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yes its sloppy and undisciplined. Its not fun to see. Johnson needs to keep kicking asses. And its possible that some players need to be replaced next year too. Not saying who, just they will do whatever it takes until this team is good. On the same thread, I was surprised to see Henry score near the end, when he should have gone down just shy of the goal line to eat more clock.

BINGO! Every damn person with the Bears thinks they’re the smartest guy in the room. They reach. They trade. They go with “their” BPA 🙄 And the whole time everyone else is screaming otherwise. 90% of the fans say something different. Like this year with OT, DE, and RB. So what do the Bears do? TE and WR. 🤦🏻‍♂️ This has happened for literal decades now. I have said this for many years in a row: True BPA is stupid. You don’t draft Marino if you have Montana. At a certain point you must draft for need. It’s 100% necessary because a team is only as strong as its weakest link. The Bears should focus on huge names for football powerhouse programs, especially with a history of pumping out studs at a specific position. Want a WR? Start with Bama or LSU players. Want OL? Maybe focus on a kid from Iowa who throws hay bails for fun. It’s really not that difficult. That strategy may not find the hidden gems, but it’s got a lot better chance of avoiding catastrophe. But you do you, Poles. Cut Kmet at the end of the year and find another Shaheen.🙄

Both Caleb and DJ not running out of bounds when they could gained like 4 yards but took 40+ seconds off the clock when time was more important than yardage. Between net yards lost on penalties and special teams the Bears would be 6-1 right now, and the DET game would've been a lot closer.

Holy crap, how bad have the penalties for and against been? The worst since at least 2009. I could not find another team within -10 yards per game. The Bears are -39.9 YPG in penalty differential. The worst team since 2009 was 2017 SEA with -29.0 YPG. Just think about those numbers, 32 teams x 17 seasons, and the Bears are 544 out of 544 in Penalty Yard Net Differential. It is actually a miracle this team is 4-3.

The Bears are getting screwed at an unprecedented rate this year. The bigger number is the Bears have a net -279 yards on penalties. The 2nd and 3rd worst teams in the NFL COMBINED do have that many negative net yards (DEN -142, JAX -134 = -276). The Rams on the flip side have a net positive of +209, so there are 488 yards difference between the Bears and Rams on just penalties, which equates to roughly 50 POINTS!

yes, and you can bet BJ is well aware of it too! I think we will be fine, in time, but after the experience weve all had for the last 30 years, I get why people think "Oh no not again!" but I do see significant differences with Caleb and of course with Johnson.

Caleb has a lot to grow yet, no doubt. But we also see flashes that prove he CAN do it. The first couple drives this week stalled out in the red zone, but we all saw the offense working in rhythm, and weve seen it throughout the year. The problem is consistency. And that includes all the things Mongo detailed at the start of this thread. They all need work. But it's not like he cant do it - he just inst doing it consistently. Some of it is on penalties, some is on the other players, and some is on Caleb. But if you just look for flashes, every sign points that Caleb CAN do this. And I believe Ben Johnson is his best shot to get to where he is going. If you look at Goff's first 8 games with BJ (after he had already been a good NFL QB for several years) the numbers are strikingly similar to Caleb's. If people want to say that Caleb right now is not good enough I completely agree. But I think his future is very different than other QBs weve had here. Caleb shows flashes every week. Thats what this season is for - to develop consistency, and to face issues and then work on them until he cant be beaten that way anymore. I would still take Caleb over any other QB from his years draft. Not for where he is right now, but for where he is going. It is going to take some patience.

Thru 7 games, Williams has more passing yards than Allen, Goff, Stroud, Tua, Rodgers, Geno, and Lawrence.

I would hope they would make some adjustments, and not having to worry as much about the scrambling QB, so the LBs can drop back deeper into the zones should help.

I will have to take a look at the splits. It is crazy how 2-3 plays can change an entire game good or bad.

Especially with two elite wide ups going against our preseason #5-7 dbs (JJ/Gordon/Stevenson/Smith out). Hopefully Stevenson somehow is back and healthy.

This. FWIW, Flacco led the Browns to defeat the Packers on week three of this year. Flacco was traded to Cincy 5 days and made the starter before he met the Packers again but wasn't able to pull of the win (losing 18-27). I'd make the case the Cincy's offense is better than Baltimore's - position wise. It appears the Bengals and Ravens may have swapped out on who has the worse defense. Right now Cincinnati is ranked 32nd overall, 31st against the pass and 30th against the run.

Red Zone efficiency is probably the entire difference between first few weeks and last few weeks in all honesty.

Caleb is part of the problem but there has also been plenty of good too. He has to be better and more confident throwing guys open and getting through his progresssions but he has had his positives too and has massively reduced his sack rate. The whole offense continues to false start (literally and figuratively). Too many mistakes between penalties, drops and poor execution too - in particular in red zone. Even mediocre red zone execution and we are having a different story. I expect to see real progress these next few weeks. Let’s see Bears dig deep and grow vs wilt!!!

Especially bad when he’s in front of his family and friends in Maryland. He definitely needs to be coached hard and I think we have the right guy to do it. For Baltimore that was a playoff game yesterday. We didn’t come prepared.

Week 8 Tankathon Standings. 1. NO 1-7 2. NYJ 1-7 3. TEN 1-7 ------------ 4. CLE 2-6 5. MIA 2-6 6. NYG 2-6 7. BAL 2-5 8. LVR 2-5 9. ARZ 2-5 10. CIN 3-5 17. CHI 4-3 The Bears are trending to draft between 10-18 right now, with 14 as the median.

To start a career, thru their first 24 games, there are 3 QBs in NFL history with over 5K Passing Yards, 25 Passing TDs, and 10 or fewer INTs, Caleb Williams, CJ Stroud, and Dak Prescott. If you add 500 Rushing Yards, Caleb is the only one left. For how bad Caleb was sacked last year, he is now 10th for sack rate (worst being 1st) from 2024-2025. Drake Maye has a higher sack rate, and he is 0.5 from Daniels, who is 11th. That is a promising stat, because he was taking too many sacks last year.

This should be fun. Caleb Williams needs to grow the F up. He showed me too many plays yesterday that showed prophetic to his draft critics. For starters, his head clock is killing him. His feet get happy too soon and inaccuracy follows. I don't see him as the guy that's willing to take the extra millisecond and take a hit. If he is willing, the flight mechanism is overriding his intent. You could clearly see that, especially the sidearm throw to DJ in the end zone. He saw it and nuked the throw in a rush. Cooler QB's loft it out there. Situational awareness needs to be a huge trait of a QB. Caleb showed me several times that he doesn't get it. He cost us time by not running out of bounds, when he clearly could have.(You too DJ) He got a grounding penalty instead of throwing the deep out that was coming open on the same side of the field. As the QB, he knew the route Rome was running. If it wasn't there, throw high. There was another dump off to the left that could have been called grounding. What he missed was Loveland running free toward that area with room to make a huge play. There was also a third and nine play with a five yard pass to a receiver that was bracketed. The worst of them all was the three second stare down to Rome that the DB was waiting to pick. He didn't look for anyone else that play. It was very high school. At some point, Caleb's wild spirit has to be broken to the point that he's willing to run the offense without the things that are costing him to play poorly. Yesterday's game was a pure indicator of the value of the turnovers we were getting. I'm sure the Bengals have taken note. For the life of me, I don't understand why he always has to do that jump throw to the sideline when he's evading pressure to the right. It simply doesn't work as often as he would like. Just run the damn ball and pick up a few yards. Do I believe Caleb was the most talented player in his class? Absolutely! Maye was my first choice and it had nothing to do with talent. Maye had been competing and learning how to overcome adversity since he was in diapers. There wasn't a person in his family that he didn't have to struggle to beat. I wanted the competitor over the talent. They look too be wired differently. When Maye talks, it's quickly and sure. When Caleb talks it's umm umm. I never liked that trait. The good ones never stammer. I'll wait to see if someone knows one. Trust me, the traits I speak of aren't always a sign and it's simply what I like. And I'm wrong as much as anyone. Growing pains are what they are. Sometimes you see growth and sometimes they just hurt. Caleb has time, but needs to realize what he's doing and what it means on every play. Caleb is our guy and I like him very much. Hopefully, he grows quickly so we can see what he's meant to be.

Should TB consider a QB change? Mayfield only had 152 Passing Yards, 0 TD, and 3 sacks against the lowly Saints. In the game before that, he had 228 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT, and 4.6 Y/A against DET. It is actually quite ironic how close Caleb's numbers are to Baker's (outside of Mayfield's crazy number of attempts) against these two teams: Baker - 43-74, 58.1%, 380 yds, 5.1 Y/A, 1 TD, 1 INT, 7 sacks Caleb - 34-56, 60.7%, 379 yds, 6.8 Y/A, 2 TD, 2 INT, 5 sacks Williams - 13th Passing Yards Per Game, 20th in QB Rating, 9th in Y/A, 21st in Sacks

I think Huntley proved just how bad our secondary is now, with the injuries taking out all of our top CBs. Flacco cannot be dismissed. With Chase and Higgins against our CBs, if they play as badly as they did against Baltimore, Flacco could easily give us another loss.

The 2023 Browns Flacco took care of the Bears. With little pass rush and 2-3rd string DBs, Chase and Higgens could have a huge game.

The Bears open up as 1.5 favorites on the road against the Flacco-led Bengals. The Bengals just lost 39-38 to the lowly Jets, which followed allowing 31, 27, 37, 28, 48, and 27 since Week 2. So no team has scored less than 27 against the Bengals since the Browns in Week 1. So this has to be the breakout game for Williams. Anything less than 27 pts on offense and a solid passing game overall, will be a failure. I am losing faith in the defense that allowed 30 to Huntley, but think the defense rebounds enough for a Bears win 31-20.

Here is a graph of Caleb's Comp%, QB Rating, and QBR. I will add PFF Grades once this week's grades are out. To me, this looks like he is regressing across the board. With 7 games, you can take out the middle game, which was right before the bye, and assess in 2x 3-game increments. In his first 3 games, he had 7 TD-1 INT, with 3 games at or above average. Then in his last 3, he has 1 TD, 2 INTs and 2 of the 3 lowest graded weeks this season.

Some of what I saw from him yesterday was concerning and some not so. It appeared that about midway through the game he was doing 2 pt reads and only looking at half the field. I’d imagine that could be by design and that Johnson wants him to learn how to read the field more thoroughly or it’s just that Williams isn’t able to process it all. Later in the game, during garbage time, they put him into a two minute offense mode and he seemed to do better. Although then he was trying to push it to other receivers like Zaccheus and I believe Duverney and still missing. I’m always a fan of faster offense so maybe this is what they do more of?

I listened to a podcast where they discussed Caleb being the wrong QB for the BJ system. They talk about Caleb being a creator and not fitting a system type QB. They used McVay going after Stafford, and trading Goff to Detroit. Goff is highly successful in the system. Is that the situation here? I think Caleb is a talented QB that can play in any system but I dont see him getting better at this point of the season. During the game the announcers showed a stat where Caleb holds the ball the longest of any starting QBs in the league 3.07 seconds. How long will it take him to do the little things like being accurate, making the right decisions when under pressure. A simple thing like running out of bounds late in the game, instead he tried to gain more yds. Throwing in to double coverage to his favorite WR (Rome) instead of a different player open over the middle. I think his problems are mental and am waiting for the moment he becomes the #1 pick QB I expect him to be.