AZ54

Given the original scenario setup by Jason I'd take Nkemdiche/Wright. However I don't think Nkemdiche will last until our pick. What we do really depends on what we get in FA. My top FA targets are Wilkerson and Brandon Marshall. I see SCS says the Jets will likely be tagging Wilkerson. Their QB situation is not good and there isn't an easy solution. They may very well go all in on defense seeing that as their best path to the playoffs but that won't leave them much room under the cap so they will have to make other changes. Denver has more of a challenge because they have to re-sign Von Miller and Marshall. What they do all depends on what happens with Peyton Manning and Osweiller. Von Miller is going to break the bank. It is safe to say that Osweiller has already done enough to make himself a top FA target because finding any QB in FA that can play well is rare. Osweiller will get at least $10mil/yr if he hits the market and maybe as much as $15mil/yr. History has shown guys like Flynn and Charlie Whitehurst can get huge contracts based of just a few games work so as crazy as it sounds desperate teams do desperate contracts. I think we'll get a shot at signing Brandon Marshall the only question is if we'll choose to win the bidding war. I think we will. That leaves DT/DE as the early favorite for 1st Rd pick and I'll say we end up Deforest Buckner. He could develop into the type of player that Calais Campbell is with the Cardinals. Scooby in the 2nd is good.

And not a hint of resistance from the Bears. If they were confident he had something to contribute next year he'd still be around just like Fales.

I only saw the last quarter of the game, not enough to get a realistic assessment of Gabbert. What I saw was a motivated 49ers defense pushing the Cardinals around a little bit. Gabbert seemed very much in control while in the pocket and was comfortable when scrambling around extending plays. That was a division game for the 49ers against an opponent they know well. Not surprisingly in recent games between these teams there has been quite a bit of after the whistle action. With this game in the rear view mirror, what motivation the 49ers will have for a road game against us after dropping to 3-8 is hard to say. Just know that there is still some good talent on their roster.

Anyone have any idea what is behind this move? It's not like long snappers are in the spotlight for much of anything except bad snaps. That hasn't been much of a problem. Rarely does a team swap a long snapper mid-season because this is a key part of your FG unit that normally you don't want to change on the fly. They did this swap right after the Thur night game so there are extra practice opportunities for Gould to settle in with the new guy. The only thing I can think of is that there is some sort of suspension coming up and the Bears decided to get ahead of it and sign the new guy now while they had the 10 days between games, and maybe while Scales was available. http://www.chicagobears.com/news/article-1...35-17c9122bd148

Toughest job next week: ESPN selling the MNF matchup between Baltimore and Cleveland.

Trouble in paradise. Rodgers was blaming his WRs for the poor offensive performance not being where they are supposed to be. Where's the media with the "bad QB" stories as they do to Cutler? HC blaming the officials for a correct call, ignoring all the BS calls that went their way for huge plays in the game. Packer fans are blaming their punter ( go read their message boards). Now they head into another Thur night prime time matchup against Detroit. Grab some popcorn this is going to be fun.

This was a great win for us, one that the team can really build upon. Offense moved the ball well at times but penalties killed us too often. Despite all the negative plays Cutler kept his focus an stayed within the game plan. Same goes for Gase who didn't fall into the trap of abandoning the run despite the Packers focus on stopping it. Cutler: People will find better numbers but given the circumstances of missing Royal and Bennett, being on the road on a holiday game, short week, and horrible weather, it is hard to think of a better game Cutler has played for us. Bennett's absence especially had me worried because he's such a big part of our protection scheme. Early in the game Cutler had trouble finding either time to throw or open receivers to throw to but he played smart and just threw the ball away instead of forcing it. Throughout the game he had the team lined up early enough to make a lot of adjustments before the snap, credit Gase too on this one. Oline: Inconsistent overall. Grasu was back but there were a lot of missed assignments, missed blocks, and penalties. Long didn't play his best. Despite that when they got it right there was plenty of time to throw and there enough holes for the RBs to make the run game effective enough. I'd like to see what these 5 starters can do after spending a few games together. WRs: Alshon once again makes a huge difference for the offense despite being the only receiver they had to worry about. Wilson played with the most confidence I've seen, taking a lot of short screens and running hard for good gains. Packers seemed to forget about Mariani (how else to explain him being so wide open) and Cutler found him open for a few plays to keep drives alive. Getting Royal back as our slot receiver will help this offense. TEs: I hoped we'd see more from Zach Miller in the passing game. RBs: Nothing special at all from either RB but they held onto the football. Dline: First drive wasn't pretty but after that they battled all night long and were very effective on some of the short 3rd/4th down plays GB had. It appeared their main effort on pass rush was keeping Rodgers contained and for the most part they did. OLB: Houston continues to get better with 7 tackles and 1 sack. McPhee hasn't been as effective in pass rush since his knee injury but I think his leadership at the LOS before the snap plays a big part in how effective the defensive front is. Willie Young didn't get a ton of pressure he did well in closing the pocket around Rodgers and keeping him uncomfortable. ILBs: Still late to the ball too often and while they are effective enough they don't provide the occasional big plays that are needed. I thought it was Anderson out there early and then Jones came in later. Seems the coaches are still searching for an answer at this spot. DBs: I think these guys were the stars of the game for us. Rodgers only threw for 202 yards, just over 50% complete, and many of the completions were challenged throws. Given the time he had in the pocket the DBs were often covering players for 4 or 5 seconds. Porter garnered most of the attention but Fuller and Callahan played well too. We have a good player in Callahan. The safeties, with Prosinski out there again, were solid. Amos was all over the field even in run support and finished with 8 tackles and 1 assist. Prosinski had 6 tackles and looked much more comfortable out there this game. Fangio continues to shine and on a short week had this group well prepared for everything except perhaps the weather (which I think played a role in the missed early tackles). While we nitpick and see the gaps in talent his group gave up just 13pts on the road which is a phenomenal effort against GB. On the other side of the ball you hear the Packers fans whine that the offense isn't the same without Jordy Nelson and if... blah blah blah. Our coaches lined up our offense with a backup LT, backup C, backup RG, backup TE, backup slot slot WR, and we're still missing Kevin White, and they got it done with Jay Cutler at QB. It's been a long time since I said this but we clearly out-coached the Packers yesterday. Officiating was horribly one-sided. Lot's of missed holding penalties and some phantom calls that went against us on big plays.

Great win. We beat GB and the officials all in one. Nothing pretty about this game but then again when you step back and look at it we stayed the course won a duel in bad weather 17-13=4.

Even if he's on the field I doubt we'll see him play at his full capability so that wouldn't help the division much for next year. In his own words he's making significant improvement week to week but I still don't think he'll get there physically before the season. OTOH what will help him is getting glimpse of how physical the DBs are in the NFL and the play speed. Right now an aggressive return target might be the 13 Dec Redskins game, more likely target the 20 Dec Vikings game. In that case he'd see action against two division rivals, Minn and Detroit.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/footb...1124-story.html Good interview with White and where he's at in his rehab.

Why assume they are rushing him? We've seen nothing of the sort from the team regarding this situation to date. I think it's safe to say he's just on track and healthy. He started light jogging on the grass about a month ago so we have to think he's been going at or near full sprint by now with no setbacks. After all this there's no way I could see them risking him in a contact situation, even moderate contact like practice, if he hadn't handled the full stresses of running routes with no issues.

Makes sense for them, where else could they get someone who knows what Trestman is doing on offense? It was going to be Fales or Clausen.

Great news and opens the floor for debate. Who plays the most games this year: Jeffrey, Royal, or White?

I think you are correct. Aside from bringing up Fales we waived Terrance Mitchell from the practice squad. So we have two openings on the practice squad. It's pretty surprising that we brought up Fales and cut Clausen. If Fales was the better backup they should have just made the decision earlier. At this point the roster is becoming more about the future and this says Clausen is not in next year's plan but Fales is. I'm sure Clausen was kept around because they felt he had a better grasp of the offense since Fales missed so much time in preseason. Barring disaster at the QB position Clausen has played his last game as a Bear. Fox said nothing about Kevin White but he did say the open spot on the practice squad would likely go to another QB prospect down the road. Since you can't sign another team's practice squad player to your practice squad that would mean taking a QB off the street. That would seem like a waste of time to be honest because what good young QB prospects are FA right now? Or do we just need someone to run the scout team, anyone who has a pulse? That only explains one of the practice squad openings. This leaves open the possibility of bringing White to the 53-man roster and pushing another WR to the practice squad, likely Cam Meredith. More disappointing for Jason and others would be that this means Mariani (who is not eligible for the practice squad) stays on the active roster. Tue 4pm is the deadline to have White start his 3 week practice window or move him to IR.

I'm with you on the Thur night game. For once I'd like to see what Cutler can do with most of the weapons we have on offense. There is no indication White is doing anything other than watching games so I think he's done for the year.

Defense Coming into this game it seemed clear Fox was more focused on being healthy against Green Bay. The most surprising inactive, or the one I wasn't expecting, was Antrel Rolle and I think he was missed a lot. Why was Prosinski out there instead of Jones-Quartey? We'll never know but I'm pretty sure I saw JQ out there on special teams. I trust these coaches to put the best players out there but I also recognize that they are not afraid to develop new talent keeping an eye toward the future. Overall the D held up but it wasn't pretty. Yes it was the Broncos with a backup QB but they gave up 17pts and that should give your team a fighting chance. There were a lot of breakdowns that I'm not accustomed to seeing in the last few games. Some of this might have been because we blitzed like I haven't seen Fangio blitz before. Correct me if I'm wrong on that but how often have we seen Amos blitz? Blitzing like that with Prosinski back there was asking for trouble. It was effective at times but more often seemed to give up big plays. It's all speculation but I can't shake the feeling that we used this game somewhat to learn some of these blitzes in preparation for Thur. Dline: They were dominated by the Broncos up front and that caused most of the issues behind them. We got free runs at the QB on occasion but it seemed that if we didn't blitz we'd never get there. Too often the players on the edge gave up the edge. The hit and miss type of game confirms for me that a dominate DT is a key to making the rest of the D effective. Put someone like that on the inside and it makes it harder for Oline to run out and hit the ILBs. Safety: Prosinski was mostly lost out there on the field but improved as the game went along. Amos was his usual steady self with a few good plays throughout the game. CB: I think overall we regressed quite a bit in coverage this week and it was across the board. LBs: I think we regressed in run support this week and pass coverage. Both players often got moved around and were late getting to the ball. Offense: Once I saw Royal and Jeffrey were out it was game over against this defense. Despite that we did move the ball enough to get into the red zone but without real threats nothing was going to happen inside the 10yd line. QB: The first INT by Cutler was nothing but a bad pass. There's no other way to see that because even if that route was run incorrectly, unless it was a come-back route, then any type of cut Wilson made would have left the ball behind him and open for an INT. The second INT was just what will happen from time to time in a season. For the most part Cutler kept his wits about him as he navigated a turbulent o...d WRs: It was surprising that guys got wide open in spots deep down field throughout the game but other than that there wasn't anything consistent we could execute. Among the backup WRs nobody's performance said "you must to keep me around next year". TEs: It was an ok day but with Jeffrey and Royal out there was an easy focus on these two guys. Oline: Run blocking largely went nowhere. Pass blocking was good in spots but Cutler had to move around on almost every play to keep it alive. We expected a challenge going against the best defense in football and we got it. Despite all this had we kicked a FG with 10min left in the game we could have won it. One day when this coaching staff gets talent on the roster and some depth we''ll be tough to play against.

Agreed on that...going to tough sledding on offense today.

It has been years since I watched him play at ASU but here is what little I can remember... Osweiler is a good athlete, similar to Cutler, who won't really run away from people but can move well enough to save a play that broke down. I never liked how he read defenses and he often seemed late on making throws. However, he only started at ASU for one year so there is that. He wasn't the type of QB that can throw a guy open, he saw the open player and then threw to the target which was often static. Was it setup that way because of his limited accuracy or just how the offense was setup? It has been several years and so this is one thing that NFL coaching from a guy like Adam Gase may have improved upon. Arm strength was good. If he stepped into throws he can get the ball downfield for sure but if there was pressure around him he'd throw quickly and passes often tailed off as they reached their target. Many passes on out-routes 10yds or more were often easy targets for INTs. In the NFL those windows are even smaller. Keep him from stepping up and opportunities for INTs might be there. If you are bored there is this...which not surprisingly shows some of his throws coming up short and being intercepted or nearly intercepted. Others are driven right on target especially if it's his first read. He'll move the ball against us but we'll definitely want to take away the early read and force him to think a bit. What do Fox and Gase know? Why isn't Peyton Manning attending practice and at least sitting in meeting rooms helping this kid win games? What would you say if that were Cutler doing the same?

Bummer. I don't think Denver has the push up the middle like the Rams do from their DTs. Their pass rush relies heavily on the ends crashing in and forcing the QB up in the pocket. They still have Shane Ray and Von Miller so speed on the edge is there but perhaps not the power to stop the run.

The only way I see the playoffs happening for this team is if we win the next two games. Don't win both, don't worry about it. I'm sure there are other mathematical possibilities but IF this team truly is what we think they are becoming they should beat the Broncos at home against their backup QB. After that it's payback time on T-day. I think health is the biggest factor so we need to get Grasu back at C which returns Slauson to LG and Ducasse to bench, have Jeffrey at full speed so we have a deep threat, and have Royal on the field which conveniently takes Mariani off the field. I'm not going to sweat it because of the progress I've seen this season with all the new players. We're still going to have some ups and downs.

This team is trying to rebuild and is getting closer to what they want to be. The last thing they need is a player who makes mistakes on a muffed punt or fumble on a return as that kills the momentum the defense is starting to build, takes opportunities away from an offense that needs as many shots at scoring as they can get. Most of us would have been fine with Mariani for the rest of the season if the ball security was there. Since we have that guy making mistakes in Mariani we need to find some alternative. I still think part of the problem delaying the change is that with our WR health being poor we need to rely on Mariani as a WR, however little he contributes, and we won't get that from any new KR/PR. One option could be putting Zach Miller split out more often, instead of Mariani, and try to benefit from the matchups. Given that defenses matchup based on personnel that could put teams in a spot wondering if Miller was out there as FB, TE, or WR. Do they keep 3 LBs on the field or go Nickel given the speed and receiving ability he showed the past two weeks?

Maybe the better question to Jason is why can't we fix the Oline with $50mil in cap space? I realize Kyle Long and Jeffrey will get a big chuck of this but still we'll be left with $30-35mil. Cut Bushrod and we have another $4mil to spend. Aside from Long's increased cap hit Slauson and Grasu will stay. I expect Leno will continue as our starting LT so we're looking at adding perhaps either a RT or RG depending on where they want to lineup Long next season, and then some guys for depth.

Bennett is a far better blocker than Miller and he's a good receiver. We already have $50mil in cap space for next season and TE is a position we finally have some strength at. I don't see any reason to cut Martellus and we should re-sign Miller. There is plenty of money to sign players for the Oline. If more is needed we will likely cut someone like Willie Young or Antrel Rolle as those actions would free up another $2.5- 3mil each but that would also have to go toward likely replacements for those spots. Or we can cut Bushrod and save $4mil (with $4mil in dead money). Houston was another potential target for cap space but he's playing better the last two games so we'll see if that continues.

No. The two plays are identical except one helps the Patriots and one does not.

I recorded the game and reviewed it late last night. Rolle played a big part of the in-the-box defense in this game making several plays for minimal gain. On the Rams first drive that pass to Gurley that took them down near the red zone: Jones completely blew his assignment and got lost standing around behind the Dline as Gurley ran out of the backfield. If you see that highlight you'll see Jones about 8 yards behind chasing after Gurley the entire way. I think right after that Anderson got on the field for the first time. Anderson was a little lost on his assignments yesterday (little bit of a position change) but once he saw it he went after it. I'm not sure how much longer Jones will be a starter. It's not that Anderson was much better than him but Anderson is learning on the fly and rapidly catching up. If Jones doesn't improve he might get passed up. Ducasse looks just as bad on replay as watching live but Slauson also didn't play well at times. That might have been a game where Grasu's quickness would have helped more than Slauson's power.