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What does this even mean on a discussion board?!

When he goes from one of the top WRs to a lackluster last year it is fair to question his work ethic, ,maturity, and his love of football. With all the off season investigation they do to vent a prospect, I trust that is it not a problem going forward. George Pickens was a good WR but considered a head case. I think the team choose carefully when they drafted him.

Back to Luther Burden. I've read several articles lately that talk about why he fell to the second round. One article claims that he was consistently last in line to take reps on practice. Another said that he is pouty and/or mopey and coaches and other players had to help get his head straight. I'm not sure if it's boredom, maturity or physiological. Here's to hoping that a pro environment eliminates all doubt.

these days are about learning the playbook, making connections with other players and communication between coaches and players. You can see how they move, understanding the process and mental reps. When pads go on, then the dirty works goes in play but this is a valuable part of the process also.

He has yet to address this, he is not going around pushing this book. His dad is and the media are. Any talk of not wanting to not play for the Bears was very early in the process and when he met Poles at Hallas Hall, he bought into playing here. This is a nonstory because he doesnt feel that way now. This is media blowing everything up. Him watching tape by himself is taken to mean he didnt have any coaching which is not true. Good QBs do that all the time. The writer is pushing certain narratives to sell the book. Now the coaching was bad but it doesnt mean they didnt try to help him.

It remains to be seen what good play calling effect has on our OL. If the ball is coming out quicker, the OL will look much better. We upgraded the talent and I think overlooked, is the leadership that Thuney-Dalman bring to the overall performance of the offense. We question everything because of the history of this team but I think we are underestimating what this will look like as a whole. We have more weapons, coaching that has completely changed the outcome. Time to jump on board instead of still questioning everything.

There is a lot of data on Johnson, it just depends on how you want to skin the cat. The obvious thing is it will be basically impossible to be worse than last year, and just based on normal trends, the Bears should see a 12-15% bump in all offensive statistical categories (Yardage, scoring, EPA/P, etc), if not more. I am thinking closer to 20% because the 2024 Bears were really bad. Johnson has the 2nd highest Success Rate for a play caller since 2020 at 43.38%, behind Monken, but Monken got a lot of that from Lamar's scrambles. Either way, the Bears are going to be ahead of the sticks. We are so used to playing from behind the sticks. This will feel weird. For Scoring%, the Lions are 2nd in the NFL in scoring rate over the last 3 seasons at 45.1%, only 0.3% behind BUF. CHI has been a raw 10% lower, or close to a 25% difference. Last year DET was 51.6%, which was the highest rate going back to 2020. So combined, no team has been more efficient moving the ball AND scoring over the last few years than Johnson's offense. Another wild one is that Goff got better under Johnson than he was with McVay. McVay needed Stafford. Goff went up over 6% on comp% and 5% on catchable ball rate, and a whole bunch of raw stats increased (TDs up, INTs down, QB Rating up).

I agree with the second half of this, but im not sure how you can hire someone to watch film with you, if what was missing was the rationale for the week's gameplan. Youd need someone who understood it to point it out? A third party wouldnt know that? But then again, maybe there WAS no coherent offensive strategy. Maybe the didnt teach it because they didnt have one - just a collection of plays, but no real strategy. I am pretty sure Calebs comments about Flus and Waldron occurred before Ben Johnson was hired? The guy writing the book is why it's back in the press. Caleb isnt talking about it now? I agree with you about Calebs decision making last year too. Hopefully thats an area where Ben Johnson can really bring Caleb along. BUt i think the film watching that was missing wasnt regular generalized film watching, but rather a cohesive plan from the coaches that the offense could execute. That's how I read it anyway. Thank god those guys are gone!

agree a lot of it is his dad. and some of it was how unprofessional the coaching was last year too. I guess Caleb did let some inside stuff out. I am SO glad to hear players are getting chewed out. LOVE accountability. And I know, we have to see it on the field, but it sure seems like we arent going to be clowns like we usually are. At least we will be a pro football team. I'm excited too!

If Caleb is what we've been told he is he wouldn't be out there pushing books and making excuses for his poor play because of his coaches. I watched several players in yesterday's press conference get asked pointed questions about the previous coaching and each of them declined. Tremaine Edmunds simply said he didn't want to talk about who was here last year but he's happy to about who is here this year and what we're doing now. Waldron was horrible at his job. It seemed each week we had at least one play where 3 receivers were at the same area of the field. The play calling didn't fit the game situations too often. Seeing how discombobulated the team was run on game days it's not a surprise that Flus nor Waldron had someone assigned to "setup" film for Caleb. That's the kind of stuff Quality control coaches do or some other entry level coach. But Caleb has a lot of connections he could have found help if he wanted it. If his father was so concerned to make sure his son was going to succeed why didn't he hire some help for Caleb? Can't make a call to Lincoln Riley for a reference? No call to the former OC, who is now in Washington helping Jayden Daniels, asking for a referral? We know Caleb has Tom Brady's phone number. I'm actually 100% confident Caleb knows how to watch film and knows how to read defenses because I saw it often last year, both pre-snap and post-snap. Was he making the right decisions all the time? Absolutely not because he'd bypass the easy gain and look for the big play quite often. Or he relied on Keenan ... a lot. What I want from him is leadership. If I were his teammate I'd be wondering if he'll be talking about me in his book next year. I want him out in front of this. I want to know if he's just a fair weather guy who mopes about and makes excuses and blames other if things don't go his way or can he handle the storm, and the media heat, and lead this team out of a rut when things go wrong.

I think the reality is more of this is via Caleb’s dad than via him. But I have seen a few quotes from camp about Ben Johnson ripping Kmet a new one for lining up in wrong position etc. Evidently he did same to Caleb for a big play that worked but was not the right decision. I LOVE it. For years Bears coaches and players were too soft - they need someone with a totally different standard. Bears evidently also did some 6 on 7 today which is not something they have done regularly. This forces Caleb to be even sharper with his reads and throws since defense has more numbers. Again I love it. I’ve told myself I won’t get too excited without seeing real production on field - but dang it I can’t help myself.

Kiran Armadgie got the reps with the ones. Thuney said he enjoys being next to him, he is very smart. Odunze is leaving a great impression on Ben Johnson. He said he acts like a seasoned vet and has been making some nice deep catches.

Agreed, they have a beast of an OL. That's why I didn't include them.

I am sure Williams knows how to watch tape generically. I'm sure he can look at generic film, and tell you everything just like J T O'Sullivan or Kurt Warner does. I took Williams meaning differently. I took him to mean that they weren't watching film on the defense of that week's opponent while relating that to the week's gameplan. For example, if the OC sees that a certain LBer always shades inside vs the TE against a certain offensive alignment, the OC might call some plays where the TE runs a quick out, accompanied by a WR running a go route on that side to drag defenders out of the area for the TE underneath. So he puts in the play. Does he tell Caleb, hey we see the LB leaning pre sanp so thats why were calling this play? Does he show him on film what the reasoning behind including this play is in the week's game plan? Or does he just tell Caleb, "learn this play, run it when we call it, the TE is read #1" and leave it at that. Because if he doesn't explain it, and Caleb comes to the line with that LB shading outside for once, he should know that the theory of the play means the gambit is off. Maybe, it makes Caleb more likely to audible to a run offtackle to the strong side so the TE has a good blocking angle on the shaded LB. So either 1) Caleb is a baby who cant read generic film, like identifying defenses and needs his hand held, and should have hired someone to do it, and is ridiculous for criticizing how he was developed by the fine staff of Eberflus and Waldron OR 2) Caleb is telling you something real, because he's the #1 pick QB who knows a shit ton about football, and it trying to tell you that Flus and Waldron did a crap job of teaching him, and preparing him for each week to understand the intention of the game plan. And what we saw is that there was no game plan in the first place. If it really was Caleb, and they thought Waldron was doing a great job of putting everyone in the best place to succeed, then he wouldnt have gotten fired so early in the season. They didn't develop Caleb. It's actually shocking. Waldron and Eberflus were complete frauds as OC and HC. I cant wait to see Johnson and Williams prove it to everyone.

This is the big question. What does gaining or losing Johnson do for an offense? adam, knowing your penchant for numbers, I wonder if there is a "Ben Johnson" multiplier, on various stats, that can be measured after this coming season? I know there are a ton of little things that swamp out being able to attribute the Bears' and Lions' offensive changes in fortune over last year to just Ben Johnson, but PFF does it so why cant we? LOL

I thought he was omitting OL altogether and stating they had Gibbs, Williams, and either (LaPorta/St. Brown) as mismatch players? For OL, Sewell and Decker are clearly better on the outside, but on the interior, they lost Zietler, so it would seem that Dalman+Thuney+Jackson has the edge over Ragnow+Glasgow+Ratledge at this moment. Also, how will Detroit's offense look without Johnson and the coaches that left?

Which three are you counting? Decker, Ragnow, and Sewell? If so, I’d say you can’t discount Glasgow either. Oh, and BTW, Ratledge is going to a monster in that grouping. They might have an entire OL of mismatch players.

The only statement I saw was that Caleb said no one from the team "told him what to watch". That doesn't mean he doesn't know "how" to watch tape or that he didn't.

No, as far I can tell, that is only for the offseason 90-man roster, which the league gives exemptions for international players (1 per roster).

Caleb has millions of dollars and has for many years. There is nothing stopping him from hiring a former QB or two to assist him in watching film since he feels this is so challenging.

Tory Taylor was designated as an international player,does that open a slot when setting game day actives?

Right. If he makes the jump, you have to consider resigning him. The other two LTs will sort themselves into roles if they are good.

I think the Bears are a year away from an all-in type of move and it feels like they will want to shape the roster more to Johnson's liking. and they also have to be 100% Caleb is the guy for Johnson's offense.