AZ54

We certainly want to see him develop into a starter but at this point it seems his career will be spent as a backup player.

What Nagy did giving each player a throwback jersey of their favorite Bears player was awesome, and it was great to see how the players responded to it.

Good win today. Jets were down a few players but so were we. It was hard to figure out the wind conditions because at times it looked calm then I see kicks and passes drifting. Nagy must have gotten in Mitch's ear at half time because in the 2nd half he was driving the ball much better.

I like Jordan Howard and to be honest it is understandable when a player to be a bit upset when he goes from bell cow to back of the herd. He's a 5th Rd pick but this is his livelihood so it matters to him. I'd be more concerned if he didn't care. As long as he keeps working good things will come his way but this offense is far too diverse for him to be what he was for Fox and Loggains. That much he'll have to accept. He could also use some better blocking and too often that has been poor. I really think Nagy focused on the passing game in the offseason both for Trubisky and the Offense overall. I'm not saying that's wrong because it needed the most attention but clearly the blocking assignments on some run plays are poorly executed. Hopefully they can get the running game details down soon and start opening more holes for Howard.

Under fire to improve things..yes. Just don't go full McCoy on him. Tabor is a good special teams coach and I believe he'll fix the issues. This whole team looks like a bunch of young players who got a bit arrogant after a great start to the season. Maybe in some ways our coaches did too. Everyone needs to go back to the basics. I believe we have the right coaching staff to make that happen and that includes Tabor.

Is Brady giving up the 14pts off special teams? I don't think so.

The eye test says it all because he's largely making the right reads now. That makes it easy for us to see his potential and the potential of the offense. If we kept the bad endzone reads w/ INTs as long as he hits those open receivers down the field nobody would care (much) and we'd be adding two more TDs a game.

When he was drafted the big concern with Floyd was if he could set the edge on run downs. Now he does that very well getting those long arms into the OT or TE and using his other arm to reach out if players try to go around him. But too often he won't use his arms on pass rushes and so the OTs just wait until he does a little move and then hit him in the chest. The fancy moves will work more often if he can build off some power moves but he never seriously challenges an OTs anchoring ability. I've seen him do bull rushes but he usually gets stopped after 2 yards and just outside the QB. I'd say he lost strength due to the hand injury but he was still fairly effective on run downs at least with his good hand blocking. In training camp the talk was about how well he was using his hands and arms. Then we get injury and it feels like he went back to his old pass rushing habits.

I agree 100%.. must win. https://forums.jetnation.com/topic/140607-sam-darnolds-growth-could-be-stunted-by-jets-mounting-injuries/

All of the focus has been on Trubisky and the offense but in reality they've done their part in 5 of 6 games, with the Cards game being the exception.

Why were we putting Mack in coverage so often and leaving our first round pick on the bench? Put all the player mistakes aside this is one strategic decision by Fangio that I still can't figure out. If you want to drop 8 in coverage put the best 8 coverage guys on the field especially when Mack has a bum ankle.

Howard has improved his hands but he's not as effective on the routes that Cohen can run. We typically just see him on little swing routes out of the backfield or quick routes/screens. However, I agree with you, and I'd actually like to see us give Howard an occasional double move route and go upfield a bit. I think we'll catch some LBs looking into the backfield and get a wide open look at times. Plus it will help to keep the D guessing. If I have to choose I'm taking the 30-40pts over winning TOP any day. Did you know we are 3rd in the NFL in TOP? Are you expecting with Howard getting more carries we'll move into 1st place? http://www.nfl.com/stats/categorystats?tabSeq=2&season=2018&seasonType=REG&role=TM&offensiveStatisticCategory=GAME_STATS&d-447263-n=1&d-447263-o=2&d-447263-p=1&conference=ALL&d-447263-s=TIME_OF_POSS_SECONDS_PER_GAME_AVG

I think the big stage got to him again just like in Green Bay. It's clearly something he'll have to overcome. Hopefully with more experience that stuff fades away.

I'm sure his opinion is that Cohen, for his offense and against these defenses, is the better player. In the last 3 games our offense has put up 48, 28, and 31pts, an average of 35pts per game. Is your point that with Howard running more often we'd be averaging 38 or 40pts per game? Howard is still getting about twice as many attempts as Cohen the last two games (14,12 vs. 5,6) but Cohen clearly gets more passing attempts than Howard. I"m ok with that because Cohen is better in the open field. I suppose we could return to Fox-ball and feature Howard almost exclusively. For me, I'll take the 35pts per game we're averaging lately, and a lot of other teams would take it too. For the season in yards/game we're 11th and in pts/gm we're 6th with 28.3pts/gm. In 2017 Fox-ball featured Howard and generated a whopping 16,5pts/gm. Granted we have a better WR corps but with AR injured and Miller somewhat limited because he can't raise his left arm we're back to relying on Bellamy again. Yet we have a 2x improvement in points scored. When Pace was interviewing, had he asked fans about this Nagy guy and said that he knew by mid-season our offense would be scoring about 35pts/game, I'm pretty sure most fans would have said to bring him in. I like Jordan Howard on this roster. He has a role but I'm not married to him being the primary offensive weapon when the primary offensive objective of scoring points is being done very well lately. Yet we all see there is even more meat on the bone if they just stop making some mistakes.

It is amazing this team can play so poorly yet still put up 31pts against the Patriots and lose by just 7, with a chance to tie at the end. It's like watching a bunch of talented sophomores playing against a good squad composed of all seniors.

You remember the illegal formation penalty in the Dolphins game that negated a big play? That was because White lined up in the wrong place. Nobody is going to come out and say this but I suspect he has a small subset of plays he knows and he's in for. Despite being a better receiver than Bellamy if he doesn't know or understand all the details of playing in this offense, and there are many, then he's not helping. If White were a better option then Nagy would have him out there especially after Miller's injury. Nagy isn't afraid to play the best player, or help a player come along with snaps if it's earned, even to the point where he rotates Kush and Daniels.

Wims isn't active for today so he ain't playing

Gould was missing lots of FGs and extra points.

That's true for all of these QBs including Brady throwing up a prayer into double coverage that happened to be answered by Josh Gordon a week ago. I don't see where I said that he's arrived just that he's made more progress than he's being given credit for. Three weeks ago everyone complained he had never put up multiple TD games like Mahomes or Watson have. Now he's done it two weeks in a row. To be fair I"m seeing more articles popup on the web saying he improved but at the moment it's only among some Bears fans. At the end of the day no QB is perfect. If Bears fans applied the Trubisky microscope equally to other QBs they'd realize he's getting closer to the top 10 QBs where we want him to be. The gap that remains is consistency but he's stringing together more and more good plays and drives. As someone else said...Trubisky is not at the media-darling level where people ignore his mistakes like they do with Watson or Mahomes. If he can put up a good game against NE the national narrative will start to change. That is a tough ask but I'm looking forward to seeing how he answers it. If he regresses then we're right back in the "why did we trade for him" argument.

Lost in the frustration in the loss against MIami is the fact that, quietly, Trubisky has moved into 7th place in QB Rating in the NFL. He sits behind Mahomes (5th and trending down) and Goff (6th) and ahead of in descending order: Wilson, Wentz, Cousins, Rodgers, Brady, Roethlisberger, Dalton, Stafford, Newton, Watson, Carr, Luck, Prescott, among others. As I always say QB Rating has it's demerits so I'm not married to it as the best way, or even a good way, to evaluate QBs. Nonetheless 7 games into the season there is some statistical relevance to it. His surge forward two weeks ago was "solely" because of Tampa's bad defense. He continued playing well overall against Miami's good secondary. The next game against New England will be interesting. First, NE just played against Mahomes so their defense gets to see the same offense two weeks in a row. That may help them but it could be a big help for us because they've already shown their hand. Those all out blitzes (cover 0) that rattled Mahomes several times are likely to be in the game plan against Trubisky. It will be interesting to see what Nagy schemes up to counter it and how Mitch executes it. They also focused heavily on delaying Kelce from getting into his routes with a LB often hitting him hard right off the LOS.

I'd say there are equal parts to this loss with big mistakes on both sides of the ball. My biggest take away is that we have a good QB, a good offense, and a creative play caller who can adapt. Trubisky had a few bad plays the most obvious being the INT but those dime throws deep to a tightly covered Gabriel, and the back shoulder fade to Robinson on the sideline show further growth in his skill set. IMO his "floor" as an NFL QB just moved up another level and he's starting to move ahead of the Andy Dalton types. Each week he's been better and if he continues to show growth at this pace throughout the season, and then another offseason in the same offense we could have a very good QB next year. This was Eddie Jackson's worst game.

Injury report out of Miami (based on what I found on their forums).. Tannehill showed up on Fri report with shoulder injury. I have no idea which shoulder but he's questionable for this game but questionable really means little these days. All i know is that if he is sore before the game he won't feel better afterward. Laremy Tunsil will play. "The Dolphins are down two starters — center Daniel Kilgore and guard Josh Sitton are both on injured reserve — on the offensive line, so avoiding any other losses is a positive. If Tunsil’s presence helps slow Khalil Mack and the rest of the Bears defense, it will be an even bigger positive." --- I don't think their fans understand the interior Dline strength we have. Tunsil won't help one bit with that. Cam Wake ..it sounds like he might not play. "Gase said, via Armando Salguero of the Miami Herald, that the team is being “very cautious” with the veteran so that his knee injury doesn’t get worse."

The most surprising comment on that article was the person who said it was time to see what Fales had to offer. That's a sign of real desperation for a team that is still 3-2 and really just one bad quarter away from being 4-1.

I think the struggling Buffalo Bills would love to unload the $6mil/yr contract of McCoy especially if they can get anything in return. This year is all about having Josh Allen get his feet wet. Next year, unloading the contract of a 31yr old RB could help in many ways.

So Howard's not a good fit for our offense yet the Eagles largely run the same offense? They are desperate so I get their point of view (they need someone) but for our side? The Eagles at this point really are in danger of not making the playoffs despite having a weak division. In the offseason we could pursue other players to replace Howard. Now we will get nobody in exchange and that's a huge problem IMO. 800 yards is still a lot of production in the running game. On our practice squad we have Mizzell who really was bad in the preseason. I don't even understand why we kept him around. Then there is Nall, who I like. He had several explosive plays in the preseason but he also lacks some of the tight space quickness that Howard possesses. I'd put Nall as an equal or perhaps even ahead of Howard in the receiving department as I think he's better as a route runner/receiver further downfield. But if we're ok with Nall taking on the big-back role instead of Howard then why wouldn't the Eagles just sign Nall off our practice squad?