Bearstalk

Here we go, fresh off the bye week, looking to extend to a 4-game winning streak, something we haven't seen with this team since Lovie's last season. In Miami, hot weather, tropical storm coming through before the game (hopefully it doesn't linger). Miami has lost their last two games 65-24 (NE and CIN), so we should have some chances on both sides of the ball. Ironically, our last two games, we have outscored opponents 64-24. Their leading rusher is Frank Gore, in sort of a 2-headed monster setup with Drake. Neither are very effective. Leading receivers are Stills and Wilson. Tannehill has 5 INTs, has been sacked 11 times and has lost 3 fumbles. Mack should h…

Chicago Bears linebacker Khalil Mack was named NFC Defensive Player of the Month after completely wrecking the Buccaneers o-line play after play Sunday. The defensive end once again stuffed the stat sheet, compiling four tackles, one sack, one QB hit, one tackle for loss, one pass defended, and a forced fumble. His play was even more impressive than the numbers. Mack discombobulated the entire Bucs offense with unrelenting pressure. The Defensive Player of the Year frontrunner is worth every penny for the NFC North-leading Bears. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/khalil-mack-named-nfc-defensive-player-month http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000969926/artic…

This from King's FMIA: " Looks bad for the Packers. So hurt, and so reliant on the quarterback who clearly is not whole." Oh, wa, wa wa. Poor Puckers. Who cried for us the last few years when injuries destroyed? My wish is that they linger in limbo for years with Rodgers. We've got the D to make him nuts now. So, Mr. King, don't expect me or other Bears fans to feel the least bit of sympathy. Be aware: these Bears are FOR REAL!

According to Nagy, we're in a "good spot at LG" with Kush and Daniels but we just signed a guy who played for two years in KC but has otherwise bounced around the league. Roster moves: The Bears on Monday officially placed outside linebacker Sam Acho on injured reserve and signed offensive lineman Bryan Witzmann.

With the GB loss, Bears are guaranteed to go into Week 6 with 1st Place in the Division. Hilarious that Crosby missed 4 FG's and an XP (13 pts) and they only lost by 8.

So if my understanding is correct, tomorrow is the day the NFL can announce a change for the Bears vs Pats game to be moved to prime time Sunday night. Any chance they do?

Bears 16-0, Super Bowl Champs! that is all

Good News for the Bears: Akiem Hicks fined following ejection Sunday against Buccaneers.

Credit to Andrew Link over at WCG for the excellent film breakdown. Pretty much everyone credited Trubisky's 6 TD performance to the Buccaneers poor defense, to the point Jared Goff was named NFL Offensive Player of the Week. On a week where Trubisky threw 5 TDs in the first half alone that's telling about how biased people are. People say that Goff did it against he Vikings but four games into the season that defense is ranked 20th in yds/game and 27th in yards per play, 30th in NetYards/pass play. Yes, Tampa is worse but statistically there was not some huge chasm between the defenses Goff and Trubisky faced. Watch the film breakdown and it's clear Tru…

Every time I see him play, and every time I read more about him the more impressed I get. Mack has only been with the Bears a month. That's barely enough time to know most players by their first name. Yet here he is taking the time in practice to give pointers to a young Rashaad Coward on what he needs to do to stop his pass rush. I don't care what Gruden does with our first round picks we won this trade hands down. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/trial-fire-how-khalil-mack-helping-bears-right-tackle-rashaad-coward-learn-new-position “Once you go against guys like that, anybody else is like — I don’t want to say a cakewalk, but they’re not going t…

Here is a quick look at how are rookies are doing so far: Smith - 15 solo tackles (2nd on team), 1 sack, 1 PD, played in a team-high 81% of defensive team snaps vs TB. He is clearly getting more and more playing time, and he is nowhere near his peak yet. Just think about it, no one is even talking about him because guys like Jackson, Hicks, Trevathan, Callahan, and of course Mack are playing great. Daniels - rotated with Kush in TB game, looks like he is ready for prime time. He seeks contact like a vulture. He wants to hit people and is very athletic and strong. A great combination for our OLine. He has to be starting coming out of the bye. Miller - 8 rec, 60 y…

I seen where Charles Leno has only gives up 4 pressures this year, no sacks , no QB hits. He has played Matthews, Jones and Jason Pier-Paul, I would have to say he has done well. Blair Nichols, RHH, Bullard, and Arron Lynch are good players. Goldman, Mack are studs, Smith and Floyd have played well. We have a lot to look forward to on the D.

Gotta love the national media. We are now in the top 10 of most power rankings and our odds to make the playoffs is 3rd best in the league (behind LAR and KC). According to DVOA, we have the best defense in the league (by far) and the 2nd best team overall. We only have 3 games against teams that are in the top half of the league (LAR, GB, and NE). Those are ironically all home games, and the Rams is December 9th (Bear weather).

Wow. Let's start at the top with Trubisky. He had time to throw and took full advantage of it dropping passes into the right location play after play. Numbers aside, he's still got room to grow but the most important aspect for me was seeing him confident in the pocket with his reads. Regardless of pass rush or not he looked like he knew where he should go with the ball on each play. With that confidence he finally showed he can "throw guys open" like on that beautiful tear-drop pass to Robinson in the endzone. Oline: They did a great job in pass protection today. Run blocking wasn't so good but it was good enough to keep the threat of runs realistic. …

Peter-MR PACKER KISSER-King said it in FMIA (https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/10/01/fmia-week-4-quarter-pole-nfl-peter-king/?cid=nbcsports): "10. Chicago got its first big game from Mitchell Trubisky, and look out if it’s the first of many. The six-touchdown-pass masterstroke to rout Tampa Bay on Sunday was so different from Trubisky’s first three mediocre games. Coach Matt Nagy told me: “The teaching moment for me this week was just letting Mitch know that no matter what happens, we are all in his corner.” Something worked. Trubisky had five touchdown passes by halftime. If Trubisky is even a B-minus QB the rest of the way, this defense is going to make the 3-1…

Torn pectoral muscle. https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bears-sam-acho-out-for-season/ Who gets the call? Irving or Fitts? I think it will be Irving. Fitts needs a lot of work on his pass rushing moves.

I completely missed that James Daniels was on the field for about half the offensive snaps. Brad Biggs has a nice summary of it. http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-bears-10-thoughts-brad-biggs-buccaneers-20181001-story.html That might be the first time I've ever seen an Oline rotate guards throughout a game. It will be interesting to see where we go from here after the bye week. This draft class looks better each week: Roquan starter, Daniels (soon to be starter?), Miller (starter), Iggy (backup/special teams), Nichols (already in Dline rotation), Fitts (inactive), Wims (will he take Kevin White's snaps soon?)

Strength vs Strength, Our Defense vs Their Offense I think this comes down to which Fitzpatrick shows up. He started to turn the ball over last week, which bodes well for us. However, Fitz has over double the passing yards than Trubisky in the same amount of games and only 6 more completions. 410 passing yards per game seems unsustainable, so Fitz should trend down from that high. Our offense will need to score more than 16 to win. Bears 24-20

Any news on the severity of Miller's shoulder injury? I'm a little worried since he missed his 2014 college season due to a similar injury. Very curious why he was back on the field if he actually had separated it. That play where he re-injured it looked very innocent. I hope the Bears and Miller didn't take a 1-2 week injury and make it a season ending injury. If they did, we better hope that Wims / White have some game in them because I haven't seen a ton of out this receiving corps yet.

I read this article and then looked at some stats to see where we fall. It's the end of the first quarter of the season so at this point things are leveling off and we can draw some conclusions from the numbers. https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/bears/bears-prove-they-have-nfls-best-defense-win-over-tampa-bay Bears defensive rankings (others are from highest to lowest i.e. #1, #2): yards/gm 4th behind Jax, Baltimore, Washington pts/gm 4th behind Jax, Washington, Baltimore INTs 2nd with 8 behind Miami with 9. Jax has 1, Bal 4, Wash 3 FF 1st with 8. Jax has 2, Wash 1, Bal 2 Sacks 1…