Bearstalk

Mahomes vs Trubisky, Reid vs Nagy, Butker vs Pineiro! A bunch of storylines this week, except the Bears at 7-7 have very little to play for while the Chiefs are essentially only jockeying for the #3 or #4 seed. The #4 seed gets Buffalo and the #3 seed gets Pittsburgh or Tennessee. After that loss, and how it ended on the 2 yard line. I don't know how the Bears get up for this game. I am thinking the secondary gets torched by KC as no one can stay with Hill, Hardiman, or Kelce. Mahomes might be out at halftime with a huge lead. The Bears have too many injuries and nothing to play for. The offense is still a mess, so it could get ugly. I am thinking Chiefs 34…

Smart move - just shut him down. https://www.bleachernation.com/bears/2019/12/21/akiem-hicks-ruled-out-for-sundays-game-vs-chiefs/ Peace

With us locked into the 3rd place slot in the division, the only undecided opponent is the NFC East 3rd place finisher. Right now that is the Giants, but could be the Redskins. Either way, they are fairly the same opponent. The NFC North draws the AFC South and the NFC South in 2020. So if the season ended today, we would only have 2 games against playoff-bound teams (Saints and Texans) outside of our division. Our problem is we will more than likely have 2 teams in our division (and 4 games) against more playoff teams. However, 6 games against playoff teams is not too bad. Here is what it will look like: HOME: NFC North Saints 11-3* Buccaneers 7-7 Texa…

One former Cyclone (Rosenfels) trying to help another (Montgomery). https://twitter.com/i/status/1206968490567098368 If Nagy is serious about his "self scouting" then he'll realize he needs help in the running game. It could be the passing game is just his forte and that's fine but don't surround yourself with other passing game coaches (Helfrich). I see these two in Nagy's office over the summer scheming up new passing plays. Then the season comes along and they just call the same old running plays to mix in on occasion so they can say.. I called a running play now let's get back to passing.

Interestingly that Trubisky could've played the best of the three QB's over the last quarter of a season, yet the other two are MVP candidates and all of Trubisky's incompletions are scrutinized. Kind of funny. 1. Trubisky 94-145, 64.8%, 979 yds, 244.8 YPG, 6.8 Y/A, 8 TD, 4 INT, 1 Rushing TD, 9 sacks 2. Watson 77-112, 68.8%, 902 yds, 225.5 YPG, 8.1 Y/A, 7 TD, 2 INT, 1 FUM, 1 TD Reception, 11 sacks 3. Mahomes 80-122, 65.6%, 879 yds, 219.8 YPG, 7.2 Y/A, 6 TD, 1 INT, 1 Rushing TD, 4 sacks Trubisky has more passing yards and TD's than two MVP candidates over the last 1/4 of the season.

Here we go! The real test starts this week. We need to take care of business this week or the remaining games will only matter for draft position. In our Week 1 loss, Montgomery only got 6 carries as Davis started. Miller only had 1 target and did not have a reception in Week 1. This week should be a lot different in terms of the offense. We are going to score some points. On defense, the biggest change will be with our LB corps. However, with the forecast, running the ball is going to be critical and Kwit is a huge run stopper, which works in the Bears favor. KPL is the wild card, as is Tolliver. If those two guys can step up and we can get some production out…

Saw on the Chicago Bears website Robinson was the team’s selection to be a finalist of the Walter Payton - Man of the Year award. And he desires to remain in Chicago for the remainder of his career. Seems logical to me... I look forward to him being yet another Bear inducted into the Hall of Fame. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2019/12/10/21004628/allen-robinson-chicago-bears-all-time-franchise-johnny-morris-walter-payton-nagy-ryan-pace-contract

Braunecker to IR to make room. He won't be back full strength but having his experience in the rotation so others get less snaps will be a big help to our Dline. https://www.chicagobears.com/news/roster-moves-hicks-activated-braunecker-to-ir I would not be surprised at all if Braunecker retires this offseason. He has long term plans to be a doctor or medical researcher. Weeks off trying to recover from another concussion might be the trigger for him to make the career change.

I'm just looking at some footage from the Cowboys game, and able to watch certain players rather than the ball on the second look. Gosh Leno is terrible. Just awful. I think if you had to find one player to blame the whole season on, he might make a good candidate. Of course it is more than one player, but Leno is probably the worst player at any position on our team. YUCK!

https://www.chicagobears.com/news/bears-fans-uncover-long-lost-footage-of-historic-game You never know what old houses have tucked away.

https://www.cbssports.com/fantasy/football/news/bears-javon-wims-injury-not-major/ Wims only suffered a slight knee sprain in Thursday's win over the Cowboys, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reports. Wims' injury isn't deemed to be major. However, a recovery timeline has yet to be announced. Having played on Thursday, the 25-year-old has the benefit of a few extra days to heal before the Bears take on Green Bay in Week 15. ----------------- I wouldn't be surprised to see him play against GB given the extra days of rest.

Not much help from the listless Lions against the Vikings, and Washington is at least keeping it close into the 4th quarter down 17-9 against Green Bay. It doesn't look like we will make any ground against either of those teams. Hopefully, Seattle can beat the LA Sunday night. Rodgers numbers through 3 1/2 quarters? 13-23, 56.5%, 148 yards, 6.4 Y/A, 1 TD, 1 fumble lost and 4 sacks. Watson? 19-33, 57.6%, 216 yds, 6.5 Y/A, 1 TD, 2 sacks, and 1 nice rushing TD. MVP Jackson? 14-22, 63.6%, 134 yds, 6.1 Y/A, 2 TD, 1 INT, 1 sack. How about Josh Allen, someone the media has had more confidence in than Trubisky even though they have similar numbers: 11-27,…

As expected Roquan Smith was put on IR. Former Buc and former Sooner OLB Devonte Bond was signed to the team in his roster spot. Looks to be a speed rusher so maybe competition for Floyd during the offseason? With Smith out on IR, the defense has lost Trevathan, Amukamura and Hicks (to name key pieces) on the defensive side of the ball and their replacements; KPL, Tolliver and to some degree Nichols have all stepped up and played pretty darn well. That I think is a credit to Pagano and his ability to coach his side of the ball. And to be fair and not lost in all this is the sudden resurgence of the offense with credit thrown towards Nagy. On the of…

https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2019/12/07/chicago-bears-linebacker-khalil-mack-layaway-accounts-walmart-fort-pierce/

It was strange to see Dak look as uncomfortable as he did. Dallas D was tight and unsure. Choking kicker, etc. That's a mirror image of what we looked like 5 weeks ago. Now we are hot and have 3 extra days to heal and get ready for the Cheese Heads. I'll bet Vegas is not handing out those ridiculous odds for the Bears to run the table anymore. If we get in as a wildcard teams will NOT want to face us. Welcome back Mr Hicks!

Bears are two-point dogs at home. The wheels have fallen off the Cowboys in their last two games and the Bills and Pats have given the Bears a blueprint for success. Dallas has 1 win against a team with more than 3 wins, the 5-7 Eagles. Trubisky is playing for his career. He will get a full week to prep for the Cowboys playing outside in the cold. The Bears need this game more than the Cowboys. Bears 20-12

I've been hard on our HC this year and think he's been a big part of the problem with our offense. I just watched his press conference and I'm going to give him some credit for turning it around. One of my criticisms weeks ago was that after Montgomery fumbled he never gave him the ball again in that game. Last night, after Monty's fumble and we were setting up for our next offensive series I told my son if Nagy has learned anything he'll give Montgomery the ball on this play. Lo and behold he did just that and Monty gained 5 yards off LT. Around the 18min mark he is asked about the fumble and his response is one of trust in his young RB. He even mentions the fact …

Check out this tweet pointing out how bad Maher is (Pineiro is worse). We got rid of Parkey and downgraded to Pineiro. Between 30-50 yds, Pineiro is ranked 37th, why is he still on this team? Only 6 kickers are worse than him for XPs. He has missed two. So if you figure the league average from inside 50 for any kick is around 80%, and XPs are 95%, Pineiro has cost us no less than 7 pts and one loss (LAC). So we are in for a treat on Thursday, a bad kickers duel. The over-under on missed kicks is 2. I have the over.

So here we are. 6-6 with 4 games to play. Not where we wanted to be, but I also didn't think GB and MIN would both be 8-3 at this time. That puts us a little further back than expected. If we could've eeked out that win against LAC or OAK, we would be sitting in a completely different spot right now. So to make the playoffs, our target is MIN, since we have the tie-breaker against them. All we have to do is beat them in Week 17 and end up with the same record as them. That means we can go into Week 17 one game back. That also means we need some help and for the Vikings to lose two more games than us in the next 5 games (for MIN). This week MIN gets to play in SEA. T…