AZ54

This might be my favorite quote from the Mack trade : https://www.arrowheadpride.com/2018/9/1/17810362/chiefs-gm-brett-veach-on-khalil-mack-trade-were-excited We were excited. Yeah, we were excited,” Veach said during a conference call Saturday. “I think I was probably the first one to call Matt (Nagy) [Saturday], and I congratulated him and I said, ‘The Bears and the Chiefs just got better today.’”

Adding some film breakdown to backup my point about how Mack affects or limits what an offense can do.

Buh bye to Crevon LeBlanc. That's a good sign. He's a tough football player with average athleticism and, at times, poor discipline in coverage. It's much better to keep Tolliver's potential in the mix.

Can't see Grasu being anything more than a trade opportunity. Maybe Pace had some inquiries before cutdowns and wants to take a bit of time to see if anything comes of it. Teams usually want to wait and see who else is cut first around the league.

What would bite us is watching him blow assignments in the regular season like he did all preseason.

I hope Nall makes it to the practice squad. Given Burtons status as a veteran that may have been part of the calculus. It'd be nice to have Nall around just in case of injuries this year and maybe he can develop and take over from Burton next year. Mizzell can go and then sign another FA RB to the practice squad.

Two weeks is good because I have my tickets for week 3 against the Cardinals.

Over at WindyCityGridiron Josh Sunderbruch did an excellent analysis of the Mack trade. Once you read that you'll come away feeling this deal is even better than it first appears. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/9/1/17810200/chicago-bears-khalil-mack-trade-better-than-you-think-ryan-pace-mitchell-trubisky-nfl-2018 One other thought: When considering whether it was worth it to make this trade naturally Pace consulted his coaches. I'm sure Fangio stated the obvious but IMO the key here is that Nagy had to game plan for him twice a season the last four years. He knows as well as anyone how much trouble Mack can cause an offense, and what kind of options he takes away from an offense because of the need to focus on stopping him. We all see the highlight plays but a player like Mack has additional value in the scheme changes opposing offenses have to make whether it's the obvious double team blocking, keeping RBs in for pass protection, or just running away from him.

We don't know, he might have had to give one up to make this deal happen.

Let's ask the QBs... I've seen Mack literally take over a game a couple years ago. I think it was a game against Denver and there was probably a backup RT in there but he just ran right through and around that man, over and over. Then he went to the other side of the field and did it against the LT too. Nobody else on that Raiders Dline was getting pressure. Now we are going to stand him up next to Akiem Hicks! Goldman is one slot over. The ILBs , and even the Safeties, will have a big empty space behind those 3 that they won't have to worry about.

So we give up two first and a player. Is there anyone on this board who did not think we were drafting a pass rusher in the first round next year? IMO that 1st round OLB pick was a given but it would come with the usual uncertainties of any draft pick, not to mention the learning curve. So in a way that means the real exchange for Mack is the additional first round pick, the player, plus the cap hit. The money is getting spent either way if you feel you are close to competing in the playoffs. On the flip side this year's offseason acquisitions are looking good from FAs to draft picks, even down to a few UDFAs. Most FAs are on a stable 3 year deal. After a full preseason Pace likely feels confident he has his QB, and enough young talent for the next two years to offset the need for that 2nd first round pick we gave up. Kahlil Mack is a generational talent who can make everyone else on the defense look like a better player.

This Mack is from Buffalo https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kahlil+mack+bio&t=brave&ia=web

I'd wait to see who we trade away before saying that. I wouldn't be surprised if one of our LBs or Amos is part of this deal.

As one of the more vocal supporters of Cam Meredith I feel very confident we're ok without him. I've seen very little of Miller but all signs point to him having a higher ceiling than Cam and the work ethic to get there. I didn't think much of Wims after that draft as he looked a bit slow in his breaks on routes in college but the hands were there. He's shown me I was wrong and he has more quickness and speed than I thought. It will be interesting to watch Wims' career develop compared to the 3 WRs the Packers drafted ahead of him. The backend of our 2018 draft looks pretty good right now. Really the entire draft looks good. Roquan is still a question mark because we've seen nothing from him but despite all the time he missed the coaches seem to be high on his ability to contribute on defense early this season. Roquan had to put in the time off the field to get to that point. Daniels will be a starting OG for us, if not OC next year. There are still question marks about Fitts but for a 6th Rd pick he appears to be capable of contributing on the field although I think his ceiling is higher than just a spot backup player. Toss in moving Coward to RT, UDFA CBs Joseph and Tollliver, and RB Nall (who could make the 53) and it was pretty good offseason for adding young talent.

Special teams and injuries make it hard to predict TE vs. OLB. I could see the 5 TEs as you propose but I can just as easily see someone like Braunecker or Brown getting traded for a late round pick and then we keep Edebali. These two positions have somewhat similar athletes so the special teams comes down to who is putting in the work.

Last week I was leaning toward Burton but after listening to Nagy talk about the RB depth in camp, and then mention Cohen as an afterthought I changed my mind. With Nagy it seems he feels Cohen is more of a "slash" player RB/slot WR. Cohen will get some carries out of the backfield but I didn't get the sense that Nagy views him as the primary backup RB to Howard. In other words Howard's backup is really Cunningham and with that he'd split similar reps with Cohen in the same way as Howard did. With that I now think it makes more sense that we keep Nall over Burton. Nall is more versatile and if he can provide enough as a FB to keep us gaining yards in tough short yardage situations then it's a win win IMO. Nall has proven he has enough speed to get deep. He looks slow but that's in part because of his size. He's not elite fast, but look at the smaller players working hard trying to catch him, and those who can't. Where FB Burton will more or less tip off the direction of the play, a guy like Nall who can run routes well and catch could be a decoy to get the LB to come up hard at the LOS and then he runs right past them wide open for a big gain.

It seems clear to me that Daniels will be our starter at LG but I don't know if that happens on the road in week 1. Kush hasn't played well and I'd rather just go with the upside Daniels has.

With Watford already cut the final pieces of the Oline are starting to take shape. I'll be surprised but happy if we can get anything at all for Grasu. https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/08/27/philadelphia-eagles-doug-pederson-super-bowl-lii-defense-hangover-carson-wentz-injury-week-1 "Who could be moved? Colts OT Austin Howard, Raiders OT Jylan Ware, Eagles OG Chance Warmack and Bears C Hroniss Grasu were among the names I’ve heard as available, with Howard and Warmack carrying extensive starting experience."

Keep in mind that everyone as learning a new offense. Practices were rough for most of training camp and only in the last couple weeks did we start to hear that things were coming together. That affected Daniels as well because nobody was thinking Daniels was a stud in his first two preseason games.

That settles one question: Earl Watford just got released. https://www.windycitygridiron.com/2018/8/26/17784438/chicago-bears-release-offensive-lineman-earl-watford-2018-nfl-preseason

I agree we'll keep 6 WRs with Wims doing enough to force the decision to keep him around. At Oline I think we keep 9 so we can protect Coward. With Cowards inexperience, and inability to switch to LT, I think we'll end up keeping Sowell to backup LT. The flier here would be cutting Massie to go with Coward as a starter but I don't see that happening. This team has gone too a lot of effort to boost the offense this offseason and we should keep the depth needed to ensure we can rely on it all year long.

He is very good adjusting to the ball once it's in the air.

Daniels underthrew the ball to Kevin White by 10 yards. That was not the only pass that lacked velocity. On the flipside, go back to the Denver game and see the pass Trubisky made to Miller who was double covered. He put that ball in a 2ft window while on the run to his left, which is very difficult to do. Miller made a great catch too. Also against Denver Trubisky was reading the blitzes without issue, and they brought a ton of pressure from all angles while mixing up who was dropping into coverage. Trubisky consistently made the right reads into the coverage gap. Is Trubisky perfect? No, but I'll stick with the upside of the youngster versus the 10 year veteran who is already playing at his limit. We could argue about who is playing better in this offense but for me its already Trusbisky. Even if they were equal or nearly equal don't you think Trubisky deserves to be on the field given that Daniels has been in this offense for 5 years and Trubisky for 5 months?

Personally I"m disappointed I didn't get to see our first team offense play today but I'm glad the Packers didn't get to see them either. I see zero QB controversy here. Trubisky can throw the ball better than Daniels, he also makes more difficult throws while on the run. Having Daniels as our backup QB looks pretty good right now. The biggest difference from last year is that our scheme seems to give the QB options no matter who was on the field. Wims showed good speed and quickness today, more than I thought he had. We all knew he had the hands but he was reported to be struggling to learn the offense. If you didn't see someone say it outright, it was obvious in the last few weeks because Marlon Brown has been ahead of him until now. When we start putting down the last few roster spots we haven't really had difficult decisions for a long time. I think we have to find a way to keep both Coward and Wims around. Against KCs 1st string defense Coward was mostly invisible, in a positive way, until he gave up that sack to Kpassa. Considering his limited experience at OT his future looks bright. I can't see any way some other team wouldn't take him off waivers or our practice squad if he made it that far.

There are enough rumors out there that this possibility is not completely dead. I'm not saying it's likely, but for some reason it does appear the Raiders aren't as enamored with Mack as most people think they should be. Gruden won his Superbowl with a dominant interior DT leading the pass rush but, on the flip side, his new DC says that Mack is a cornerstone type player you want to build around. I still think this is all negotiating smoke on the part of the Raiders but it's clear Gruden wants "his players" on the roster and perhaps something about Mack or his contract demands has rubbed him the wrong way. When looking at the numbers Oakland has just $5mil in cap space right now but that includes Macks 2018 salary of $13.6 mil. Next year they have $47mil in cap space so it's hard to see why they can't, or wouldn't want to fit in Mack's new contract.