Bearstalk

Early Line has Bears favored by 1 or a PK, depending on the sportsbook. JAX is 1-4, defense allowed 34, 24, and 47 their last 3 games. They barely beat a Flacco led Colts without Taylor. The Jags offense got going with 37 pts. This is going to be a close game, but I am going with 24-20 Bears going into the bye at 4-2. The Bears defense is the best unit amongst both teams.

So if the season ended today, the Bears are WC3:

So this guy got 1 target and 1 reception in Week 1. Even with that week of low usage, he still is 5th amongst TEs in receptions and yards, 3rd for 1st Downs, and has the highest Catch Rate amongst the top 20 TEs this season. He is 8th in AAV for his contract amongst TEs, only 500K more than Friermuth. It feels like the Bears got a very solid deal with Kmet who is signed thru 2027. His cap hit is fixed, so every year it is going to become an even better deal.

Andy Dalton, Old QB1 Revenge Game. He just lost to his first team, CIN this week. CAR gave up 34 pts to CIN. CAR has a bad defense and a bad offense, and an overall worse team than LAR. They have allowed 47, 26, 22, and 34 so far. Their defense allows 35 pts on the road. Every team has scored at least 3 TDs against CAR this season. I am calling it now, Bears 31-16. CAR averages 18 pts a game and allows 32 pts per game so far thru 4 weeks. Defense now has 2 weeks of Andy Dalton tape.

Braxton Jones is in year three and is regressing. We haven't been told anything about the neck injury he sustained last year, but something is clearly wrong. He is trying to catch his opponents instead of striking out at them. He is constantly too close to Caleb in the pocket. A QB can feel this. Jones is not giving Caleb any room to side step for throwing and/or running lanes. Something has to change with his approach, because he bloody awful. I'm interested to see some of Seattle's tape from last year to see if it's a Waldron, Braxton or Morgan thing. Crazy thing is Darnell Wright is doing the same thing.

I believe the Legion of Boom was notorious for this, but did anyone watch the MNF game last night? Detroit's defense has seemed to adopt the Legion of Boom's tactics of holding and DPI on every play knowing the refs won't call them all. They basically conditioned the officials during the game to allow DPI later in the game, and it worked. There were at least 3 no-calls that were easy DPI calls that changed the outcome of the game. Carlton Davis (DET DB) is also allowed to yell in the face of officials, touch them multiple times, but Marsh (PIT game a few years ago) can get bumped by an official and he is called for a penalty? Super weird, but if the Bears have…

Some good and some bad in Week 4. Good: Waldron finally leaning on the elite players: Moore - 55 snaps Kmet - 54 snaps Odunze - 47 snaps Allen - 41 snaps Swift - 38 snaps Johnson - 22 snaps Carter - 0 offensive snaps Bad: Everett - 20 snaps (good for the offense, but this looks like a terrible signing, should've kept Bates) Herbert - 0 offensive snaps (has to be on the trading block?) Scott - 2 snaps (disappointing 4th Round pick) Velus - healthy scratch (they have to be preventing his trade value from falling any further) Amegadjie - 0 snaps this season (waste of a 3rd Round pick when they needed a Day 1 contributor)

If you get a chance, listen to this podcast with Flus. He sounds much better in this type of format. I wonder if it's the press conferences that he is just not comfortable with. Here he sounds much better and actually sounds like he knows what he is doing.

Most people gave Waldron credit for Geno's resurgence. With Waldron gone, Geno now leads the NFL in passing yards (averaging 295.5 per game), which is on pace for over 5K. He has 19 completions more than the 2nd QB and has thrown for 57 1st Downs in 4 weeks. Kenneth Walker's Yards per carry his first two seasons (with Waldron): 4.6 and 4.1. This year: 5.7. Metcalf is on pace for career bests in yards and receptions Smith-Njigba, who was critical of Waldron in the offseason, has 25 receptions in 4 games, on pace for over 100. He had 63 last year. Charbonnet, mainly a 3rd Down back, is on pace to quadruple last season's receiving numbers. Seattle …

I hope Stevenson can improve, he seems a little off compared to how he finished the season last year. Otherwise, look at how the All-Pro CBs and Safeties from last year are performing compared to our guys: Johnson - 78.8 / 78.4 Cov (Is there any doubt who the best CB is out of this group?) Sauce 66.9 / 69.4 Cov (AP1) - Sauce is not elite. Horn 65.2 / 64.1 Cov (NFL1) - Overrated, never should've won this over JJ last year. Surtain - 59.7 / 56.5 Cov - People always put him in the top tier of CBs, why? Bland (IR) Byard 74.3 / 68.6 (The vet is leading the way) Brisker 67.2 / 65.5 Cov (Mr. Consistent and improving) H…

Great game for the Aussie, but he needs to keep it up for the remainder of the season. I have no clue why he was doing a Gill impersonation the first 3 weeks. After that great game, he now is 19th in Punting Average, T-5th in punts inside the 20, and T-4th in total punts. I hope he can creep into the top 10 by the end of the season because half the guys ahead of him are UDFAs. So the 4th round pick usage is fine if he is an elite punter, but if he is just "average", then there was no point in using a 4th rounder on him. Hopefully he reads this thru remote viewing and kicks the crap out of the ball for the rest of the season.

Puka on IR, Kupp going to be limited at best if he doesn't miss the game. Rams playing in the late slot on Sunday, then having to travel from LA to CHI. So Bears are going to have a rest edge. Rams are one of the worst teams in the NFL, especially with the injuries. The Bears lost against the Colts, but the Colts didn't win the game. At 1-2, this becomes an early must win as falling to 1-3 starts makes a huge hole to dig out of so early in the season. I feel like the Bears will rebound and play much better with home cooking. Bears 27-13.

I know the O-Line has issues and Caleb is a rookie QB, but Swift has been the least effective RB in the first 3 games of a season since 2009. The Bears are lucky to be 1-2 with his ineptitude. It is historically bad. The Bears needs to stick with Roschon and Herbert as the primary backs, then sprinkle in Swift on 3rd and longs. He is literally a drive killer. If you watch the drives that died, most of the time it was a terrible run by Swift that leaves the Bears in a bad down and distance, a dropped pass, etc. He has singlehandedly killed the Bears offensive rhythm. It is astounding really. If you look back at the previous games, it is the same thing. They wou…

If i was a GM of ANY team in the NFL, every year I would draft OL in the first round, DL in the second round and other needs in the rest of the rounds!

Warning Long Post Incoming I am starting to think Poles is just a very average GM that got lucky. Just think if the Bears didn't have the #1 pick in 2023? He picked Eberflus over a bunch of better options. There were all kinds of problems with other staff members and in less than 3 years, they are already on their 2nd OC, DC, RB Coach and a whole bunch of other coaching positions. He got rid of players like Montgomery who signed for less than the Bears paid Swift for and Monty is clearly the better RB. He let other players walk like Daniels only to pay someone like Davis. He replaced Mooney with Tyler Scott. He drafted Gill, to cut him and draft Taylor in…

So I have always liked QBR as a way to represent QB production over other methods. I just didn't know that it had such a strong correlation to wins. Looking over the first 3 weeks of the season, a team has at least an 80% chance of victory when their QBR is in the top 10. On the flip side, a team has over a 70% chance at a loss if they are in the bottom 10. The outliers are usually super close games. Purdy had the #6 QBR and lost 27-24 this week. In Week 2, Hurts had the #3 QBR and lost 22-21, Burrow lost 26-25, and Jones lost 21-18. 3 losses by 5 pts. In Week 1, Richardson had the #1 QBR and lost 29-27, and Murray had the #4 QBR and lost 34-28. On the low end…

Look at the top teams: PIT 3-0, Fields and Daniels leading the way SEA 3-0, Waldron leaves SEA and they get better MIN 3-0, Sam Darnold is QB1 and they are undefeated BUF 2-0, Trubisky as Scout QB leading the way PHI 2-1, got Barkley over Bears and fooled Bears into taking Swift. Jalen Carter over Darnell Wright. HOU 2-1, Bears could've drafted Stroud last year LAC 2-1, Harbaugh is their HC, winning without Allen NYJ 2-1, Rodgers still winning NO 2-1 - Lucas Patrick highest graded OL in NFL DET and GB 2-1 still beating the Bears

This is definitely a much better opponent for the Bears this early in the season. Indy is 0-2 and is the worst rush defense in the league by a pretty wide margin. They will also more than likely be without Buckner at DT. Richardson has connected on a few bombs but if the Bears take that away, he is prone to mistakes with 4 INTs on 53 attempts and only a 49% Comp%. If the Bears defense can stop Taylor and prevent anything to get behind them, this is a much more advantageous matchup than against HOU. I think this will be the best offensive output of the season for the Bears (so far), and the defense will play similarly than they have the last two weeks. Bear…

If the Bears remove the negative players, this offense will get going. Swift is historically bad and replacing him with a tackling dummy would be a positive at this point. The below are promising trends, now Williams just needs to cut down on the INTs and they will be cooking: Williams Yards 93 > 174 > 363 Comp% 48.3% > 62.2% > 63.5% Y/A 3.2 > 4.7 > 7.0 TD 0 > 0 > 2 INT 0 > 2 > 2 Sacks 2 > 7 > 4 Odunze Yards 11 > 33 > 112 Rec 1 > 2 > 6 TD 0 > 0 > 1 Kmet Yards 4 > 27 > 97 Rec 1 > 4 > 10 TD 0 > 0 > 1

I know I am concerned about the Bears offense, but league-wide, offensive numbers are down across the board. Check out some of these stats thru 2 weeks: 300-yard Passing Games thru 2 weeks: 2024: 5 2023: 13 2022: 13 2021: 21 2020: 16 2019: 20 2018: 19 2017: 13 2016: 20 Red zone passing TDs thru 2 weeks: 2024: 40 2023: 67 2022: 74 2021: 71 2020: 79 2019: 56 2018: 69 2017: 57 2016: 64 So as bad as Williams has been numbers-wise, they look a lot better considering what the rest of the league is doing too.