AZ54

I have no issues whatsoever with the accountability being shown toward the WRs. ISM was cut. I think Pettis at one point was close to losing his job but at that time he had less competition and when players started returning to good health he had corrected or improved enough. Velus as a healthy scratch needed or at least deserved that message. If Velus earns his reps back in practice then (hopefully) we'll see him again if not we'll see him next year. I don't think his role was ever going to be that of a top 3 WR for us. He'll be used in the occasional jet sweep plays, screens, and some crossing routes and they'll toss in an occasional deep ball. However, with Claypool on board there is almost no need for Velus to run deep routes. Mooney and Claypool can work those just fine and mix in something here and there for Harry or Pringle. We should just let Velus use his YAC ability on the short to intermediate routes. The catches aren't as difficult for a player with less than ideal hands and we've already seen how his speed and strength challenges defenders. In a 1on1 open field situation I like the odds with Velus to make that guy miss. We've already seen him gain 10yds on plays where it looked like we should get 5. As teams adjust to Claypool's deep threat the underneath stuff will open up even more. Add in that Fields can just as easily roll out to the weakside and defenders have a lot to watch for. I think he could do that role for us well enough to take Pettis off the field now except for the return issues.

Those people would be wise to follow golf and bypass all team sports much less trying to sort out who are good players among the 53 on an NFL roster.

First one was ~33yds. Second one was 38yds so 71yds combined. Claypool shows 13yds on stat line so he should have accounted for 84yds of "progress" for the offense. Swift has the first one here at the 5min mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9J-dJYbwgc

For the reasons mentioned above I lean toward the local Chicago media after our games. I find it's a more detailed analysis of our players and coaches versus national media. After yesterdays' game in every video I watched the Bears fans/media/ex players all said "we got our guy".

I watched NFL Network Game Day Final or whatever they call it last night and his record day barely got a mention. Most of the highlights and discussion was focused on Miami. I didn't watch ESPN. I said... "Media folks haven’t had time to digest what is happening with Fields but watch the tune change during the course of the week." I'm not surprised people are talking about it more today. They've had time to look over things. Big media shows are largely pre-canned. They have to be because so much work goes into them to match up highlights with discussion topics. They also focus on 2 things: Star players and winning teams. Justin hasn't played like a star to date and we aren't a winning team. Even if you are a star player on a losing team well then you won't get much coverage either. Sunday nights and Monday morning people scan this Fantasy Football Leaders for Wk 9 and suddenly they see Fields ranked 2nd. Then it's wait a minute, what really happened in that game against Miami? So they dig a bit deeper and it's not just the running but those passes and play fakes were really good plays. https://fantasy.espn.com/football/leaders What's good for us is that now Fields is becoming a star in the league and that always carries over to calls on the field.

His leadership is being underrated as well. He's been through some very difficult times this season and even has had to deal wiht numerous bad drops and mistakes by WRs and yet he keeps staying positive with his teammates. Compare that to Rodgers meltdowns on the field yesterday, for his own errors. Claypool has to be thinking he got lucky he's not playing with that @$$ up north. This will only help recruting FA next year. Who was the Rams Olineman who turned us down to stay in LA for same or less money? How's that working for ya?

If this was Lamar Jackson it would be headlines and highlights everywhere in NFL news. Media folks haven’t had time to digest what is happening with Fields but watch the tune change during the course of the week. Fantasy football types will lead the way because they always find TDs.

FWIW this week Getsy said he's called 7-9 QB runs every game since the beginning of the season. It's just that Justin was either changing the play based on what he saw or handing the ball off. With that we were only seeing a few "planned" QB runs. With that, I think what has changed is Justin is reading defenses better pre-snap. Seeing his comfort now on play fakes, good fakes hiding the ball and pausing as if he handed it off even when he knows a DE is unblocked is remarkable. He's just baiting them to come a little closer so it's harded to chase him down once he takes off. He's still learning but in a lot of ways the game has slowed down for him.

That's a very low bar but I have to agree. Aside from the PI miscues there were a few obvious holding calls against our pass rush that weren't flagged. I'm just going to look at the silver lining here and take that as the NFL helping us with a better draft pick. Going in I was hoping for another 30pt game from the offense and would be ok with the L. So I'm stuck owning the L. We can point to a lot of plays as always but giving up 7 on a routine blocked punt is completely unacceptable. Herbert can't completely miss on a simple block like that. Oline was just ok today for most part but run blocking wasn't the best we've seen. Braxton Jones gave up some pressures late as usual being bull rushed but it's hard to say they got their $110mil worth from Chubb when a 5th Rd rookie LT contained him for most of the game. Claypool will improve this offense quite a bit. Hopefully Pringle gets back soon because he's a more dynamic route runner than either ESB or Pettis. There is no chance I'd take Tua and all those underthrown passes over Fields in any draft. In fact the few times we did get pressure on Tua he melted down. I was impressed by their WRs but not the QB. Time will tell but they've gone all-in on Tua for the near future. Now it's time for me to get back to scouting Dline for the draft. Get an interior pass rusher or two and this game would have been a win.

Me too but his name didn't come up at all when the coaches were talking about the options. It appears he'll first have to pay his dues by earning time on special teams.

With all the trade talk taking over the week we are at Fri with no game thread for this Sun against Miami as of yet. Health-wise we are getting better. Whitehair is not only returning to the 53 but is on track to start. Jenkins struggled with some back issues earlier in the week but has had 2 full practices and is off the injury report. Borom is off concussion protocol but might not start. My guess is Reiff played well enough to keep Borom as backup since he's had just one practice. https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/bears-cody-whitehair-larry-borom-good-to-go Stopping the Fins WRs is going to be a problem and with us relying more on backups at LB and DE. Their running game has not been good so that at least plays into our strength in pass coverage somewhat if we can generate a pass rush. Their run defense has been good but they are bottom 5 giving up a lot of yards in pass defense.

I listened to Williams and I they were stretching his words a bit. He did confirm Sanborn will get increased reps on defense but which position isn't known. Others are getting a look there including Morrow who played that role in Oakland, and Joe Thomas. One thing that is interesting was Wiliams saying he expects we'll be playing a lot of base D (i.e. 3 LBs) in this game because Miami stays in their base offense a lot. If that holds regardless of position we'll see a lot of Sanborn who is now listed as a starter on our depth chart. Williams also said that stopping the run is job 1 for the D. Does that also mean less Vildor and more Gordon on the outside?

Smart guy, he's taking what he's got in terms of talent and running with it, literally.

I think one of the reasons our running game works so well is that our Oline are mobile blockers and we work in a fair amount of misdirection, including Fields' rollouts, jet sweeps to the backside, etc. Now they've added in Fields' runs to the strong side or the direction of the play. All that makes it harder to key off the OG initial movements as was traditionally true. I'm 100% on board with building a great running game and working the passing game off that. I just don't think what we're seeing is the traditional mauler type of run game.

I hadn't picked up on this but Eberflus intentionally called a timeout late in the Cowboys game to get Eiselen on the field.

I think we should add that he was also under-utilized when they put him in the slot. I don't know how ESPN calculates this stat but using it to criticize a guy who is just doing what he's told to do seems odd: https://bearswire.usatoday.com/lists/bears-trade-for-chase-claypool-expert-grades/. From ESPN grade: "Claypool is an OK receiver. He ranks 76th out of 102 wide receivers with at least 100 routes in yards per route run this season" It appears he was just being asked to be a big body possession WR this year which doesn't necessarily fit his physical traits in the best way imaginable. At 6'4" with legit 4.4 speed and a 40" vertical leap you want to use him to challenge teams deep, at least I do. With their QB situation did Pitt just try to give both QBs a consistent easy short read? Unlike the Steelers, I believe he is here to take full advantage of Fields ability to accurately throw the ball deep, which marries up well with Fields' ability to extend plays. I can't wait to see it play out.

This is old... https://steelersdepot.com/2020/06/chase-claypool-loves-blocking-because-its-almost-a-chance-to-play-defense/

Just listened to Poles' press conference and he was pretty clear the $17mil (or whatever our final offer was) is where he was going to stay. It was obvious he hadn't seen enough on the field to make him think differently. Therefore it wasn't likely a middle ground would ever be found so in that sense you are correct.... get value now for Roquan in 2023 or risk getting nothing or best case something even further down the road in 2024.

It's not just that his traits compliment Fields he compliments the rest of the WR group who are more intermediate route runners, or in Velus' case short routes. I get that Claypool's route tree might not be complete, or elite, but as long as Getsy doesn't try to fit a square peg into a round hole he can do enough that it doesn't matter. We have others like Mooney who can do a little of everything, which is part of what makes him tough to cover. There's often a discussion about Mooney being a WR1 or not. He's not elite in that sense and neither is Claypool but having two 1B WRs is a very good thing to have. Add in that our top WRs are all outstanding run blockers and defending against Fields on designed runs gets a lot more difficult. Same for jet sweeps with Velus. Defenders now have some big challenges figuring out what to key on with our plays and after watching the Dallas game film reviews it's obvious that led to many big plays against Dallas. Claypool only makes that better. We've had some discussion on the WR draft talent this year, as well as FA. Poles made it clear the lack of available talent played a factor in making this deal. That doesn't mean there aren't good players but when the pool is small the odds of landing what you need goes down. He decided it was worth paying now for the known commodity.

I like this move. Was hoping it was for Balt 2nd Rd pick but given the Pack was involved I'm good with using our 2nd Rd'er. I scanned that breakdown video of his game and it really doesn't matter to me what we call him (WR/TE) because he's a weapon that has to be accounted for. Of course TE probably saves us some money on his next contract and I think Getsy will use him in the same mold as Griffin is on some plays. In his draft profile he was listed as a "Pancake maker with nasty demeanor as run blocker". He adds something we simply don't have in the redzone and no doubt we'd have been searching for that in the draft next year. We have to see how things shake out with this combination but we might not even need to focus on WR in the draft. That doesn't mean we don't add one but immediate need could drop off the priority list. If Pringle can return to form this mix of players offers Fields and Getsy a lot of options and all support the run game well: Claypool, Mooney, Harry, Pringle, followed by ESB, Pettis, Velus. Velus just stays where he is as occasional gadget player/special teamer. Not ideal as a 3rd Rd pick but he can still add value especially when you have Claypool able to take the top off the D which should make Velus' underneath routes more open. Can't wait for Sunday.

AJ Kline is probably good enough to let Adams move back over to Roquan's spot. The other option is to let Morrow slide over to WLB, a role that might fit him better than MLB and see what he does. We have other options including Kline at MLB. Weatherford is an intriguing prospect but a position change from DB to LB I don't think Eddie Jackson is going anywhere. He was just named a new team captain I'd hope that was done with some input from the GM.

Good fit for him and good draft picks in exchange. Reportedly a 2nd and 5th. Good move by our GM. I

From elite players, who demand the highest of contracts at their position, I actually do expect consistent high level performance week to week. I understand some games are better than others but those "other" games shouldn't have stats the same as an average run of the mill LB in Morrow with 5 tackles.

There was nothing in this game that showed Roquan was worth $20mil/yr.