AZ54

Yes but Dozier's injury was many weeks ago... Jun 15. Surely the Bears knew within 1 day the extent of the injury. Why wait 5 weeks to bring in his replacement? Maybe they were seriously considering moving Jenkins inside. This all happened after the rookies reported so perhaps Jenkins came back in better shape to play RT so they pivot back to bringing in more competition at RG. I'm just having fun with speculation but there's almost no good reason to wait this long after the injury to sign Schofield. The sooner he got his hands on the playbook the better.

Good addition, but I wonder why they waited so long to do this. Maybe they wanted to fill Dozier's spot after OTAs but it was just timing on when they could get him in for a workout?

I suspect this is an indication Jenkins is not moving to RG. I'm assuming that Jenkins would likely be a starter at RG if they moved him there, which could be totally wrong too since they wouldn't even give him a single snap there. If Jenkins were there you'd have either Patrick or Mustipher as backups. It also indicates that none of the young interior guys were looking that great even as backups. Adding a vet to this spot would definitely make me feel better heading into the season. This guy having some versatility between OG/OT would be nice to have on game day too. I'm really curious how this Oline lines up on day 1 in camp.

Why is he still available?

The bottom line in 2022 doesn't matter. This precedent will effect negotiations on all future contracts and Poles must consider that. I fully support Brisker's ability to demand whatever he wants. I fully support the Bears right to pay what they want. Neither has to come to an agreement. Brisker is a FA and can work anywhere he wants outside the NFL. Likewise the Bears can choose to negotiate with other FA players to fill that spot. However, if Brisker chooses to work in the NFL he'll have to abide by the existing labor agreement the players have made with the owners, which means the NFL players have accepted that the Bears have exclusive rights to Brisker as a player, draft salary slotting, etc. Let 'em negotiate and let's see where it lands.

I'd let him sit at home for 2 reasons: Eddie Goldman and Eddie Jackson

https://bearswire.usatoday.com/2022/07/22/bears-s-jaquan-brisker-not-expected-at-training-camp-on-time-amid-contract-holdout/

Peters has been a great LT and what he was able to do last year coming out of a fishing boat and playing an NFL game in less than a month was amazing. There just aren't many humans on the planet who could pull that off at his age or any age for that matter. That said he clearly struggled with moving around and I can't see him fitting into a wide-zone running game. I'd prefer to just let Braxton Jones learn on the fly and see what the future holds. At least we'd know better what is needed in the draft next year.

I think what Hub is stating is being taken a little beyond the intent. Harry hasn't been with the team all offseason so we can start there: He doesn't know the offense. He's never played TE and that's a notoriously difficult role to learn because of the mesh between blocking assignments with the Oline and route running. There's only so much time in the day to work on these things and WRs are full time on route running and Oline are fulltime on blocking. I think what Hub said is splitting hairs somewhat. If I label Harry a WR and he lines up in the slot how is that different him being a U TE lined up in the slot? Maybe they do some stuff with him coming behind the line in motion as a blocker, not much different from either a WR or TE. The bottom line for me is that he's here to block first and then hopefully catch some passes here and there. Job one is to make the team.

Last year's headline.

I think there's quite a few teams out there where Brisker or Gordon would be a starter but this is Keyshawn and it's the offseason. We know he's not putting in any time to review the roster and players.

Bears football usually has more questions than answers.

I'm not that high on Sharpe. He should be clustered with the last 4 IMO and we've only got 3 locks at this point. I will say if you're going to be stuck with average or below average WRs (we will be) then you might as well keep the guys who can run block well. With a suspect Oline that at least opens the door to more success on WR screens. Or improves YAC for RBs on short routes which figures to be a big part of the offense.

He has more long speed than might be indicated by that forty time but he's not a burner at the NFL level. He just has to build up to it. Per PFF we now have the two of the top 10 run blocking WRs from last season: Pringle (8) and Harry (2) He may not provide much on-schedule but off-schedule plays with his size could be where he shines if he can get on the same page as Fields. Since he is such a good run blocker play action will help him get open too.

NFL.com says we gave up a 2024 7th Rd pick which I guess is equivalent to an 8th Rd pick in 2023. This is effectively nothing as Poles just showed you can always get back a 7th RD pick if you want one. He simply preferred to keep Harry from hitting the waiver wire. His cap hit is $3.2mil if it stays the same as his NE deal because $1.3mil is prorated bonus money which we aren't paying. He might hit our books for as low as $1.8mil. Why NE wanted this to be done now is unclear. They could have waited for camp and preseason injuries to see if there was a bigger market, and you always need camp bodies at WR. That's a surprise but it's also a message to the WRs who were arrested this offseason, along with everyone else. I watched N'Keal play when he was at ASU. He's a big bodied WR with good deep speed, good hands, but not much quickness in/out of cuts. I have to believe his route running hasn't improved much or he'd still be in NE. His draft profile said he's a good run blocker so I'd say he's competition for ESB's predicted role for sure. Is there something we don't yet know about? I believe during his time at ASU he displayed good character and work ethic.

Good point, however I doubt he did this without first contacting George to let him know. Which would also mean George was on board with the decision.

I agree there was a specific event that led to this. What that is could range from bad-mouthing the decision to back out of the Ogunjobi deal. Or leaking stuff to the media. Given how Poles personally spoke with Ogunjobi when he made the decision to back out of the deal, firing a long time Bears employee via a phone call during his vacation doesn't seem to be in character unless something very significant happened. On top of that he's made a lot of other personnel decisions and none of them went down like this one.

Those doubts are gone after this: https://bearswire.usatoday.com/lists/bears-fans-have-mixed-reactions-on-ryan-poles-decision-to-fire-lamar-soup-campbell/ This is definitely not a Pace move but it does resemble a Jimmy Johnson, for those who remember him from decades ago. There has to be something behind it that Poles found out about while Soup was on vacation and that was it. There are no sacred cows in this organization. Poles is the man and he's owning it. I'm good with it now we'll wait to see the results.

This was a couple days ago and leaves just one draftee, Brisker, pending. I'd expect that to be done soon but it also depends on when Brisker is available to sign if he chose to go out of town during his break. https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/bears-sign-top-draft-pick-kyler-gordon

Interesting to see any Bears offensive player get some props on NFL Network. https://www.nfl.com/videos/pioli-shares-his-up-and-coming-te-to-watch-in-2022

I can't imagine buying a new Ferrari and just parking it in the garage and saying I'll see how it drives next year. If the QB coach was constantly with Fields working on his mechanics I might say ok, go ahead and put the big turbo kit on it first then let's see it run. There was none of that.

I haven't listened to the interview, just read the summary here: https://www.si.com/nfl/bears/news/bears-more-organized-now-says-darnell-mooney Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/darnell-mooney-in-studio-time-to-cash-in-on-white-sox/id1210156055?i=1000567483239 In a podcast interview with Redline Radio, described Matt Eberlus' team as entirely organized and the Matt Nagy regime, well, not so much. "It's night and day, man," Mooney said on the podcast about Bears practices now. "It's smooth. I mean everything. Everybody knows where to go, when to do something, what's the expectation, what's the standard. You know what you're getting out of the next day. It's not coming in and just like, 'uh, what we got going on?' This is not a surprise to anyone who watched this team last year and it's a good sign for the future of the franchise until we get to see the product on the field.

Week 1 against the 49ers is a great way to start. They know the offense inside and out and the defense sees it everyday in camp. Plus they have a really good Dline. Will this look like the Cleveland game last year?

Dozier just got placed on IR.

I like Jones but by his own admission he has a lot of work to do including figuring out how to get snap counts down. I'm glad for now that Jones appears to have at least settled into the backup OT role and it's obvious Borom will be our swing OT. For a 5th Rd pick that's a win... or back2back wins if you count Borom in there. For his part Jenkins wasn't moved from RT but we'll see if he's the backup RT or not. We have to wait for the pads to come on because Jenkins game is all about timing with his hands and then once he's got you, taking you where ever he wants to go. He may have had some other issues like conditioning with the faster cadence they want on offense. I'm not giving up on him. Who thought we'd have a reasonable debate about who our top 2 OTs are? All prognostications were about which FA we should be bringing in to cover the glaring need. Regardless of where Jones lands, I get the sense they are ok with the top 3 OTs or we'd have seen more shuffling toward the interior. They wanted to see how fast Jones can learn under the pressure of working with the 1's. We don't have that assessment but we do have 2 straight days of Fields and the offense playing well to close out OTAs. They still had pass rushers coming after them in those drills and I haven't seen any reports that Fields was routinely moved off his spot due to pressure. Admittedly our Dline isn't a finished product but you have to start somewhere. Lastly, if the team is intent on accelerating Jones' education at LT, and by default possibly moving Borom/Jenkins inside to RG, then parking Robert Quinn in front of him with pads on is the perfect training opportunity. Jones is struggling with snap count issues and getting off the line a bit late, and Quinn is really talented at that not to mention his other pass rushing skills. Helping to get the true top 5 Oline on the field has to factor into the trade value and if I were the coach I'd be very hesitant to move on from that. That value carries forward into next offseason in a big way too because if Poles knows he's set at OT the focus goes elsewhere.