think you can go two ways, yell and scream show them your disappointment tell them what fuckwits they're being and try and generate something from the ensuing guilt. Or go the other way make some changes (possibly radical) and convince the team to believe in the new structure. 2 weeks isn't a lot of time for the latter and I'm not sure the former is in Lovie Smith's personality. If they can string a couple of victories together they might be able to build on it.

But at this point it doesn't look very likely. I'd love to be a fly on the wall though in the meetings over the next couple of weeks.

Start Kyle Orton

Season is over, the Detroit game was as bad a Bears performance as I've seen for a while.
It's time to start looking at what the solution is long term, lets find out if that's Kyle Orton, sooner rather than later.

............

NFL Plays in London

Well they will on Sunday anyway.
I'm English, and a Bears fan, I've been watching football pretty much since it was first aired on British TV (channel 4) in the early 80's. I was at the Chicago, Dallas preseason game played in London, I was at World Bowl 1, I lined up at running back for one of the 100+ British teams that existed in the late 80's (didn't play much and we were crap) and I used to tune into American Armed Forces radio on Mondays to listen to the games, since at the time it was the only way to get them.

I've lived in the States now for 15+years, and I'm still a Bears fan.

There are a lot of people like me in the UK and I think the NFL can be successful there to a point. There are probably enough hardcore fans that a local team could fill Wembly for the regular season. However I think breaking out being a niche form of entertainment is going to be extremely difficult. Some of that is just anti American sentiment, clearly English sports are going to be percieved to be superior to "American Football" in England.

Local talent development is probably neessary, but it's going to be hard. As a child in England I played Soccer every break time at school as well as during gym class. And I always hated soccer, it was just what you did. English schools just don't have the focus on organised sports that US schools do, making school organised American football unlikely and American Football just isn't a game you can play without organisation.

I actually don't think the entirely foreign roster is much of an issue in initial adoption, especially if the NFL can start to get some talent development going, British Soccer is dominated by other Europeans at this point and it doesn't seem to have hurt it much. But longer term it's going to have to feel like something local people can own and that means local talent.

Anyway for the first time British people get to see a regular season game on British soil. Wembly stadium is a sell out, It's a good first step, but the real question for the NFL is can it be successful when it's not a novelty?

The 2 Minute Drill

I have to say I'd pretty much given up on the game, and was ready to write about a team lost for this season. Then in the final 1:57 with no time outs the offense turns up and the Bears march 97 yards to with the game.

Outside of the final two minutes Griese played adequately, it was good to see both Olsen and Hester on the field more, but it was clear that Hester is not familiar with the entire offensive package, Moose showing him where to line up on a lot of downs.

The running game was again none existent and I'm not sure how you fix it at this point in the season. I've seen people pointing to Adrian Petersons yards per carry number and suggesting he start, but he's primarilly playing on passing downs, so his runs aren't indicative of where they would be in the starting role. I'm still not seeing the O-Line creating a lot of holes for anyone to run through.

The defense turned up but didn't really stop the Eagles outside of the redzone, and that's fine if your offense is scoring touchdowns, but the Bears currently aren't.

Offensive play calling still seems excessively cautious, with the defense not where they have been the Bears need to score points to win, and it still seems that caution is the word of the day on offense.

Having said that if they can get a W against Detriot, and use the bye week to get healthy, they are still very much in contention.

What's wrong with the Bears?

I've been reading a lot of online rants about the Bears this season especially since since Sunday. Frankly I'm stunned at the amount of vitriol in some of these posts, Lovie Smith, Jerry Angelo, Bob Babich, Ron Turner, Cedrick Benson and the Bears O-Line seem to take the brunt of most of it.

The mind boggles really, the Bears were in the Super Bowl last year and 5 games into this season fans and writers are already calling to replace the head coach, the GM, the defensive and offensive coordinators. It's not like the Bears are the first Super Bowl looser to suffer from a post Super Bowl hang over, god knows it's frustrating as a fan, but it is what it is. Lovie Smith is the same head coach that got us to the Super Bowl.

Back to the original question.

The offense is clearly out of sync, ad I'm not sure there is a quick solution to that, they're not going to suddenly click and start scoring 40 points a game, but they can be good enough to score points and win games. The Minnesota game showed that.

The defense is harder to explain, but I think it's a function of the defensive scheme coupled with the rash of injuries. The Tampa two is heavily dependant on the personnel, and their trust in each other. You start pulling bits of it out and you have problems, witness last years Indy D without Bob Sanders, or the change in the Bears D after Mike Brown was injured in 06 (he didn't play long enough this year to really see a trend). Perhaps in the end this is the real weakness of the Tampa two, in an NFL where all teams have to battle injuries, it may be simply too fragile.

The Bears coaches seem to me to be shifting personnel around in a desperate attempt to find something that works. They've never really demonstrated a great ability to make gameplan adjustments, right now they have no real choice.

Adrian Peterson runs all over the Bears.

Headline really says it all.
Hopefully there won't be many games where the Bears score 31 points and loose.

In some ways the game reminded me of the 05 play off loss to the Panthers, in that game Steve Smith pretty much single handily won the game for Carolina and it always felt to me that the Bears loss through arrogance, not wanting to change there defense to account for a single player. This time it didn't look like arrogance, it was just an average effort by a banged up defense exploited by a future great running back. To be fair the Vikings line did a stellar job getting Peterson into the open field and the Bears bad tackling did the rest.

The Bears offense showed flashes, and there were a couple of brilliant plays, but really it was the same old same old, too many 3rd and longs, and until the Bears were two scores down the offense was extremely conservative.

Watching the game I was noting the fact that the Bears receivers just haven't been getting good separation, I think this is a function of the reluctance to go long until it's the only option. It's like they are always playing on a short field.

The Bears need to get healthy on D and get something going on offence, I figure they need 10 wins to make the play offs, so there are still a couple of games before we have to start talking about next season, but it's coming fast.

The Bears finally win one.

With the exception of Charles Tillman and his two forced fumbles, it wasn't looking good through the first half. But the Bears made good adjustments at half time and came out like a different team, in the first half they missed tackles and Favre completed passes at will, in the second half it was a different story.

The offense still had problems, far too many 3rd and long's but Green Bay helped out keeping drives going with penalties. Griese was efficient, making plays when they were needed, and limiting the mistakes.

I thought the play calling was better, going to the end zone on the first play after the interception was a great call and Ron Turner stayed with the run enough to set up a great play action play resulting in another touchdown. There were also a couple of attempts to stretch the field, but still a lot of run on first, run on second and long and then deal with the resulting 3rd and long. The Bears either need to run the ball better or throw more on first down.

2 and 3 leaves the Bears in contention but there is still a lot of questions to be answered. Hopefully the win at Green Bay and the way they finished the game can provide a spark and get them on a roll. Minnesota at Soldier Field should be an easier game that the Pack at Lambeau.

Quaterbacks and the Chicago Bears

Why do the Bears have such a hard time bringing in a good Quarterback?

I was watching an interview with Brian Griese before he started against Detroit. One of the things he said was that the offense had been a second class citizen in Chicago, and he hoped to change that. I think it's the primary problem, in Chicago the focus is too heavily on the defense, there is nothing inherently wrong with that.
But lets face facts although great defenses have won superbowls, those teams that go back over and over have great offenses, IMO asking your offense to play conservatively and just protect the ball is a recipe for 3rd and long, 3 and out and a tired defense loosing in the 4th quarter.
Ideally we want a great defense and a great offense, but I believe even if the Bears had all the talent in the world on offense, they would still play excessively conservatively and they would still loose games because of it.

Lets get a great offensive coordinator in Chicago, and let him run the offense, lets make offense a priority, I want to see the Bears protecting leads by scoring more points, not by "protecting the football" on a one score lead.

I don't mean Chicago needs to do this and ignore defense, just that both sides of the ball need to be equally important and that might mean compromises in defensive personnel.

Griese starts...

Oh dear....
3 interceptions, 2 in the redzone and one run back for a TD, that's a minimum of 13 points against you...... Although the offense had its moments where it looked like it was in sync, there is no obvious improvement in sight.

All this really demonstrates though is that it's not just the quarter back that's the problem, I really dislike the play calling. The Bears just haven't attempted to stretch the field all season, I wonder if the misfiring offense is causing Ron Turner to make more conservative calls in an attempt to curb the turnovers. The result however seems to be the opposite, the short field means teams can stack the line.

The defense also collapsed in the 4th quarter, they had a lot of injuries, but I think this really comes down to the same issue we've seen all season, teams seem to make better adjustments at half time than the Bears do. They may be the victim of there own success early in the game here, why adjust what your doing when it's working, the problem is opponents are adjusting and the Bears aren't reacting and making the adjustments during the 2nd half.

I think Griese can improve but I don't think it'll be a dramatic improvement next week at Green Bay. Ron Turner needs to be much more aggressive play calling on offense, but the way the team is currently executing it might not matter.

There are still 12 games left so the season isn't over yet, but the Bears have dug themselves a pretty deep hole thus far, a loss to Green Bay next week will make it a lot deeper.

Dallas 34 Chicago 10

Ow!

Bears looked horrible across the board here, the defense played well in the first half, but that's about the only positive thing that can be said. Other than the blocked field goal even special teams stank.

The Bears are now 1 and 2 and Green Bay 3 and 0, and worse the Bears had a slew of defensive injuries.

The question now is how to star producing on offense in the short term?

Maybe that does require radical changes in the starting line up, I'm still in two minds on the Grossman thing, I still don't see Griese or Orton being long term solutions, but if your looking to change to try and jump start the offense maybe that's what's needed. I can't see what else you can do to radically change the line up. Maybe start Petersen at running back, swap around the wide receivers, but that's all pretty much cosmetic.

I really haven't liked the Bears play calling in the first few weeks either, it seems excessively conservative at times, leading to 3rd and long on a regular basis. I'm as big a fan of the running game as the next Bears fan, but with a few exceptions we haven't been successful in running on running downs. I don't know if that's Benson, the O-Line or just opposing defenses lack of respect for the Bears passing game.

Since were heading into 2 divisional games and the Bye week is still a ways off, something needs to happen, I'm still not sure replacing Grossman is the right decision longer term but in the short term, things might look desperate enough to give it a try.

Rex Grossman

OK so I'm English and I'm a Bears fan, started watching football when I still lived in the UK circa 1983 or so, and I've been a Bears fan ever since.

Given I live on the West coast Bears information has been limited to ESPN, the NFL site and the official Bears site. But recently I've been using the power of the Internet to read local Chicago news columns. I'm stunned at the amount of flak Grossman is taking.

Not that some criticism isn't warranted, but they seem to want to blame Chicago's offensive woes exclusively on Grossman. Sure he's making mistakes, but watching the games I'm just not seeing lots of open receivers for him to throw to, and I am seeing unblocked blitzers coming off the edge and levelling the guy. That's not all on Grossman.

Some of that probably comes from his past poor performances under pressure, defenses don't respect his ability to hurt them when they rush. And they are likely to keep sending the pass rush until the Bears offense starts to make it hurt.

Ignoring the stats for the moment, if anything this year Grossman looks improved, for the most part he has shown better awareness in the pocket, albeit he needs to show more. But the whole offense has just looked out of Sync.

I understand other Bear fans frustrations. We have a stellar defense, great special teams, a veteran offensive line so the consensus is we should be winning superbowls now. But what are you going to do at Quarterback if it's not Grossman?

It's not like the Bears have a lot of options at quarterback, I don't think Griese is the answer nor do I think Kyle Orton is. I'd rather ride out Grossmans inconsistencies to see if he does become something more in the short term. And I'm pretty sure Booing and pooh poohing him continuously in the press really doesn't improve his chances.

We could draft another quarter back and wait the 4 years or so for him to mature, but realistically Bears fans just don't have the patience for that. Our past attempts to pick up experienced veterans to manage the game at that position haven't exactly panned out either.

I think if the Bears are going to win a Superbowl this year or in the next 3 or 4 years, the difference is going to have to be a maturing Grossman and stability at quarter back. I really hope it can happen that way, because I think the alternative is a steadily aging team as the Bears rotate through quarterbacks as they have in the not too distant past.

New Car

The lease on my Acura TL finally expired, not that I disliked the car, but it was deliberately conservative because of my somewhat excessive commute at the time I bought it. Having changed offices, reducing my commute to something more manageable I was looking forwards to going back to less practical vehicles.

Over the years I've owned a lot of impractical cars, among them an Fd RX7, a 3000GT-VR4, a Dodge Viper and an E46 M3. Of those the M3 was by far the most practical and the RX7 probably the least (at least the Viper had a usable trunk). Having said that if my RX7 had been reliable it might have been my favorite.

I've always loved the Z4, I'm not a big fan of Bangles design work at BMW, but the Z4 to me is the exception, the problem is that I really dislike convertibles. BMW finally released a coupe version, and M variants...... So there is now shiny new BMW Z4M Coupe sitting in my driveway. It's reminiscent of my FD RX7, the ride is brutal, and it feels smaller and lighter than it is, and there is no 3/4 or rear visibility to speak of. The engine sounds great, better than the E46 M3 which had the same engine, and I love the seats and the interior as a whole. I'm still trundling through the break in period on the engine, but even with the breakin imposed 5Krpm redline power is more than adequate.

Most reviewers prefer the 3.0 none M version of the coupe and I can see why that is. It's a lot more civil and has plenty of power for any on road use, but that's exactly why I love the M version.

Sony TZ

Over the last few years I've owned a lot of laptops from a wide variety of manufacturers, they started as desktop replacements and each one has been smaller and relatively les powerful than the last. Over time I've come to realise what I really want from a laptop is portability rather than a desktop replacement. Following on the trend, I just picked up a Sont TZ.

The TZ is <3lbs with an 11inch wide screen display and a keyboard reminiscent of the iMacs. The processor is a low voltage 1.x GHz Core 2 Duo processor, a Gig of Ram and comes with Vista installed and more crapware than I can even begin to catalogue.

This isn't the first Sony I've owned, so I new the crapware would be there, but I can honestly say that I have never seen a computer as crippled by the installed crapware as the TZ. Out of the box it was as close to unusable as any machine I have ever seen, boot times were horrible, and performance was worse than I could have imagined. I really can't see how none technical users (those who don't understand the crapware issue) would keep the machine given the extremly poor OOB experience.

Several hours of uninstalling software and cleaning crap off the HD later and it was a pretty nice little usable machine. I've Installed 2Gb of RAM and I'm still running Vista, Aero and all. I've never really nticed the night and day prformance difference a lot of people seem to observe runing XP. My observations with Vista are that in general Vista launches apps faster and for the most part in general use and overall performance is basically the same.

Performance is more than adequate for web browsing and Office apps, which is most of what I do on my laptops. I do have Visual Studio 2003 and 2005 installed and although performance isn't comparable to my desktop it's adequate, building one of my work projects it's about half the speed. The primary limiting factor in performance is probably the 4800 rpm 1.8 inch drive, but I wasn't willing to pay the premium for the SSD and there is no 2.5inch drive option in the US.

I really like the form factor, the screen, and the battery life, I've seen an honest 6 hours of use on a battery without charging. But bear in mind that I usually work with minimal screen brightess and no audio.

Build quality is better than the Dells and HP's I've owned but a fair way below that of my IBM.

The SSD card reader seems to be pretty poor with read performance topping out at 2.8MB/s, which makes it useless for readyboost amoung other things. There is no way to tell if this is a hardware restriction or a driver issue, but it doesn't really matter since the net effect is the same.

Overall it's pretty much exactly what I wanted light, with great battery time and adequate performance.

Thoughts on flying RC helicopters and Sims.

Everyone says get a Sim, they're right. They seem expensive, $200 for what's basically a video game, but they are worth it. Not because of the usual "savings in crash parts" argument people will use to justify it, but because it's the only practical way to get in a lot of practice over a short period.

Do the math .... Your average large electric helicopter (like my QJ8) has a battery life of <10 minutes on $150 a piece batteries. The batteries take about 70 minutes to charge, so even if your aggressive it's hard to get more than 30 minutes in any given day and it's usually less than that. That combined with even mild winds making it much more difficult on the beginner and you find you don't get much stick time in a week.

With a Sim you can just fire it up for as long as you want whenever you have time.

Sims certainly aren't as satisfying as flying the real helicopter and there is a huge leap in attempting things in real life that you already have down in the Sim. But you know what if you turn the wind up on a decent Sim, other than the depth perception, it's a pretty damn good approximation to the real thing.

For me the hard part of learning to fly has been having to use all of the controls to do even simple things, A simple banked turn requires adjusting the banking in two axis, manually turning the tail to match the heading and compensating for altitude changes (especially in wind) with the throttle. Invariably the rate at which the tail turns doesn't match the change in direction of the helicopter and by the time you've compensated, the helicopter is dropping or climbing and your chasing it with the throttle.

I've been flying tail in figure eights on my last few flights and every time I fly I get better at this, but without the reps on a Sim, it would have taken me a long time to progress to this point.

The Sim was a purchase I was totally not sold on, I ended up buying RealFlight G3.5 because the weather was crappy and I couldn't fly the real thing, I'm glad I did.

New helicopter....

RC helicopter..

It turns out that a co-worker is into RC choppers, he brought one of those 2ch submicro helis into the office, and I found myself fascinated by it.
A week later I bought myself a DF4, a cheap fixed pitch ready to fly model. I figure if I enjoy it I'll buy something better. Inspecting it, it's clear that the servos are poor, and will need replacement, but it appears to function.
I just ran through the first battery, some airtime, lots of crashes, no significant damage. I can see that it'll take significant practice for any sort of controlled flight, but it's quite captivating.
Anyway I'm off to buy a second battery and "fly" some more......

New Computer.

It's been a couple of years since I replaced my main computer at home, so I decided to upgrade. In the end the only thing I kept was the case, and I may well replace that. Having measured the temperature with the case both open and closed, it's clear that the case has a severe airflow defecit.

I went with an intel QX6700 and an NVidia 8800GTS, I only went with the quad core because it makes testing some multithreaded ideas I have practical. I also recycled a 6800 card I had lying around to drive two additional monitors also lying around (great to have when developing).

I really wanted to go with Vista, but the fact that the Cisco VPN client doesn't run makes that impossible for the moment.

I still have a ton of software to install but I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Frog Pad update.
I used the frog pad exclusively last week, I also swapped to using a conventional typing tutor (Stamina). I'm now up to about 20 words a minute and I can see getting to 30+ with enough practice. I'd recomend Stamina to anyone looking for a typing tutor.
I still can't see using the frog pad for programming, it's a pity there is no way around the sticky symbol key that would likely be enough to make it viable.

Frog Pad.

After my last post I decided to try out a frog pad. It's a one handed input device consisting of 3 rows of 5 keys and 5 additional 'modifier' keys. There is one primary 'modifier' key used to extend the basic key set, and 4 that primarilly toggle the current input mode.
The basic layout is relatively intuitive, and even with the cording I was able to hit 10 words a minute inside an hours practice. However I haven't gotten much faster since, I suspect this is a result of not using it exclusively. I'm going to give exclusivity a shot this week.


Even without the week of practice, it's fairly obvious the frog pad will be a lousy input device for programming, both numbers and symbols are accessed via mode changes. Where as the normal shift key returns to a normal input state after a single additional key press, the symbol and number keys toggle in and out of the modes. While this makes some sense for numbers since it is common to type more than one, I fail to see where this is the case for symbols, either in regular text input or while programming.

Life repetitive strain injuries, and ergonomic keyboards.
I've been having shoulder problems while working for a while now, so I finally went to see a Doctor about it. It wasn't a real shock when the doctor diagnosed a host of RSI related issues, I've been pretty consciously living denial about most of them for a while now.
The Doctor making it official did make me decide to so something about it, so I'm seeing a physical therapist, and doing my stretches like a good patient, and I figured I should try and make my workspace (at home and work) more ergonomic.
Now I don't actually type very well, I taught myself 20 odd years ago, I don't use home keys, and although my speed is OK my accuracy has always been abysmal. Because of my somewhat unique typing style where hands wonder to both sides of the keyboard, I've always hated split keyboards, but now I've finally decided I'll make the effort and re-learn to type to reduce the strain on my wrists and shoulders.
So I started looking at various ergonomic keyboard options and I was somewhat surprised to find how limited the variation and selection is and how expensive they are (not a price sensitive market I guess). There were also no real studies on what's good and what's not. Pretty much anything it seems can be called an ergonomic keyboard.
It seems to me looking at the mechanics involved, I want something with a relatively steep angle between the split halves and yet relatively few keyboards seem to support this, so either I'm completely off base, different to everyone else or ergonomic keyboards are for the most part useless for my wrist problems.
Of course I have to learn to type all over on whatever keyboard I get, so foreign or extreme layouts, don't put me off the same way they might someone who is trying to avoid problems and already types adequately.
I ended up buying a Comfort keyboard http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,115946-page,1/article.html, and I'll see how it goes. At least if my theory about wanting higher angle of split turns out to be totally off base I can arrange it in a more conventional way.

I was also surprised at the lack of real alternatives to conventional keyboards there were a couple of cording keyboards, and the data-hand, that looked pretty interesting, but looking at the manuals they were very heavily optimized for text entry, which to me seems to make them next to useless for programming.

I understand how it's hard to sell a none conventional keyboard but I would have thought that with computers being commonplace in the workplace now and the associated growing problem with RSI and related issues, there would be some real effort put into finding workable alternatives. Maybe there is and it's just not well publicized.

Asus Pundit P1-AH

As I mentioned in a previous post, I bought one of these as a second media PC. Recycling bits and pieces I had lying around, it was probably < $500 total.

The design of the Pundit is really slick, all the cables are exactly the right length, it takes one hard drive and an optical drive, and you'd be hard pressed to put it together in an untidy fashion. The case itself is small, about the size of a 360 but deeper. It uses a PCI riser, to provide 2 fullsized PCI cards, ideal for TV tuners. It has decent on board video and audio assuming your using it as a HTPC and not a game machine. The front bezel is pretty cheap looking, but all in all it's pretty much everything I want in a HTPC, with one exception.....

What idiot thought it was a good idea to put the SPDIF connector on the front of the case behind the pop down door. Every other connector you would need for a HTPC is on the back, but to plug it into a reciever I have to leave the flap open and run a cable from the front of the case... AHHH!

Thoughts on Linux

Every couple of years, I install linux and play with it for a while.
The hacker in me likes the idea of an alternative operating system, and I've always been a bit of unix fan.

So I recently purchased a second media PC, and I thought I'd set Myth up on it as a comparison to MCE.

The one thing I always seem to forget when I setup Linux is that you have to plan in advance and buy hardware that has good support. This time was no exception and I bought an Asus P1-AH1, which is relatively new and although the NVidia 6150 was supported, I had all sorts of problems with the audio part, although the latest ALSA drivers do mostly work.

Now it's been a while since I last installed linux, so I looked at a number of different distros. I started with Gentoo, which really is a hackers only apply distro. The nice thing about the distro is that it has excellent documentation and the Wiki has walkthroughs on most interesting problems. The walkthroughs often aren't complete enough to solve the specific issue, but there are usually enough clues in them to allow you to trouble shoot your issue.

I had Gentoo mostly working, but I had some issues with 64 bit binaries, notably the lack of a flash player. So I decided to try a 32 bit install and swapped distros to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is at the other end of the spectrum, install is painless and when your done, you have no source and not even a C compiler installed. Since I was having issues with my audio, and needed to rebuild the latest Alsa drivers, I had to install all the dev related stuff anyway.

Having gotten everything working I was actually of the opinion that Ubuntu is actually more work than Gentoo, if the distro doesn't have binaries that will work for you.

So I reinstalled Gentoo, this time the 32 bit version, everthing is woking, but I now have performance issues with video playback, I'll track them down later....

Overall linux is much as I remember it, I'll still be running windows on my main machine.

New Project

I've just moved on to a new project, for the first time in probably 8 or 9 years it's a PC title. Not that I'm directly involved in the tech on this one since I'm on the gameplay side of things.

I'm always in two minds about this, I like working on the core tech side and frankly your contributions are more noticed by both consumers and management (which is good when review time comes around). But I do like working with designers to build the experience people actually play. I've always considered core tech a service industry, but it's surprising how many people value it for its own sake.

Thoughts on HTPC's

I've been using a couple of Momitsu V880N network DVD players, to watch streamed video, and I've been generally very pleased with the results. However I occasionally get issues with some video material, and the interface is clunky, so I decided to build myself an HTPC.

There were a few things that concerned me about the HTPC when I built it, noise was the primary concern followed by form factor. I went out of my way ordering passively cooled parts where possible, and ended up selecting a fullsized case to save having to worry about cards fitting. In the end noise was a none issue, the loudest thing in the case is its primary harddrive (an 80gb WD raptor I had lying around), and the size isn't too bad, although I'd prefer it if the case was not so deep.

I put the machine together 6 or 7 weeks ago now, and I haven't touched the Momitsu since. I'm using Windows Media Center as my front end and I have to say it just works. For the most part it's an excellent experience, it feels like a piece of CE gear rather than a PC.

My only gripes are with the TV support, having seen MS' attempts at TIVO functionality on set top boxes I wasn't expecting very much, but I have to say the TIVO side of MCE is excellent. What isn't is the inability to watch all my cable channels, OK so this isn't exactly MS' fault, the cable box is just a pain in the ass. Having said that they could do better, MCE has no QAM support, even for the unencrypted channels.

I live in a valley, I get no OTA HDTV reception (actually I can get one channel), I have a QAM tuner card, and I can get HD versions of ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX unencrypted over cable. I can watch them in the software supplied by the board vendor, just not in media center.

Vista is supposed to fix this with support for cable cards, but the latest on that rumor is that you will not be able to buy cable card adapters for PC's, only buy approved PC's with cable card slots.

It's a pity that the cable or satellite guys can't get it sorted out with MS or whoever. I believe that a properly packaged media center device has a real market, but not while they are crippled and tied to cable boxs.

HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray.

I am the prototypical early adopter, I bought a DVD player when there were 10 titles available, I own 1000+DVD's and I won't buy either format. The fact is I desperately want a Hi-def video format, I've seen both and although HD-DVD looks better right now, they both look good and I'd take either one. I'd even pay the $1000 to buy a Blu-Ray player right now if it were the only format available.

While there is a chance that the software I buy will be useless in a few years, I will not jump even if players drop to $200.

All this format war accomplishes IMO is reducing the chance that either format will gain widespread acceptance. I'll continue watching DVD's until it's clear that there is a winner.

Spiralling costs of game development.

There has been a lot of discussion by various parties on the expected increase in cost of game development on the "next generation" platforms.

A good current gen title developed by an external developer is probably in the $5-$10 million range, and some of the larger companies are spending $30-$50 million internally on what they consider to be potential AAA titles.

The first thing to note here is the cost disparity between internally developed and externally developed titles (although it's not an apples to apples comparison), this exists for a whole host of reasons. External developers are more focused on development, they have to work much more closely within budgets, larger franchises are usually developed internally, internal teams have more management overhead and have to deal with much greater scrutiny, typically internal teams are larger, which leads to significant development issues.

So why develop product internally rather than externally? The argument has always been that you have greater quality control on internal product. How much that really reflects in real shipping quality is somewhat debatable. The other less often mentioned reason is that you have greater control over the money you spend, If a publisher spends a million dollars externally, he has no real guarantee that the money won't be used to bail out some other publishers title rather than being spent on his.

I've built a lot of games over the years and frankly ignoring the issue of parallelism (which is another blog) the technology problems are well understood. If anything it's gotten easier to write systems like graphics engine runtimes than it was in the PS1/N64 days.

So why are products going to get more expensive?
It's largely to do with the scale of the content. Consumers have continually rising expectations from a game, and those expectations dictate a certain quality level and quantity of content.

Given that project durations aren't getting longer that means more people, unfortunately a lot of existing technology is simply not well designed for very large teams. The problems with putting 100 content people on a system designed with 5 in mind are significant.

I've worked on legacy code bases in teams of 20+ engineers, where the majority of engineering time is spent propping up the technology and tools as the content teams try to work with continually broken builds.

The solution is changing the way we develop, putting real infastructure and process in place, designing patterns for problems that scale. But I don't see it happening anytime soon, a lot of the scalable and robust patterns go against the cycle counting/to the metal mindset that still exists in console game development. There is nothing wrong with this mindset and at some level it's a necessity for technical excellence, but with very large teams you can't focus on it to the exclusion of everything else.