Bearstalk

Reports are out there saying we might bring in Ball. I like it if he's brought in to be the backup. I wanna see Langford get a legit shot to start. I do like Ball though. His first year he averages 4.7 YPC which is pretty good. Sucked last year, but which is the real Ball? If he's the 4.7 YPC guy he was his rookie season he and Langford could be a good duo beyond this year. Ball is still just 24 years old and I'm shocked he's not on a team somewhere.

Not sure what to think of Ditka in a Packers jersey.

I'm watching this week's press conference's and there are a lot of questions to Adam Gase about him being a HC next season and to Fox about his assistants becoming HC next season. I'm impressed with our coaching staff and I think going forward into next season we'll see some very good things. However, right now when you step back and look at the entire league how many owners and GMs really want to pursue the assistants from a 2-5 team? Especially two assistants (Gase and Fangio) who did not get chosen last year after all the success they had at their previous jobs. I think our media and fans are way over-estimating league-wide reactions to our team. Yes, Cutl…

Looking good so far!

https://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/663840593404035072 Back to back Pro Bowls, and now cut by 2 teams in half a season, wow.

Ok.. not Bears related, but we had a discussion at work about college bye weeks. Do the conferences determine the bye weeks for each team? We noticed some teams always have a bye week before facing each other, and some are just random.

Go Bears! Does Fox continue his AFC West dominance tonight? Does Cutler break Luckman's TD Record? Does Langford outduel Gordon? Does Mariani have a legit return? Does our Special Teams not allow a return TD? So much drama!

After spending most of their air time praising the Chargers and giving them credit for fighting through multiple injuries ESPN analysts were lost when talking about the Bears, especially after the game was over. Did you know the Chargers had to play with several backup Oline players? Poor Chargers. Did you see the Chargers were missing two of their top 3 WRs? Blah blah blah... let's play some football! Oline: Not a whole lot of goodness here with plenty of mistakes all the way around but for the most part the offense was effective enough in the run game and passing game. Ducasse again lined up at LG so he'll be on the bench when Grasu returns leaving Omam…

Here is what we have left, if we show any additional improvement, and get some guys back off injury, we actually have a shot at the playoffs, but the next 3 games will be critical. @ STL (4-4) - winnable game, STL defense is tough, and Gurley has emerged, however, we are better against the run than the pass, so this plays into our defensive strengths, and if Forte and Royal are back, we have great shot with our offense. vs DEN (7-1) - Denver's defense has masked just how bad the offense and Manning have been. A mid-November game in Chicago and Fox knowing a lot about the players gives us a shot. If Indy can beat them, we can beat them. I expect a close game, and w…

Cutler is on a current run of solid play that is longer than any other time in his career. Everyone always talks to Cutler's inconsistency or the Good Jay Bad Jay, etc. Looking over his Game Logs, you can see that was indeed the case for most of his early career. However, it looks like we have entered a new era and the sample size is large enough to believe it will continue. Starting in the Arizona game, he now has 6 straight games with a QB Rating above 88, and even excluding the partial game, he has 5 straight games with a QB Rating of 88.4 or higher. Looking back at his Game Logs, the closest run was 6 games to start 2014 where he was 82.5 or higher. Before that …

Rich Campbell ‏@Rich_Campbell 9m9 minutes ago Bears rookie OT Tayo Fabuluje has been suspended 4 games by the NFL for violating the league's policy against performance-enhancing drugs. https://twitter.com/Rich_Campbell/status/664186000613097472

I look forward to Fangio's weekly updates. He's so straightforward with his words it's sometimes funny. His matter-of-fact approach when talking about the players is never far off from what you'd read here on the board. http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...f3-172828460cb5 ... on Houston ------------------------- "[The sacks] were huge plays," Fangio said. "Now if we can just eliminate the offsides, he'll play even more and more. But that should do a lot for his confidence, to go in there and make plays at a crucial time like that." -------------------------- From the same link the most surprising statistic I've seen at midseason: -------…

I thought this was a pretty good article about the age of QBs: http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14084886...bs-dominate-nfl If this holds true, and just looking at Cutler's progress this year, it would make sense to keep him around for a few more years. He is in his 10th year, and based on these numbers a QB peaks at year 12 and continues to have very solid years through year 15/16. Now obviously you can say small sample size or the numbers are bogus after 10 years because only good QBs are left in the league at that point, but that is not always the case. To me, stabilizing the QB position seems like the first and most important step to making a sustained run…

He is a game changer. We need him out there!

I know there hasn't been much reported about Kevin White lately, but after doing some digging, it looks like the team will have to do something with him by November 24th (12 days from now). At that point they will have 3 options: 1. place him on injured reserve (most likely) 2. release him (obviously not going to happen here) 3. bring him back to practice (then have up to 21 days before adding him to 53-man roster) So if White had a chance to play this year, he could come back as late as December 20th (at Minnesota), 4 months removed from surgery, and would be eligible to play as early as next week if activated (and in game shape, which is not likely). He wa…

We have players returning from injury but there are questions about who will remain a starter. Bushrod should be close to returning. I haven't heard anyone clamoring for him to get back on the field, not even our Oline guru Jason (not that Bushrod was a favorite of his). Will Leno stay as our starter when Bushrod is healthy? I think we're going with the future here so I say yes. Grasu...I think once he recovers from his neck injury he'll be back at center. That brings up the option of Ducasse moving back to RG or do we keep Omameh at RG and put Ducasse on the bench? I think our starting Oline becomes Leno, Slausson, Grasu, Omameh, and Long. SMC..…

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/11/12/jon...from-sidelines/ More of the same on White (which is a good thing in terms of how many people are complementing his overall make-up, etc). I actually found the part on one of our practice squaders, Thompson, more interesting. Would seem like he's a potential candidate to take on a greater role from a special teams perspective (as he continues to heal from his own injury which led to him being cut from the Bills).

We have the edge in every offensive category except rushing yards per game. STL is horrible at 3rd Downs, which is our weakness on defense. This would be a great game to clean that up. On the defensive side, they have the edge in every category, though I was surprised at how close we were against the pass and in total yards. I would love to see Langford split out wide from the backfield to get some mismatches against LB's. He just outdueled Gordon, now let's do it to Gurley. Bears 20 - Rams 16

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/...s-knee/related/