Bearstalk

george inferring to choosing candidates with "We" meaning ted phillips. talking about hiring consultants to find the GM with no time frame involved. oh well, so it goes

A friend who is a Cowboys fan told me he isn't that impressed with Dak so far. He said he's very inconsistent on long passes (the knock on him in the draft) but that he's good on the short routes. Of course he's also good at scrambling around and that makes up for a lot. His biggest concern was that Prescott is ineffective and often makes bad throws in the red zone. Impossible to tell if our defense will be able to find any advantage in that mix especially with so many players out with injury. We might get lucky in the red zone but Dez Bryant can make up for a lot of inaccuracies on a pass. On the other hand it all likely means Dallas will focus heavily on th…

I kept seeing the media talk about how the preseason record doesn't necessarily correlate to regular season success. So I thought about looking at it from something else that is a good measure of success over time (score differential). So I looked at all teams which allowed 40 or more points than their opponents in the preseason and see how they fared in the regular season (and I think there is some correlation there). Take a look: 2015 PIT -49 (10-6, WC) NO -47 (7-9) STL -45 (7-9) 2014 BUF -41 (9-7) KC -48 (9-7) DAL -56 (12-4, DIV) CHI -41 (5-11) 2013 JAX -51 (4-12) SD -44 (9-7) TB -49 (4-12) ATL -43 (4-12) 2012 NYJ -57 (6-10) …

http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...9d-cd498277e123 Few early surprises. McClellin and Vereen starters. Draughn #2 Rosario #2

We play the Eagles then the Jaguars at home ........then the Seahawks ..and last the Browns

Here we go!

Obviously for me the rookies starting in the O Line will be my #1 concern. Want to see Cutler succeed. Hopefully the WR's will all play. No excuses! This offense needs to look professional tonight. We'll get a good idea of who the coaches are likely to cut at various positions. Is Peppers playing? If so I sure hope we get more pass rush than last week. Even if he isn't, there's no excuse for that. Starters will play a quarter or so if history is any indication. Has Nerdman said otherwise? Would it be so bad to see Forte hit an actual hole the line opened for him? And, of course, let's stay healthy!

Just thought I'd open a thread for tonight's game. I hope Cutler plays a quarter with the starters and then Jimmy shows he can handle this offense at least as well as we saw him do last week. Obviously the D Line will be a big thing I'll be watching. If they can build on the success they had last week that'll be very positive. #1 goal: Stay healthy!

It's game day. I would like to see Fields and the offensive starters play at least 2 series and hopefully score on at least one. I want to see Fields getting the ball out quick with timing. Main players I will be watching besides Fields: Wright and Claypool on offense. The entire D-Line and Gordon on defense. The media is going to be so polarizing after this one. If Fields looks good as a passer, look out MVP. If he looks bad, he is a bust. There is no in between.

It was really hard to evaluate the team as a whole with so many players injured. On offense, no Monty, Pringle, Jones, Kmet, Reiff, Griffin, O'Shaughnessy, Harry and Patrick. At least 4 starters out. On defense, no Quinn, Muhammad, Blackson, Smith, Gordon, Vildor, Graham, Jackson, or Cruikshank. At least 5 starters out. Fields, playing against first teamers, didn't turn the ball over. This may not seem like a big deal but no fumbles or INTs is a positive. He looked much better overall, but with so many starters out, the entire offense is a work in progress. However, the Getsy offense already looks better than the Nagy offense. The Bears and Chiefs both h…

Hopefully everyone stays healthy. I just picked up some tickets for the game so I'm hoping to see a Cutler TD!!! Don't get the opportunity to see the Bears out here, so I figured the 22 bucks I dropped per preseason ticket was well worth it.

With the shortened week, this is more about seeing what a few guys can do. Gordon and Velus Jones in their first action, Jenkins at RG and Borom at RT, Robinson and Ebner. Can Sanborn and Coley have another standout performance? With only 6-10 plays for the starters, which will probably equate to 4-7 passes for Fields. Seems like a small sample size but it will be nice to see if the updated O-Line with Jenkins at RG will hold up a little better for Fields.

Actually I'm looking forward to a night of football, starting with the Packers Vs. Seahawks at 7 PM and then switching to the beloved. Not sure the girlfriend is going to be as happy with that plan as I am. This weekend's game is said to be the most telling. We should see at least a minimal game plan and a half of football from our starters, possibly more. I want to see Jay distribute the ball. The offense be more diverse in general with Forte getting some good work. The D to continue to hustle to the ball, get turnovers. McFadden is a good back when healthy. Let's see what he does against the Bears D. And you?

I'm soooo looking forward to Game 3 of the preseason. How ironic that we now have Cutler and we play Denver in game three of the preseason, which if I'm not mistaken the game where the starters play into the second half. I bet Jay's got that one circled in fat red sharpe on his callendar.

Bengals 30 - 27 Here is what I saw: Offense looked out of sync. Trubisky really needed one more drive, but in general, nothing was smooth, which was disappointing. I didn't help that Howard, Cohen, Robinson, and Gabriel didn't dress, but he still had White, Burton, Miller, and Shaheen to start with. Bray looked better than Daniel, which will be interesting to see going forward. The main problem was pressure and O-Line issues. Massie is terrible and I hope Coward shows enough potential to make the move to him before Week 1. Massie is not an NFL starter and borderline swing tackle at best. This is nothing new and he actually looks worse this year than he did …

So most stats are meaningless. Most of the preseason stats leaders never amount to anything in the league. However, I tried to see if there were any trends from players that Fields has been comp'd to in terms of career progression (Year 3 leap, gets true WR1, etc). This is what I found, it might be completely irrelevant, but interesting nonetheless: Preseason Comp% J. Allen - 54.5%, 64.3%, 76.9% (Diggs), 100% L. Jackson - 50%, 62.5%, 75% J. Hurts - 42.9%, 100% (Brown) T. Tagovailoa - 70.6%, 80% (Hill) J. Fields - 61.2%, 76.7%, 100% (Moore) Everyone of these QBs improved their comp% YoY in their first few years. One other note, Fields had a be…

I know Preseason numbers mean next to nothing, but it is nice to see some stats like this: Sack differential 14 - 4 Turnover Ratio +9 0 pts allowed in 2nd half (entire preseason) 6 straight shutout quarters to end preseason I was actually surprised to see the Sacks differential and Turnover Ratios so positive, so I compared them to the last 5 years with regular season comparisons. 2014 Preseason: Sacks 5 - 7 Turnover Ratio 0 for the season: 39 - 41 and -5 2013 Preseason: Sacks 9 - 13 Turnover Ratio +5 for the season: 31 - 30 and +5 2012 Preseason: Sacks 9 - 11 Turnover Ratio +2 for the season: 41 - 44 and +20 2011 Pr…

Based on the preseason predictions, these were the most under and over achieving teams this year with 1 week left: 1. DEN 11-6 > 4-12 (-7) 2. LAR 11-6 > 5-11 (-6) 3. IND 9-8 > 4-11-1 (-4.5) 4. TB 12-5 > 8-8 (-4) 5. ARZ 8-9 > 4-12 (-4) 1. PHI 9-8 > 13-3 (+4) 2. NYG 6-11 > 9-6-1 (+3.5) 3T. JAX 5-12 > 8-8 (+3) 3T. MIN 9-8 > 12-4 (+3) 3T. ATL 3-14 > 6-10 (+3) 3T. SEA 5-12 > 8-8 (+3) DEN and LAR are by far the farthest off their projections. IND was a lot worse than expected. PHI and NYG both surprised. Of the positive teams, only PHI and JAX had a decent point differential. NYG was +0, MIN -19, ATL -34, and SEA…

So the Bears finished 8-8, and actually beat SI.com's prediction by a game. Football Outsiders nailed it. Sporting News had the highest projection at 11 wins. Here were some predictions: Sporting News 11-5 ESPN 10-6 CBS 9-7 Football Outsiders 8-8 SI.com 7-9 This year was a disappointment and the team was literally two plays away from finishing 10-6 (LAC and OAK games). Just think how good this team would be with a top-15 offense. They played so bad, yet won 8 games. That ultimately means we can only go up from here. With the leaner schedule next year, that should be worth at least a game and if we play better on offense, that's another two games. That…

Chicago Bears Week 1: at Carolina Panthers Week 2: San Diego Chargers (ESPN) 8/15 Week 3: at Oakland Raiders Week 4: Cleveland Browns